M.E. Nuclear weapons
Which country in the Middle East has undeclared Nuclear weapons?
Which country in the Middle East has undeclared biological and chemical capabilities?
Which country in the Middle East has no outside inspections?
Which country jailed its nuclear whistleblower for 18 years?
The answer is NOT Iran!
With all the fuss going around Iran’s nuclear program, lets remind the world of the answer for all above questions (and more) is, Israel.
Couple of days ago, WP had an article called “The Untold Story of Israel’s Bomb.” It reminded me of the BBC documentary about non-conventional weapons in Israel. The documentary which lead Israel to cut off ties with the BBC to protest a repeat broadcast of the documentary. The program was broadcast for the first time in March 2003 in Britain, and was rerun few days again in the same month on a BBC channel that is aired all over the world.
Before the last broadcast, Israeli officials tried to pressure the BBC to cancel the broadcast, saying that the program was biased and presented Israel as an evil dictatorship.
Here is a complete transcript of the program. Might it be an eye opener for those searching for truth:
PS. You can watch the documentary: Israel’s Secret Weapon, or download it from torrent: Israel’s Secret Weapon (mp4, 279 MB)
Warning: This is very long post.
Correspondent: ISRAEL’S SECRET WEAPON
Tx Date: 17th March 2003
This script was made from audio tape - any inaccuracies are due to voices being unclear or inaudible
00.00.01 Correspondent Theme Music
00.00.11 Music
00.00.11 Graphic: Which country in the Middle East has undeclared Nuclear weapons?
00.00.16 Graphic: Which country in the Middle East has undeclared biological and chemical capabilities?
00.00.21 Graphic: Which country in the Middle East has no outside inspections?
00.00.26 Graphic: Which country jailed its nuclear whistleblower for 18 years?
00.00.31 Title page: ISRAEL’S SECRET WEAPON
00.00.36 Music
00.00.42 St Paul, Minnesota
00.00.45 Olenka Frenkiel: Meet the Eoloffs. Five years ago they adopted a man they’d never met who writes to them from a prison cell in Israel.
00.00.55 Actor’s voice
00.00.55 Voiceover: My dearest Nick and Mary, I am very glad to hear from you so soon. About the next parole hearing I don’t know what will happen. We’ve passed a long time in a very bad cruel condition.
00.01.07 Voiceover: We will see what the U.S. is going to do with Iraq, if they’ll go to war.
00.01.13 Olenka Frenkiel: The man they adopted is Mordechai Vanunu, jailed as a traitor. He spent eleven years in solitary confinement.
00.01.21 Mary Eoloff: He was buried alive. He was shut up in a six by nine-foot cell with no windows so he couldn’t see outside. Even when he exercised there was a canvas around him when he was out walking.
00.01.32 Nick Eoloff: He has spent more time in isolation in a prison in the western world than any other human being. It was that bad. His condition was that bad. And that was what really moved us to adopt him. How can a country treat a human being that way?
00.01.52 Olenka Frenkiel: Vanunu moved to Israel as a child with his family from Morocco. He served in the Israeli army, studied philosophy, and found work at Dimona.
00.02.07 Olenka Frenkiel: This mysterious complex in the Negev desert employed thousands of people all sworn to secrecy. For years Israel called it a textile factory, never admitting its true purpose; making plutonium for bombs.
00.02.26 Olenka Frenkiel: Vanunu’s dissent over government policies was noted. He was given a warning and decided to leave.
00.02.35 Olenka Frenkiel: But not without the evidence which would change history. Today his are still the only photographs ever seen of the inside of Israel’s nuclear bomb factory.
00.02.55 Olenka Frenkiel: It’s 16 years since Sunday Times journalist Peter Hounam heard rumours that an Israeli whistleblower was offering proof of what the world had long suspected.
00.03.05 PETER HOUNAM, Freelance Journalist: Here was someone who said he’d worked right inside the plutonium separation plant helping to fabricate atomic weapons; who had taken photographs of the machinery and who had lots of information about how much material was being processed, and so on.
00.03.21 Peter Hounam: Therefore he was potentially going to be able to provide incontrovertible evidence that Israel had a very advanced programme.
00.03.31 Olenka Frenkiel: Hounam flew to meet Vanunu, who was now a Christian living in Australia.
00.03.36 Olenka Frenkiel: He was brought to England. He was hidden in a country hotel and smuggled into the paper’s offices in the boot of the car while they checked his story.
00.03.45 Olenka Frenkiel: But Israeli intelligence agents caught here on Wapping’s security cameras were onto him. They were waiting to strike.
00.03.58 Olenka Frenkiel: It took weeks for The Sunday Times to go to press with their scoop. When they finally did on Oct 5th 1986 Vanunu had vanished.
00.04.10 Reconstruction
00.04.14 Olenka Frenkiel: He’d met an American woman in Leicester Square who seemed to like him. He was vulnerable and afraid.
00.04.23 Olenka Frenkiel: When she suggested he’d be safer with her in Rome, he fell for it. It was a classic honey trap.
00.04.39 Olenka Frenkiel: Once in Rome the full weight of Israel’s wrath kicked in. Vanunu was overpowered, assaulted and drugged.
00.04.56 Olenka Frenkiel: He’d been kidnapped and smuggled back to Israel by boat, unconscious. For weeks no one knew where he was.
00.05.09 Olenka Frenkiel: Eventually the Israelis brought Vanunu to court for a secret trial. They now admitted they had him but still no one knew how he’d got there.
00.05.19 Olenka Frenkiel: His kidnap - an illegal act on foreign soil - was kept secret. Somehow Vanunu found a pen and solved the mystery for the waiting press.
00.05.31 Olenka Frenkiel: Hijacked in Rome thirtieth of September 1986.
00.05.38 Olenka Frenkiel: It was Shimon Peres, then Prime Minister, who had ordered Vanunu’s capture. To this day the kidnap remains an official state secret. Peres was the father of Israel’s secret nuclear programme and for him Vanunu was a spy.
00.05.52 Shimon Peres: He was a traitor to this country.
00.05.56 Olenka Frenkiel: So what was your reaction?
00.05.57 Shimon Peres: Very negative.
00.05.58 Olenka Frenkiel: What did you do?
00.06.00 Shimon Peres: What I thought should be done.
00.06.01 Olenka Frenkiel: Which was what?
00.06.03 Shimon Peres: To put him to trial.
00.06.06 Olenka Frenkiel: Kidnap him?
00.06.08 SHIMON PERES, Former Prime Minister: My lady, I can’t go into all the processes. I am unwilling. I don’t see any reason to do so. The fact is that he was brought to trial.
