Arab Countries Take Aim At Israel's Alleged Nuclear Arsenal

[Purveyor]

18 states call for Israel to be addressed at annual IAEA gathering; Israeli envoy to IAEA calls move "counterproductive."

By REUTERS07/09/2013 19:39

VIENNA - Arab diplomats signaled on Tuesday they would seek to step up pressure on Israel over its assumed nuclear arsenal but the Jewish state said any attempt to "bash" it would be counterproductive.

Arab countries, angry at the lack of movement in efforts to move towards a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, have served notice they plan to target Israel for criticism at the UN atomic agency's annual member state gathering in September.

"We need to raise our frustration, we need to raise our concern about this issue," one Arab envoy in Vienna, where the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is based, said.

Israel's ambassador to the IAEA, Ehud Azoulay, told Reuters that Arab states "are taking a counterproductive route by raising this issue ... and trying to bash Israel".

In a letter to IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, posted on the UN agency's web site, 18 Arab member states asked for "Israeli nuclear capabilities" to be included as an agenda item of the Sept. 16-20 gathering in the Austrian capital.

MORE...

http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Arab-countries-bash-Israels-alleged-nuclear-arsenal-319286

[burnodo]

1. alleged?

is that a joke?

[Scootaloo]

2. Israel's never confirmed it...

And being a non-signatory to the NPT are not obligated to show they have a lack of such an arsenal. So yes, in the language of journalism, it's "alleged."

[burnodo]

3. ahh...I believe Franken used to call that "weasel words"

nt

[Scootaloo]

5. Stock and staple means of communicating when it comes to subjects involving Israel

[bunnies]

4. Seems like an exercise in futility.

Havent they tried this before?

[customerserviceguy]

6. They'd better hope

that Israel doesn't aim back.

There is no way they're ever going to give up their nukes, ever.

[Purveyor]

7. israel 'better hope' their leadership never 'goes there' as israel is a relatively small land mass

and should they ever decide to deploy a 'nuke', israel would no longer exist.

[cherokeeprogressive]

8. I believe that's called M.A.D. n/t

[customerserviceguy]

11. Which Islamic state

has the ability and will to strike Israel with a nuclear weapon? Pakistan is keeping all of its nukes in reserve for a possible future conflict with India.

[cherokeeprogressive]

13. How many nukes would it take to render Israel unlivable? n/t

[customerserviceguy]

15. One that Syria, Egypt, etc. doesn't have

One that Iran could get, but Israel will never let that happen.

[Make7]

9. Israel and the Bomb - by Avner Cohen

 
[div class="excerpt" style="margin-left: 1em; border: 1px solid #bfbfbf; border-radius: 0.4615em; box-shadow: -1px -1px 3px #999999 inset;"][font style="font-size:1.154em;"]Israel and the Bomb - by Avner Cohen[/font]

Until now, there has been no detailed account of Israel's nuclear history. Previous treatments of the subject relied heavily on rumors, leaks, and journalistic speculations. But with Israel and the Bomb (Columbia University Press) Avner Cohen has forged an interpretive political history that draws on thousands of American and Israeli government documents-most of them recently declassified and never before cited-and more than one hundred interviews with key individuals who played important roles in this story.

Cohen reveals that Israel crossed the nuclear weapons threshold on the eve of the 1967 Six Day War, yet it continues to maintain an ambiguous posture with regard to its nuclear capability to this day.

The book focuses on a two-decade period from about 1950 until 1970, during which David Ben-Gurion's vision of making Israel a nuclear-weapon state was realized. Cohen weaves together the story of the formative years of Israel's nuclear program, from the founding of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission in 1952, to the alliance with France that gave Israel the nuclear technology it needed, to the failure of American intelligence to identify the Dimona Project for what it was in the late 1950s, to the negotiations between President Nixon and Prime Minister Meir that led to the current policy of nuclear opacity. Cohen also analyzes the complex forces that led Israel to conceal its nuclear program-from concerns over Arab reaction and the negative effect of the debate at home to consideration of America's commitment to nonproliferation.[font style="font-size:0.7692em;"]


http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/israel/book.htm[/font]
See also: The Israel-Argentina Yellowcake Connection
 

[Luminous Animal]

10. They should all put their collective energy into developing their own. Share the research...

share the advances, share the specs, share the import of raw materials, share the testing, share the manufacturing, share the divvying up.

[stevenleser]

12. Let me understand this correctly,you are advocating for significant additional nuclear proliferation

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

[Luminous Animal]

14. Personally, I want it all shut down. I worked most of my 20s and advocating just that...

I was a organizer and participant in some of the largest anti-nuke demonstrations ever.

But here I am 30 years later and all for naught. Maybe, at this point in time MAD is the pragmatic solution.