Published by Americans for The Link Middle East Understanding, Inc.

Volume 46, Issue 3 Link Archives: www.ameu.org July-August, 2013

D i m o n a

(Shhh! It’s a secret.)

By John F. Mahoney The Link Page 2 AMEU Board of Directors is today’ssixth, if not fifth, most powerful nuclear state,

Jane Adas (Vice President) with 100-plus nuclear weapons, along with the ability to build Elizabeth D. Barlow atomic, neutron and hydrogen bombs. How did it happen? Edward Dillon Rod Driver John Goelet Back in the late 1950s, France built a for the Is- David Grimland raelis at a site in the desert called . Ostensibly in- Richard Hobson (Treasurer) tended for generating nuclear energy for domestic use, it was later Anne R. Joyce revealed that its cooling circuits were built two to three times lar- Hon. Robert V. Keeley ger than necessary for the supposed 26-megawatt reactor, proof Kendall Landis that, from the beginning, it was designed to be a ex- Robert L. Norberg (President) traction plant for fuel. Francis Perrin, the high Hon. Edward L. Peck commissioner of the French Atomic Energy Agency from 1951 to Donald L. Snook 1970, later explained why France gave atomic secrets to the fledg- Rosmarie Sunderland ing : “Wethought the Israeli bomb was aimed against James M. Wall the Americans, not to launch it against America but to say ‘if you don’twant to help us in a critical situation we will require you to AMEU National help us, otherwise we will use our nuclear bombs’.”1 Council Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr. In 1959, Norway supplied the reactor with heavy water, essential William R. Chandler for producing a chain reaction. In 1963, when the reactor started Kathleen Christison operating, the supplied four more tons of heavy wa- Paul Findley ter. What Israel needed now was uranium. Moorhead Kennedy Ann Kerr In 1965, 206 pounds of weapons grade uranium disappeared Nancy Lapp from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation George E. Mendenhall (NUMEC) in Apollo, PA. Three years later, on Sept. 10, 1968, four Mary Norton Israelis, including agent , Israel’stop spy on Don W. Wagner nuclear facilities in the U.S., visited the NUMEC plant. Soon there- Miriam Ward, RSM after, 587 pounds of highly enriched uranium went missing. Executive Director John F. Mahoney About This Issue Its name comes from the biblical town, mentioned in Joshua 15:21-22, that AMEU (ISSN 0024-4007) was one of the Caananite cities said to be totally annihilated by the Israel- grants permission to reproduce material from The ites. Today's Dimona, the third largest city in the Negev, knows something Link in part or in whole. about total annihilation— something even Joshua would have had a hard AMEU must be credited and time imagining. one copy forwarded to our office at 475 Riverside Drive, Page 15 lists several DVDs related to our feature article, including “Five Room 245, New York, New Broken Cameras,” the Oscar-nominated documentary filmed on the West York 10115-0245. Tel. 212- Bank. 870-2053; Fax 212-870- 2 0 5 0 ; E - m a i l : On page 14, we offer a special tribute to a very special supporter. [email protected]; Website: www.ameu.org. John Mahoney, Executive Director The Link Page 3