00.06.22 Olenka Frenkiel: Vanunu’s trial was held in secret. He was found guilty of treason and espionage and sentenced to eighteen years in jail.
00.06.41 AVIGDOR FELDMAN, Mordechai Vanunu’s lawyer: Vanunu was treated this way out of revenge out of a way to deter others and because actually he was the person who broke the taboo of the secrecy in Israeli society, a very strong and influencing taboo in a very closed society more like a tribe.
00.07.05 Olenka Frenkiel: Mordechai Vanunu started his sentence on the twenty seventh of March 1988. Few tears were shed. For most Israelis he was more than a traitor. He had rejected Judaism.
00.07.18 Olenka Frenkiel: His parents declared him dead. And the world forgot about Israel’s nuclear whistleblower. But the truth was out.
00.07.27 Peter Hounam: Vanunu told the world that Israel had developed between one hundred and two hundred atomic bombs and had gone on to develop neutron bombs and thermonuclear weapons. Enough to destroy the entire Middle East and nobody has done anything about it since.
00.07.45 Olenka Frenkiel: Today, proliferation experts report Israel has the world’s sixth largest nuclear arsenal with small tactical nuclear weapons, nuclear landmines as well as medium range nuclear missiles launchable from air, land or sea.
00.08.00 Olenka Frenkiel: It’s thought plutonium is made in Dimona; nuclear weapons are assembled at Yodefat and stored at Zachariah and Eilabun. Three nuclear submarines are based in Haifa and Israel’s biological and chemical warfare laboratories are at Nes Ziona.
00.08.16 Olenka Frenkiel: Israel never comments on such reports.
00.08.20 Olenka Frenkiel: But evidence continues to emerge. In 1992 an Israeli cargo plane crashed in Amsterdam killing forty-three people.
00.08.28 Olenka Frenkiel: The Israelis claimed it was carrying flowers and perfume. It took six years and a Dutch parliamentary enquiry before they admitted it was carrying DMMP, a key component for sarin nerve gas.
00.08.42 Olenka Frenkiel: The DMMP was bound for The Israeli Institute of Biological Research at Nes Ziona, one of Israel’s most secret defence sites. It is subject to no international inspection and reporting of its activities in Israel is prevented by strict military censorship.
00.09.08 Olenka Frenkiel: As war has loomed closer small signs of dissent have appeared on the suburban streets of Middle America. Nick and Mary Eoloff have been peace campaigners since the Vietnam War and the draft.
00.09.20 Mary Eoloff: The definition of a conscientious objector is someone who sincerely objects to participation in all forms of war. There are two words that are extremely important in that definition: “sincere” and “all”.
00.09.37 Olenka Frenkiel: Fear that the draft may return has lead a new generation to the local church hall to hear how, if they’re called up to fight, they can claim their right to say no.
00.09.50 Olenka Frenkiel: For the Eoloffs, Mordechai Vanunu is the ultimate conscientious objector. When they first visited him in 1997 it was his eleventh year in solitary confinement.
00.10.03 MARY & NICK EOLOFF, Mordechai Vanunu’s adoptive parents: And we waited and they brought him in and he looked like an old man. I didn’t anticipate that. And he came up to us and he put his fingers through the bars through the cage, because it was a steel cage. We were crying. We felt so awful to see him like this.
00.10.33 Olenka Frenkiel: Vanunu writes regularly. It is the only communication he is allowed with the outside world. But his letters take months to arrive and are always censored.
00.10.46 Mary Eoloff: He says, don’t feel so bad, we can bear another year.
00.10.50 Nick Eoloff: My, what courage!
00.10.54 Mary Eoloff: The early letters that we got were totally cut out. This isn’t even an example because they were cut out more than that, this. They use a highlighter and then they bring it to Mordechai, and he has to cut out the things they’ve highlighted.
00.11.11 Mary Eoloff: One time, he said they weren’t paying attention. And so he just put the pieces in the envelope and we got them, because we said, you know, we got the pieces, and they’re really not even significant. I think it’s control, total control.
00.11.30 Music
00.11.34 Olenka Frenkiel: Today Jerusalem is a ghost town, drained of life. Israel’s nuclear weapons have proved useless in its latest war. The suicide bombers have frightened the tourists away. The economy has collapsed.
00.11.51 Olenka Frenkiel: Israelis have learnt to live with war. Every citizen gets a gas mask, is taught how to use it and is expected to have it ready in case of attack.
00.12.13 Olenka Frenkiel: Nuclear weapons are seen as a justifiable deterrent by most Israelis, who feel besieged by enemies.
00.12.21 Olenka Frenkiel: Forty years ago Uzi Even, then a young scientist at Dimona was in at the start of Israel’s bomb.
00.12.28 Professor UZI EVEN, Dimona scientist, 1962-68: We were a very small country, and we were surrounded by much much larger, more populous states on borders that are almost impossible to defend. The holocaust was very much in our memory at that time, and we all realised that we have to do something to prevent the same scenario from happening again.
00.12.51 Uzi Even: So we were a young crew, most of us very young, very enthusiastic, working on something we believed is essential for our existence, like building the final insurance policy that we will not be attacked or terminated.
00.13.15 Olenka Frenkiel: It was the young Shimon Peres, back in the fifties who negotiated a secret deal with the French to buy a nuclear weapons reactor like theirs.
00.13.24 Olenka Frenkiel: But while Dimona was going up, intelligence reports reached Washington that Israel was building an atom bomb.
00.13.30 Olenka Frenkiel: Despite claims that Dimona was for peaceful purposes only, Israel’s leader Ben Gurion was summoned to Washington. President Kennedy feared an arms race in the Middle East and demanded inspections.
00.13.45 Olenka Frenkiel: But when inspectors finally entered the plant in May 1961 they were tricked. They were shown a fake control room on the ground floor. They were unaware of the six floors below where the plutonium was made.
00.14.00 PETER HOUNAM, Freelance journalist: Well this was something of great pride and almost a legendary story in Dimona, according to Vanunu. When the Americans came they were completely hoodwinked.
00.14.11 Peter Hounam: All the entrances including the lift shafts were bricked up and plastered over so it was impossible for anyone to find their way down to the lower floors.
00.14.24 Olenka Frenkiel: After Kennedy’s assassination the pressure on Israel was off. His successor Lyndon Johnson turned a blind eye.
00.14.33 Olenka Frenkiel: Then In 1969 Israel’s Golda Meir and President Richard Nixon struck a deal, renewed by every President to this day. Israel’s nuclear programme could continue as long as it was never made public. It’s called nuclear ambiguity.
00.14.48 Olenka Frenkiel: The term nuclear ambiguity, in some ways it sounds very grand. But isn’t just a euphemism for deception?
00.14.58 SHIMON PERES, Former Prime Minister: If somebody wants to kill you, and you use a deception to save your life it is not immoral. If we wouldn’t have enemies we wouldn’t need deceptions. We wouldn’t need deterrent.
00.15.12 Olenka Frenkiel: Was this the justification for concealing the floors of the plutonium reprocessing areas from the Americans, the inspectors, when they came?
00.15.23 Shimon Peres: You are having a dialogue with yourself, not with me.
00.15.27 Olenka Frenkiel: But that’s been documented in a number of books.
00.15.30 Shimon Peres: Ask the question to yourself, not to me.
00.15.32 Olenka Frenkiel: I mean, Is it not true?
00.15.35 Shimon Peres: I don’t have to answer your questions even. I don’t see any reason why.
00.15.43 Olenka Frenkiel: Ambiguity is a luxury unique to Israel. Today the country’s an inspection-free zone, protected from scrutiny by America and her allies.
00.15.56 Ronen Bergman: This is the place where Vanunu identified as the separation plant, built mostly underground. And this is the silver dome of the Dimona nuclear reactor.
00.16.11 Olenka Frenkiel: Ronen Bergman is an Israeli journalist specialising in security and defence.
00.16.17 Ronen Bergman: This picture was taken by one of the best commercial satellites available called Ikonos, and Ikonos is capable of taking pictures up to a resolution of one metre.
00.16.30 RONEN BERGMAN, Journalist, “Yediot Ahronot”: However due to the demand of Israel the American Congress ruled a new amendment to the law that forbids American satellites to sell anything of Israeli sites that is better than two metres, meaning the Ikonos is taking imagery of Israel. Then they change the imagery to the resolution of two metres.
00.16.52 Olenka Frenkiel: Worse, less clear?
00.16.53 Ronen Bergman: Much much less clear.
00.16.55 Olenka Frenkiel: And that was a ruling in the United States that’s specifically for Israel, not for other countries.
00.17.00 Ronen Bergman: Only to Israel.
00.17.03 Olenka Frenkiel: Last November there were signs of a softening towards Vanunu. The authorities allowed pictures to be taken at his parole hearing. Parole itself has always been refused. Vanunu still has secrets, the prosecutor claims, that could harm Israel. It’s an argument his lawyer will have to fight at the next hearing.
00.17.22 Olenka Frenkiel: Will the court hear the secret that they claim Vanunu holds?
00.17.27 AVIGDOR FELDMAN, Mordechai Vanunu’s lawyer: They will hear some of the secrets, not the real secrets. They will hear secrets about the secrets.
00.17.34 Olenka Frenkiel: And you too, as his lawyer, will hear those?
00.17.37 Avigdor Feldman: Part of it. Less that the court. The court will hear the secrets about the secrets. I may hear the secrets about the secrets about the secrets.
00.17.47 Olenka Frenkiel: Is that really the case, or is that a sort of ironic…?
00.17.50 Avigdor Feldman: No, it’s really the case. I will be given some type of general description of the secrets. The court will get something more concrete and the secrets themselves will be never released to anybody, they exist at all.
00.18.14 Olenka Frenkiel: Nick and Mary Eoloff have arrived in Israel. They hope to visit Vanunu in prison but they haven’t yet got permission.
00.18.28 Mary Eoloff: Oh gosh, any news?
00.18.31 Rayna Moss: Not yet. Not good news. Not yet.
00.18.33 Olenka Frenkiel: Rayna Moss is one of a small group of Israelis campaigning for Vanunu’s release. She’s been hassling the prison authorities for weeks to get Nick and Mary the necessary permissions.
00.18.46 Rayna Moss: What she says now is that they have approval from one authority but she’s waiting for approval from a second authority.
00.18.54 Nick Eoloff: Do they clearly understand our time limitation that we’re due to be leaving on Friday?
00.18.53 Rayna Moss: Oh absolutely. I made that absolutely clear to them. I said that you’re leaving on Friday, that you’ve already been here for a couple of days.
00.19.06 Mary Eoloff: Well I appreciate you making all these calls, Rayna.
00.19.08 Mary Eoloff: Oh it’s nothing. I don’t mind. I just wish I had good news for you.
00.19.16 Olenka Frenkiel: Forty-year-old reactors are usually shut down, but Dimona grinds on. Dimona is under the control of the Prime Minister, beyond the reach of Parliament or public scrutiny.
00.19.32 Olenka Frenkiel: And that worries the scientist who once worked there so optimistically.
00.19.37 UZI EVEN, Dimona scientist, 1962-68: As the reactor gets older the tendency to have accidents becomes more probable. You should have an outside watchdog and the secrecy more or less created an ex- territorial area in Israel where standard procedures of safety monitoring is not implemented.
00.19.58 Uzi Even: So, worker safety, environmental questions, industrial safety procedures, all are not covered and there are thousands of people working there.
00.20.25 Olenka Frenkiel: But the secrets of this old reactor are beginning to leak.
00.20.34 Olenka Frenkiel: Evidence has seeped out of accidents, lies and deceit.
00.20.43 Olenka Frenkiel: In 1996 the press heard rumours of a radioactive hotspot in the desert. The Environment Minister took them to watch him test the site with a Geiger counter. They weren’t allowed to bring their own, one journalist told me.
00.21.00 Olenka Frenkiel: The Minister proclaimed the site clean. The readings for radioactivity, his instrument showed, were below normal.
00.21.06 Olenka Frenkiel: But journalists weren’t happy.
00.21.09 Journalist, Subtitles: What worries us is the disposal of the waste. Can you please tell us where it is buried?
00.21.21 YOSSI SARID, Environment Minister, 1992-96, Subtitles: In a good place. I am being honest with you… I would lose my job if I told you where the nuclear waste is buried. The Prime Minister considers this information to be classified.
00.21.46 Olenka Frenkiel: But on Israeli television last year, a groundbreaking documentary alleged it was a cover-up.
00.21.57 Olenka Frenkiel: Ariel Spieler, a holocaust survivor and a loyal Dimona worker for 27 years, described how he had been told to prepare the site for the Minister’s visit by removing contaminated waste from a deep crater.
00.22.11 Olenka Frenkiel: He said he’d replaced it with fresh soil and planted trees to cover the hole as though it had never happened. Then he said they brought the minister and the press to prove that everything was okay.
00.22.24 Olenka Frenkiel: Five Dimona workers appeared on the programme. They’d given their lives for Dimona, they said, and now they felt betrayed.
00.22.32 Olenka Frenkiel: They broke no secrets. Only the code of silence.
00.22.36 Olenka Frenkiel: They said they’d worked with uranium. There were fires, spills, and explosions of toxic gas.
00.22.44 Olenka Frenkiel: Now they were sick, they said, the plant didn’t want to know. The management was denying they’d worked with radioactive materials, and because they were bound to secrecy they couldn’t fight for their rights.