In 1976, CIA Deputy Director Carl Duckett told diaspora,” and that his or her help is needed. Os- senior Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) trovsky says there are thousands of sayanim around members that the CIA believed Israel had illegally the world, and he offers examples of how they are obtained highly enriched uranium from the NU- used by the Mossad: A car rental sayan can help the MEC plant and that Israel used this for its first nu- Mossad rent a car without having to complete the clear bombs. The Duckett briefing was passed on to usual documentation; an apartment sayan can find President Gerald Ford’sassistant, James Conan, who accommodations without raising suspicions; a bank informed the president: I have good news and bad sayan can get you money if you need it in the mid- news. The good news is that Israel definitely has the dle of the night; a doctor sayan can treat a bullet Bomb and can take care of itself. The bad news is wound without reporting it to the police. And if you that the stuff came from .2 How the wanted to procure highly enriched uranium, well, “stuff” got from Apollo, PA to a site some 7,000 you would go to a nuclear power sayan. miles away in the Negev desert is a still unfolding Suspicion has long centered on Zalman Morde- story. cai Shapiro, born May 12, 1920 in Canton Ohio, the son of Abraham and Minnie, née Pinck, Shapiro. Enter NUMEC His father was an orthodox from Lithuania who had lost relatives in . Zalman By 1949, Zionist forces had taken 78 percent of grew up strongly supportive of an independent Jew- Palestinian lands. David Ben Gurion, Israel’sfirst ish state, and convinced that there was no difference prime minister, knew that the only way the Arabs between the interests of the United States and those could be convinced that their loss was irreversible of Israel.4 In August 1948, with a PhD in chemistry was to confront them with an overwhelming mili- from John Hopkins University, he began his career tary advantage. He was particularly fascinated with in nuclear power at Westinghouse Electric Corpora- nuclear energy and the “tremendous power”hidden tion in East . He moved a year later to the within the atom, observing, “What Einstein, Oppen- Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory in the Pittsburgh heimer and Teller, the three of them are , made suburb of West Mifflin. The sole focus of Bettis, a for the United States, could also be done by scien- U.S. government-owned research and development tists in Israel for their own people.”3 facility operated by Bechtel, was the design and de- By June 1952, the Israel Atomic Energy Commis- velopment of nuclear power for the U.S. Navy. At sion (IAEC) was quietly established, and between this time Zalman became active in, and eventually the summer of 1956 and the fall of 1957 the Dimona president of, the local branch of the Zionist Organi- plant was operational and the search was on for zation of America, which had worked to mobilize highly enriched uranium. support of the U.S. government, Congress, and the Victor Ostrovsky is a former case officer for the American public for the creation of Israel in 1948. Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service en- In 1948, Westinghouse won a contract from the trusted with plotting the course for Israel’sleaders. U.S. Navy to design and build the first pressurized In his 1990 book “By Way of Deception,” he notes water reactors to power nuclear submarines like the the curious fact that the Mossad employs far fewer USS Nautilus, and Zalman was invited to be part of staff operatives in its foreign offices than do the in- the reactor project. In 1956, the year after President telligence services of most other countries. Why? Eisenhower directed the Atomic Energy Commis- Because it has a unique resource that no other coun- sion (AEC) to provide “limited amounts of raw and try has: it has the sayanim, or “the assistants.” fissionable materials” to “free world” nations, These are Jews, specifically “100percent”Jews, who Shapiro incorporated NUMEC. Operations began in are not Israeli citizens, but who may have relatives February 1957, and by 1968 the workforce had living in Israel. The Mossad contacts the Israeli rela- grown from 14 to 1,000, helped by government pro- tive and asks for a letter that it can present to the jects, including a $2.5 million plutonium contract. relative, say an American citizen, attesting that the (Workers said they were encouraged to stuff nylon bearer’sgoal is to “help save Jewish people in the The Link Page 4 stockings and cigarettes in shipments sent to Israel, gon official and national security analyst concluded: and Zalman ordered that all proceeds from the “There is no conceivable reason for Eitan to have vending machines in the plant be donated to Israel.5) gone (to the Apollo plant) but for the nuclear mate- 9 Sometime in the early 1960s, the AEC became rial.” aware of unacceptable high levels of missing nuclear The NUMEC processing plant in Apollo has material at the NUMEC plant. Admiral Hyman long been the subject of a U.S. investigation into the Rickover, head of the Navy’snuclear ship program, alleged diversion of hundreds of pounds of enriched castigated Shapiro for NUMEC’s“apathy” toward uranium to Israel. Code-named project “Divert,”the security and the inherent risks of the company’sties documents show that the FBI, the CIA and the now- to foreign countries. Following the Admiral’scom- defunct Atomic Energy Commission spent years try- plaint, an Israeli metallurgist assigned to highly sen- ing to discover what happened to the 760 pounds of sitive plutonium work was forced uranium that went missing during to resign from NUMEC.6 the time that Zalman Shapiro In 1965, a NUMEC employee headed NUMEC. said he saw people he could not In 2009, U.S. Senator Arlen Spec- identify loading cans about the ter, at the prompting of Zalman size of highly enriched uranium- Shapiro’s lawyer, asked the Nu- 235 canisters onto a ship headed clear Regulatory Commission to for Israel. The employee reported clear Shapiro of any suspicion of the incident in 1980 when he was diversion. The NCR refused, stat- interviewed by FBI agents.7 ing it did “not have information In September 1968, four Israeli that would allow it to unequivo- intelligence agents visited NU- cally conclude that nuclear mate- MEC. In its request to AEC to ap- rial was not diverted from the 10 prove the visitors, NUMEC identi- site.” fied them as Rafael Eitan Grant Smith, in his 2012 book “chemist, Ministry of Defense, Is- “Divert,”quotes CIA Sta- rael,” Avraham Bendor, tion Chief John Hadden as saying “Department of Electronics, Is- that NUMEC was an “Israeli op- rael,” Ephraim Biegun, Zalman Shapiro eration from the beginning.” “Department of Electronics, Is- Smith, an investigative journalist, rael,”and Avraham Hermoni, “scientific counselor, documents that claim in his book, showing how the Israeli Embassy, Washington.” Ostensibly, they men who came together in the late 50s as NUMEC’s went there to discuss the purchase of small pluto- directors had but one common denominator: “their nium 238 power sources. But they were other than utter devotion to the advancement of Israel.”11 their titles suggested. U.S. Army Colonel Walter Patrick “Pat”Lang, Jr. Rafael “Rafi” Eitan was a high-level Mossad was given an advance copy of Smith’sbook. Lang, a agent who later directed the Israeli operation that former high-ranking member of the Senior Execu- recruited the U.S. Navy sayan . tive Service providing military intelligence analysis Bendor’sreal name was Avraham Shalom, a long- of the Middle East and South Asia for the Depart- time agent of , Israel’sinternal intelligence ment of Defense, offered this appraisal of Smith’s arm. Biegun was the head of the Mossad’sTechnical findings: Department, and Hermoni was technical director of It seems clear that Shapiro was a committed Israel’snuclear bomb project at RAFAEL, Israel’s Zionist from early in his life and someone for armament development authority, and he played an whom his American citizenship was a mere important role in the Dimona project.8 Speaking of convenience… . It also seems clear that it was Eitan’svisit, Anthony Cordesman, a former Penta- The Link Page 5