00.23.01 Olenka Frenkiel: The programme listed more than a hundred Dimona workers who’d developed cancer and whose claims were being ignored.
00.23.08 Olenka Frenkiel: A doctor and two lawyers backed their story.
00.23.18 Olenka Frenkiel: It was the first time Dimona workers had spoken out.
00.23.26 Olenka Frenkiel: I want to talk to Ariel Spieler. He’s suffering from cancer and in the last few years he’s seen a number of his friends and colleagues who worked there with him die of the disease.
00.23.35 Olenka Frenkiel: He’s been fighting for compensation for their families, for their widows, and I know he’d really like to talk to us about this.
00.23.41 Olenka Frenkiel: He’s told me he wishes he could, but he’s also told me he’s been warned off. He’s been told not to talk. I’m going to go and see him and see if he’ll change his mind.
00.23.59 Secret filming
00.23.59 Olenka Frenkiel: I just wanted to ask you, you know, why you can’t?
00.24.04 Ariel Spieler, Subtitles: The Secret Service silenced me. They’ve silenced me completely. They told me not to say one word. What can I do? What can I do?
00.24.18 Ariel Spieler, Subtitles: They told me; “You’ll end up like Vanunu”. How long has he been in prison? 15 years? Do you want me to go to jail? I really wanted to talk. I asked the others but they refused. Nobody wants to talk.
00.24.50 Olenka Frenkiel: It was time to try the others: The doctors, the relatives, the lawyers.
00.24.58 Voice One: Hello?
00.24.59 Olenka Frenkiel: Hello. I just wanted to ask if there would be any possibility of doing an interview with you about the cancer victims and about their case?
00.25.07 Voice One: I’m really reluctant to be interviewed publicly on the media over the story overseas. It’s just not appropriate.
00.25.13 Olenka Frenkiel: But why is it so sensitive?
00.25.21 Voice One: Come on now. Any discussion of nuclear issues is sensitive.
00.25.30 Voice Two: I talked to my family. I don’t want to participate in this. I don’t think it’s the right thing to do.
00.25.37 Olenka Frenkiel: Nobody is prepared to talk about it.
00.25.45 Voice Three: There are things that it’s not good to talk about, even if you’re a lawyer.
00.25.54 Olenka Frenkiel: Are you worried about a sort of Vanunu scenario?
00.25.58 Voice Three: Of course! You think about it.
00.26.03 Olenka Frenkiel: I just don’t get it. If this was the Soviet Union or Iraq or North Korea I’d understand why people are so scared to talk.
00.26.11 Olenka Frenkiel: But this is Israel. This is supposed to be a democracy.
00.26.22 Olenka Frenkiel: In Israel today, an invisible power enforces the code of silence - through fear. It comes from one man, whose own identity was itself a secret until two years ago, Yehiyel Horev.
00.26.39 RONEN BERGMAN, Journalist, “Yediot Ahronot”: Horev is the smartest, most brilliant official figure in the sense of getting power. He took some kind of very small office and made it the fourth intelligence agency in Israel, with no law, no real scrutiny and monitoring by the Israeli Parliament.
00.27.05 Ronen Bergman: In this sense he is a grave danger to Israeli democracy.
00.27.11 Olenka Frenkiel: For sixteen years Horev has been the faceless guardian of Israel’s secrets. His picture has never been published unmasked till now.
00.27.24 Olenka Frenkiel: It’s Horev from his office at the Ministry of Defence who is blocking Vanunu’s early release.
00.27.35 Olenka Frenkiel: But next year Vanunu’s sentence is up. So Horev found a new Vanunu, Brigadier-General Yitzhak Yaakov, known to his friends as Yatsa. In his retirement he wrote a fictionalised memoir and talked on camera about his life.
00.27.54 Olenka Frenkiel: A distinguished soldier and scientist, Yaakov had for years led Israel’s top-secret weapons development programme.
00.28.02 Olenka Frenkiel: So eminent was he, he was a candidate for the prestigious Israel Prize.
00.28.07 Olenka Frenkiel: But when he told his life story to a journalist, he broke the rules.
00.28.13 Olenka Frenkiel: The journalist was Ronen Bergman. He showed his article, as all Israelis must, to the censor.
00.28.19 Olenka Frenkiel: It went straight to Horev - who sent in the heavies.
00.28.23 Ronen Bergman: They were deadly deadly serious. My phones were bugged. I was followed by Israeli Secret Service, Yaakov was followed by Israeli Secret Service, and the whole system was surrounding us and following us and stalking us.
00.28.43 Olenka Frenkiel: Yaakov went from hero to zero. He was arrested secretly and charged with treason. He spent two years fighting Horev. Two years of jail, heart disease, bankruptcy and house arrest ended in public disgrace.
00.29.01 Olenka Frenkiel: He was spared prison, but the court found him guilty of betraying Israel’s secrets.
00.29.08 Ronen Bergman: Horev was afraid that veterans of the Israeli army, the Israeli intelligence, the Israeli nuclear effort, would try to maintain their footprint in the history of Israel and tell their story.
00.29.26 Ronen Bergman: And he wanted to frighten them. In this sense he was successful.
00.29.33 Olenka Frenkiel: Do you think that there is too much secrecy? The power of somebody like Horev to destroy the life of an individual like this Brigadier-General Yaakov, for example. The man’s life had been destroyed and he’d been a very loyal Israeli all his life.
00.29.51 SHIMON PERES, Former Prime Minister: It happens unfortunately in life, of false accusations, and some innocent people are paying the high cost.
00.29.59 Shimon Peres: I cannot see how can it be avoidable.
00.30.04 Olenka Frenkiel: Israel’s parliament had never debated Dimona or nuclear weapons, until one MP three years ago forced them onto the agenda for the first time.
00.30.14 Olenka Frenkiel: Issam Makhoul an Israeli Arab broken the taboo - to the outrage of his colleagues.
00.30.21 Issam Makhoul, Subtitles: Vanunu is not the problem. The problem is the Israeli government’s policy. A policy that’s turned a small territory into a poisonous nuclear waste bin… which could make us all disappear into a nuclear cloud.
00.30.40 Olenka Frenkiel: These words uttered in the heart of Israel’s democracy were seen by his fellow MPs as a sacrilege.
00.30.48 Issam Makhoul, Subtitles: The entire world knows that Israel is a vast nuclear, biological… and chemical warehouse that is used as an anchor… for the nuclear arms race in the middle east.
00.31.04 Olenka Frenkiel: He wasn’t allowed to finish his speech, but he had made his point.
00.31.16 Olenka Frenkiel: But in his constituency during the recent election campaign it was a different story. Here his audience are - like him - Israeli Arabs.
00.31.23 Issam Makhoul, Subtitles: Why are the Americans looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? I can tell them where there are weapons of mass destruction… including nuclear weapons.
00.31.40 Issam Makhoul, Subtitles: They are in Dimona, in Haifa Bay in the Eilabun mountain… and in the area of Sakneen, Yolfhata. Let them send their inspectors to me… and I will lead them by the hand and show them.
00.32.00 Olenka Frenkiel: There is a cry going up which is talking about a double standard. The world has to check Iraq’s nuclear installations but not Israel’s.
00.32.08 Shimon Peres: How can you compare it? Iraq is a dictatorship. Saddam Hussein is a killer. He killed a hundred thousand Kurds with gas bombs. How can you compare that at all?
00.32.23 Shimon Peres: Just because he calls himself a state? He’s not a state - he’s a Mafia. He’s not a leader - he’s a killer. You cannot say that about us.
00.32.34 Olenka Frenkiel: But even in Israel some do. The current Prime Minister Ariel Sharon directed the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Thousands of innocent civilians were killed.
00.32.49 Olenka Frenkiel: The worst excesses were in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, for which an Israeli enquiry held Sharon personally responsible. In Belgium there are plans to prosecute him for alleged war crimes.
00.33.09 Olenka Frenkiel: While Sharon has been Prime Minister seven hundred Israelis have been killed. But more than two thousand Palestinians have died in attacks by Israeli soldiers.
00.33.21 Olenka Frenkiel: The Israeli army has used new unidentified weapons. In February 2001, a new gas was used in Gaza. A hundred and eighty patients were admitted to hospitals with severe convulsions.
00.33.41 Voiceover: The Israelis say this is tear gas. But this is not tear gas. We have never seen this gas before. We need some medicine for treatment. But it must be the right medicine.
00.33.56 Dr MOHAMMED SALAMA, Director, Palestinian Health Ministry: We asked, what kind of gas? But nobody verified for us the type of gas to give the antidote at that moment. Also we don’t know how to check, how to examine, how to send this. We are in occupied area. We are surrounded. It is impossible to send these samples to international lab to test.
00.34.27 Olenka Frenkiel: Israel is outside chemical and biological weapons treaties and still refuses to say what the new gas was.
00.34.44 Olenka Frenkiel: The Eoloffs have still not heard from the prison. Their flight home is tomorrow night and they worry they may have to leave without seeing their adopted son.
00.34.56 Olenka Frenkiel: Today they are having lunch with a small group of activists who for sixteen years have fought in vain for Vanunu’s release.
00.35.03 First Israeli activist: They pressurise Iraq about nuclear weapons. What about Israel and nuclear weapons?
00.35.07 Second Israeli activist: Imagine for one moment that Mordechai Vanunu was not an Israeli, that the whole story had happened with a Korean or an Iranian or a Pakistani technician, he would have had the Nobel Peace Prize. He would have been the second Sakharov.
00.35.23 Second Israeli activist: Instead he is a non-person in the West. This tells you what we are dealing with. We’re dealing with the number one privileged state on earth.
00.35.34 Third Israeli activist: Counter to the Israeli argument that the whole world is against us, it is the exact opposite. We started the nuclear race in the Middle East. There is no doubt about it.
00.35.53 Third Israeli activist: And there is not even one important state in the Western Hemisphere who is dealing with it seriously.
00.36.00 Rayna Moss: You can talk all we want. We can sit until tomorrow morning and discuss Israel’s nuclear policy. We can discuss whatever we want. It’s the people who work in those areas, with weapons of mass destruction, the environment, Dimona itself, all these research places.
00.36.16 Rayna Moss: Vanunu is a living warning to them. This is what will happen to you if you speak out. You’ll be Vanunu-nised. That’s the warning. You will spend ten years in solitary confinement.
00.36.28 Rayna Moss: You will be cut off from all your family. You will be cut off from everyone who knows you. You will be this prisoner without a number and without a name. That’s what will happen to you if you speak out.
00.36.41 Olenka Frenkiel: It’s the prison on the phone.
00.36.47 Mary Eoloff: Hello? Oh how marvellous! What time? Well, if we come at eleven, can we have an hour and a half? Okay. Thank you so much. Okay. Bye.
00.37.06 Olenka Frenkiel: On their last day the Eoloffs get their visit. After an hour and a half they emerge with a message.
00.37.16 Mary Eoloff: It’s just wonderful. We’re so excited we don’t know what to think. All right, you talk.
00.37.21 Nick Eoloff: It was a marvellous experience. It was the first time we’ve seen him so high and just anxious to talk about what’s going on in his life and what he’s looking forward to. Especially the anticipation of getting out.
00.37.33 Nick Eoloff: He’s just strong. That was his final word: “Let them know that I’m strong and anxious to get out of here, out of Israel and just start life all over again”. And he was just beaming.
00.37.45 Mary Eoloff: And he said the message to world is the message to the world is that I have forgotten the last sixteen years. I’m looking towards the future. I believe in a future of non- violence.
00.37.56 Olenka Frenkiel: So did he say that he’d do it all again?
00.37.58 Mary Eoloff: You know, he did. He said, of course I would. Isn’t that incredible?
00.38.12 Olenka Frenkiel: The Eoloffs have gone, and Vanunu is again up for parole. But as usual everything, even the location of the parole hearing, is secret.
00.38.22 Secret filming
00.38.22 Olenka Frenkiel: Apart from me and Peter Hounam, who has come from London, there are no other journalists here.
00.38.27 Peter Hounam: Mordechai Vanunu? Mordechai Vanunu? Is he in there?
00.38.34 Olenka Frenkiel: Mordechai Vanunu is in there? Is that where the case is being held?
00.38.40 PETER HOUNAM, Freelance journalist: He is the most sensitive prisoner that this country has got, and whenever he comes here they block off the windows of his van if they can, or they, in the early days they used to put a crash helmet over him so people couldn’t see him.
00.38.54 Peter Hounam: At one point they even had an electronic device that emitted a screeching signal so people couldn’t hear him speak.
00.39.02 Olenka Frenkiel: And yet you and I are the only journalists here. The most sensitive prisoner Israel has got, and there’s not a single member of the press here apart from you. Why do you keep coming?
00.39.10 Peter Hounam: I keep coming because he’s in there because he spoke to me and we published his story on the Sunday Times in 1986, and I feel a sense of responsibility that we should be helping him get out.
00.39.23 Olenka Frenkiel: Three hours later the hearing ended. As usual Vanunu left behind darkened windows. In court Horev’s prosecutor had cited the war with Iraq as a new reason for blocking parole.
00.39.38 AVIGDOR FELDMAN, Mordechai Vanunu’s lawyer: The prosecutor of course went back to the old argument that Vanunu is a threat to security and she even said that if Vanunu will be released, probably the Americans would leave Iraq and go after Israel and Israel’s nuclear weapons, which I found extremely ridiculous.
00.40.11 Olenka Frenkiel: Minnesota, the Peace Bridge and a weekly ritual. Every Wednesday hundreds protest against the war.
00.40.22 Olenka Frenkiel: Mary is there. So of course is Nick. Every week the numbers grow. There is a new generation of peaceniks who were children when Israel’s nuclear weapons were exposed.
00.40.38 Olenka Frenkiel: Have any of you guys heard of Mordechai Vanunu?
00.40.42 Protesters: No.
00.40.43 Olenka Frenkiel: You don’t know who he is.
00.40.47 Olenka Frenkiel: And if I tell you that he’s somebody who exposed Israel’s weapons of mass destruction, which nobody knew about until then, what would you say?
00.40.56 Protester: One Why is our media that’s supposed to be free and open not telling us and why is our government not letting us know this information if we’re living in the home of the free?
00.41.06 Protester Two: I think if our administration was consistent or had any integrity, then he would be held as a hero.
00.41.14 President George W. Bush: We’re going to work with the members of the Security Council in the days ahead to make it clear to Saddam that the demands of the world and the United Nations will be enforced.
00.41.26 Olenka Frenkiel: In Washington, which gives Israel more than three billion dollars a year, the talk is only of Iraq. For weeks we’ve tried to get an interview about Israel’s weapons of mass destruction, but no one in this Bush administration wants to talk about Israel.
00.41.41 Olenka Frenkiel: So we’ve asked for an interview about the military balance of power in the Middle East. And now they’ve agreed.
00.41.43 Olenka Frenkiel: This morning we’ve finally been told that we’re going to have an interviewee. He’s an expert in all matters Israeli. He’s an Under Secretary of Defense, and his name is Douglas Feith.
00.42.04 Olenka Frenkiel: The Pentagon has demanded a list of questions in advance. So, it’s “The balance of power”, “Israel’s nuclear ambiguity”, “Allegations of a double standard” and “Mordechai Vanunu”.
00.42.16 President George W. Bush: The gravest danger facing America and the world is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
00.42.35 Olenka Frenkiel: Yet again the shutters have come down on this story. Our interview with Under Secretary for Defense Douglas Feith was scheduled for four o’clock somewhere in this vast complex of the Pentagon behind me. Yet at the last minute we’ve heard the interview is cancelled.
00.42.50 Olenka Frenkiel: Questions about Israel, it appears, are strictly off-limits.
00.42.56 Olenka Frenkiel: We’d received this e-mail from the Pentagon.
00.43.00 Voiceover: Subtitles. Ladies: We showed Mr Feith the list of topics for the BBC interview. He is not willing to answer any of the questions you listed… Respectfully request you resubmit your questions as soon as possible this morning. Questions directed towards the current Iraqi situation.
00.43.17 Olenka Frenkiel: On February nineteenth Vanunu was again refused parole. He remains in Ashkelon prison.
00.43.30 Olenka Frenkiel: Horev has let it be known he intends never to let Mordechai Vanunu leave Israel.
00.43.36 End music
00.43.46 Olenka Frenkiel: You can comment on tonight’s programme by visiting our web site at: www.bbc.co.uk/correspondent
00.43.46 Credits:
Reporter OLENKA FRENKIEL
Camera IAN PERRY
VT Editor BOYD NAGLE
Dubbing Mixer CLIFF JONES
Graphic Design STEVE ENGLAND
Production Team ALEXANDRA CAMERON SARAH EVA MARTHA O’SULLIVAN AGNES TEEK
Production Manager JANE WILLEY
Unit Manager SUSAN CRIGHTON
Film Research NICK DODD
Historical Research AVNER COHEN
Yitzhak Yaakov photos YEDIOT AHRONOT
Research CANDICE TALBERG TOM WATSON
Web Producer ANDREW JEFFREY
Picture Editor JONATHAN COOKE
Produced & Directed by GISELLE PORTENIER
Deputy Editor DAVID BELTON
Editor KAREN O’CONNOR
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22 Comments on “M.E. Nuclear weapons”
This is really good. Makes me question a lot. Scary too. When Iran gets theirs built… well, what happens if the third world war happens between Iran and Israel? It’s not like Bahrain is that far away… pretty scary, I think.
Recently I was talking to someone about Israel and the U.S. and why the U.S. so refuses to admit to these things… makes you wonder if Israel has the U.S. by the balls on something. This man said that the U.S. controls Israel because of all the money they give to them… but, that still doesn’t answer the question, does it?!
Why are the IAEA inspectors and the U.S. not crying about Israel’s secret nuclear program?
Surely a nation that has
violated the 4th Geneva convention time and again,
disregarded UN resolutions,
violated human rights every day since it founding,
violated international law by kidnapping Vanunu in Italy,
bombed an American vessel,
bombed all of its neighbors including Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq and Tunisia,
extrajudicially murdered thousands,
and voted war criminals into the seat of Prime Minister
is not a rogue state.
They must be the good guys.
Why should anyone inspect their nuclear program (if, indeed, they have one) ?
You forget that Israel and the US are allies. That is why there is no outcry. Additionally, the US and Iran are enemies, as well as are Israel and Iran.
The Israelis reasoning for having the weapons seems reasonable to me though. They are surrounded by countries who are their enemies. They are in a guerrilla war with the Palestinians (which is controversial on every level, both internally, and externally) and are constantly trying to balance their hard line approach with their alliance with the US (and other nations). Their struggle with the Palestinians is a constant reminder to the neighboring Arab countries that Israel is still there. That knowledge serves as constant fuel to the hatred that grows against Israel’s existence and policies.
I honestly see Iran’s desire to obtain nuclear technology more disturbing than the Israelis secretive stockpile of weapons.I cannot imagine a scenario when the Israeli state would use those weapons unless there was an immanent threat to the safety of the state. Iran seems more volatile however. The vulnerability of Iraq, Iranians hatred of Israel and the US, and their neighbors Pakistan and India (both of whom have nuclear technology)…all these factors have birthed a desire to acquire nuclear technology and become the ultimate power in the region.
Joe,
Of course he is,as are all of us, aware of the allience between the US and Israel. What makes you think that Iran will use their nuclear technology? Are muslim nations not allowed to have such weapons because they might use it in their next shot to blow up the world? Please, it is just another excuse to attack Iran, as they did with Iraq. It just gives people another picture of how horrible the Arab world is.(in their perspective)The US has forgotten Hiroshima and Nagasaki, weren’t they the only nation in history who have ever used the bomb? Perhaps they should practice what they preach!
Here’s another interesting perspective that is relevant to the transcript above. It is by James C. Moore in the UK Independent newspaper.
Why shouldn’t Iran have nuclear weapons? Israel has American warheads ready to fire.”
Joe,
Expectedly, you sweep over and ignore all of Israel’s crimes to point back at Iran, and thus prove my point precisely.
I do not give Israel a free pass for what they have done. But do you really believe that they are prone to an offensive posture in regards to their nuclear program than Iran would be? History, even their history, does not support this. As far as I can see (from their mindset) all of their military action has been defensive of their ‘right to exist.’
However, rhetoric alone does not indicate definitive action. That is why Iran is so unpredictable. However, I wouldn’t want to be regretful because of an apathetic attitude in regards to Iran. The phrase ‘better safe than sorry’ comes to mind.
“from their mindset” is the key term, here. Israel’s attacks are most always preemptive. One cannot claim defensive action when acting as the aggressor.
http://www.zmag.org/shalom-meqa.htm
I agree that there should be concern over Iran’s nuclear program. I am insisting that there should also be concern over Israel’s nuclear program. Not because either would use nuclear weapons, but rather to be fair and even in the criticism of any nation that develops a nuclear program. We should likewise be critical of the NPT signatories, specifically the U.S., for their hypocritical use of nuclear capabilities to bully other governments.
It bears repeating that the U.S., in full realisation of the destructive power of nuclear weapons, is the only nation to have used them in the genocide of populations. Furthermore, the U.S. possesses the world’s largest stockpile of nuclear warheads, nearing 10,000. The next highest stockpile is held by Russia, with 5830.
What is more, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is being made into the picture of a madman by the U.S. and Israel in order to instill fear into their citizens. As we have seen, it is easier to sell and sustain preemptive attacks (see also: mass murder) to the proletariat when you frighten them into believing the rhetoric of good versus evil, democracy, tyranny, and the ever-dreaded, but oft elusive, weapons of mass destruction.
Let us not forget also that any solidarity with the Palestinians would be negated by a nuclear attack on Israel, as it would also mean the murder of the 3.8 million Palestinians that live in the West Bank and Gaza, and the over 1.1 million living within Israel. Add that the fallout would likely poison and kill many in the neighboring countries of Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, and that a counter-attack would obliterate Iran. These facts alone make the projected unpredictability of Iran’s intentions far more predictable.
Statistics for nations with nuclear capabilities may be found here:
http://www.thebulletin.org/nuclear_weapons_data/index.htm
Israel is Bushs’ favourite. Go figure.
This is very interesting….
I somewhat agree with Joe and also with some of the other opinions on this.. Although I find some of the comments from some of you who disagree with Joe to be naive and simply anti Israel for the sake of being anti Israel and not based on any concrete evidence.
First point let me clarify Iranians are not Arabs, they are Persian.
Second point, more middle Easterners are killed by other Middle Easterners than they are by the US or the west, and more Arabs are killed by other Arabs than they are by Israel.
Third point or rather a question, why is it that every time someone points a finger at some demented leader in the middle east, the conversation always turns to Israel?…..and please don’t start to tell me about how horrible Israel is, I am an Arab Israeli and have in the past lived there for over 15 years… I know all about the conflict and the extremists from both sides.. But in all my life I had never heard an Israeli prime minister give a speech in which he clearly stated that he was set on the destruction of another nation.
The Iranian leader, said in a clear voice that he wants to wipe Israel off the map.
Oh by the way he and many leaders like him say it is because of what Israel did to the Palestinians…lets not me stupid now…and lets not forget that Palestinians are not treated so great in most of the Arab countries, that is why there are refugee camps and I am not talking about the ones in the territories. in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Seria, Lebanon and yes Iran the Palestinians where never treated as equals and in most cases even to this day they are still not considered to be citizens of the countries in which they lived and worked in for many long years.
Although they are fully accepted as citizens in all of the western countries in which they live in today including the US.
It seems that so many people always want to blame the US and Israel for all the problems in the Middle East, completely forgetting that most of the nations there have and continue to fight against one another. Have you forgotten how Sadam invaded Kuwait, fought with Iran for over 8 years, how Seria occupied Lebanon for more than 20 years, how about what is happening in Darfur (Arab Muslims killing other Muslims), or Alqaida members bombing police stations in Iraq and Soudi Arabia and a hotel in Jordan filled with other Arabs who were simply celebrating a wedding. Let’s not forget how most of these nations treat their own citizens especially if you happen to be a woman.
Getting back to the Nuclear issue, well I do not think that the US, Israel or any other nation should have Nukes, but they do so instead of getting angry because they are telling Iran not to have them, lets try to do all we can to make sure that there are les of them around….because the more countries have them the more likely it will be that they will be used or may fall into the wrong hands,(Imagine if Osama Bin Laden had one? It scares me to even think about it), one nuke may be all that it would take to set off a chain reaction that will cause irreversible destruction and misery for all of us regardless of where we live and what our religion or race happened to be.
if Iran does acquire a Nuke none of us will be safe because the leader is stupid enough to use it, just as Sadam was for standing up to the US in the first Gulf war instead of pulling back and saving his army and the thousands of lives that were lost.
Thank you
Mougly,
I can’t help agreeing with much of what you said. Israel’s nukes are a fact. So are America’s, or the UK’s. It’s no good crying about it, nor is it helpful to state that only the US has ever used them before. History can teach us useful lessons if we are prepared to learn them. No democracy has used nuclear weapons in the last 50 years, and even the ex-USSR was sensible enough not to try. However, we now live in a post-1989 / post 2001 world where religious fanatics and other terrorists could be tempted to get hold of nuclear bombs and use them because for them the sanctity of human life is subordinated to their final cause.
In short, Iran is not to be trusted with nuclear weapons and we should prevent them and at the same time work to change their mullah régime into a more secular and democratic system.
I live in Canada but often travel to US to visit relatives. I am surprised by the world perception of possible conflict between US and Iran, and the reality of US Military preparation for war with Iran. Through a relative of a close friend (Army cartographer)I hear of maps being made of regions in Iran from arial and sattelite photographs. These same maps have been shared with Israeli and British officers. It sounds to me to be more than just diplomacy at work
Some how there is always an excuse for what ever horrible things the West did. THAT to me is interesting!!!
“But in all my life I had never heard an Israeli prime minister give a speech in which he clearly stated that he was set on the destruction of another nation.”
Moughly,
Apparently you had cotton in your ears when the following statement were made, all of them by Prime Ministers of Israel, and all of them regarding you. (Assuming you are both Palestinian, and Arab)
“We must expel Arabs and take their places.”
– David Ben Gurion, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.
“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.”
– David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.
“There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.”
– Golda Meir, statement to The Sunday Times, 15 June, 1969.
“How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.”
– Golda Meir, March 8, 1969.
“[Israel will] create in the course of the next 10 or 20 years conditions which would attract natural and voluntary migration of the refugees from the Gaza Strip and the west Bank to Jordan. To achieve this we have to come to agreement with King Hussein and not with Yasser Arafat.”
– Yitzhak Rabin (a “Prince of Peace” by Clinton’s standards), explaining his method of ethnically cleansing the occupied land without stirring a world outcry. (Quoted in David Shipler in the New York Times, 04/04/1983 citing Meir Cohen’s remarks to the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defense committee on March 16.)
“[The Palestinians] are beasts walking on two legs.”
– Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, speech to the Knesset, quoted in Amnon Kapeliouk, “Begin and the ‘Beasts,”‘ New Statesman, June 25, 1982.
“The Partition of Palestine is illegal. It will never be recognized …. Jerusalem was and will for ever be our capital. Eretz Israel will be restored to the people of Israel. All of it. And for Ever.”
– Menachem Begin, the day after the U.N. vote to partition Palestine.
“(The Palestinians) would be crushed like grasshoppers … heads smashed against the boulders and walls.”
– Isreali Prime Minister (at the time) Yitzhak Shamir in a speech to Jewish settlers New York Times April 1, 1988
“Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories.”
– Benyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, former Prime Minister of Israel, speaking to students at Bar Ilan University, from the Israeli journal Hotam, November 24, 1989.
“If we thought that instead of 200 Palestinian fatalities, 2,000 dead would put an end to the fighting at a stroke, we would use much more force….”
– Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, quoted in Associated Press, November 16, 2000.
“It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.”
– Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.
“Everybody has to move, run and grab as many (Palestinian) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish) settlements because everything we take now will stay ours…Everything we don’t grab will go to them.”
– Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of the Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, Nov. 15, 1998.
“Third point or rather a question, why is it that every time someone points a finger at some demented leader in the middle east, the conversation always turns to Israel?”
Maybe because Israel and the Israeli lobby makes sure to be the focus of the discussion, as in:
“Poor little Israel is surrounded by terrorists. What ever shall we do? Maybe a pre-emptive strike against their neighbors will show everyone what a great democracy we are.”
Mougly, just to correct you, the Iranian leader did not “say in a clear voice that he wants to wipe Israel off the map”. As I mentioned in another post a more accurate translation from the original Farsi (Persian) would be … “This regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods) must vanish from from the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad)”, which is different.
It was through ages and ages, through the birth of Islam, through the crusades,through the past few centuries, to the few decades, to NOW! There was never PEACE, there is no PEACE and there will be no PEACE in Israel/Palestine. People can say this and that, the fact is Israel will NEVER aknowledge that Palestine EXISTS, that Palestinians have the right to LIVE, and that they will take any measures inorder to bring the truth to light. The Israeli’s will keep occupying, opressing and killing. The blood shed will not STOP … It’s not as easy, as some may presume, while the world is still portraying the >Palestinians
… as the “bad guys.”
Raymond
First thank you for the information, although it was not necessary, since I do not, and had never defended Israel’s actions in regards to the Palestinians, nor did I say that Israel has more of right to have Nukes than Iran does or that it’s leaders are saints, nor did I ever say that the US was right to invade Iraq, in fact I always spoke against it. But the facts are that it is more likely that a Nuke in the hand of Iran will be more dangerous than if they were not able to have one. This is in part due to the fact that if they had these weapons it will give Israel and the US more of an excuse to launch a preemptive strike which will cause further deterioration to the already volatile region. And if that happens and the Iranian government found itself backed into a corner they will likely use their nukes against Israel, Israel will retaliate, the world oil supply would be disrupted, and guess who will suffer most? The people in the Middle East.
In addition to all this I am just trying to make the point that we all need to take some responsibility for our actions or lack off. We complain when people view us as terrorists but we never speak against terrorist acts, instead some even defend and excuse the actions of fanatics like Osama Bin Laden or Saddam and many more like them. I do don’t support Bush and never did support Sharon, but I also think that we need to stand up against all of these extremists, not just take one side or the other.
Until we begin to listen to one another and stop simply defending our side even when they are wrong, we will never have peace.
See every time a chilled is killed no mater which side it’s on, we need to stand up and hold our leaders accountable, not make excuses or point to the actions of the other side.
One more Nuke in the hands of a fanatic does not do any one any good so even if the west is a the devil we should still lobby against the spread of these useless weapons, as we will all loose at the end.
Mougly
I agree that all of the world’s leaders need to be held accountable for their actions, including the many Arab nations that are currently violating human rights. I do, however, take exception at the U.S. and Israel claiming the higher ground. I agree that Iran should not have nuclear weapons, as nobody should. I disagree with any nation that hypocritically says, “Do as I say, not as I do.” The U.S., U.K., and Israel are the last nations on this earth that should be preaching (and militarily enforcing) ethics. Their “ethics” is to expand their empires at any cost, not the “promotion of democracy” that they are trying to blindside everyone with. As William Shakespeare said, “The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”
I might add that while the find the treatment of Palestinians in other nations largely deplorable, the acceptance of Palestinians into other nations by awarding them passports largely allows Israel to shirk their responsibilities for the welfare and right of return of the Palestinian refugees per international law.
You must be well aware of the Zionist argument that “Palestinians are really Jordanians or Syrians, and so should go (or should have gone) to live there.” As soon as this becomes “true” via the granting of citizenship by other countries, especially neighboring countries, it then becomes de facto “truth on the ground” and an irreversible blow to the maintenance of the argument for a viable Palestinian state. Nakba and every Israeli crime thereafter will be further erased from the world’s collective memory, becoming like the legends of the great native tribes of the Americas.
Mike,
If it hadn’t been for a US “regime change” policy in a democratic, secular Persian state which had the nerve to nationalise it’s oil resources, then there almost certainly wouldn’t have been a “mullah régime” (as you put it) in the first place! Having wrote that, Ahmadi-Nejad is a secular leader who was democratically elected, so I would advise you to get your facts straight before posting. Wherever such regime change policies has been pursued by the US, they have led to nothing but death, destruction and geo-political destabilisation.
BTW, who is this “we” that you write of? … and when has “the sanctity of human life” ever been valued by Israel or the major western nuclear powers?