the brainstorm of people in the Jewish Agency needed for a nuclear weapon. The other, Dr. Richard to create a company like this one for the spe- (Dick) Kelly Smyth, an American in his early forties, cific purpose of establishing a “front” for the was the representative in Israel of the U.S. defense illegal export of refined nuclear materials in company North American Rockwell (later bought support of the weapons program. To that end out by Boeing). The two men had successfully coop- they found Shapiro (or he found them) and erated on an Israeli-mediated deal whereby Rock- the Israelis and he recruited other Jewish tech- well covertly sold sophisticated surveillance equip- nologists, venture capitalists, and U.S. govern- ment to Iran to help prop up its pro-Israel shah.13 ment officials— probably in the AEC and Jus- Now, the stakes were higher. Milchan was siz- tice Department— to make the whole thing ing up his American friend for a far riskier enter- hold together… prise, one that promised a much greater windfall, The continuing foot-dragging by elected and but meant leaving his job at Rockwell, along with appointed officials in this matter is mute proof his benefits and pension, and starting his own front of the deep, deep, deep, penetration of the U.S. company. LAKAM had concluded that Smyth was government by the Zionist apparat. When I “recruitable:” he liked the good life, enjoyed the was in DIA, it was understood that to raise company of women, felt he was underappreciated this issue was a career killer… The FBI’sinves- and underpaid at Rockwell, came down on the tigative findings and the way they were “right” side of Israel’streatment of the Arabs and, thwarted in all their efforts is so reminiscent of Milchan observed, insisted on using his title of many such affairs that I don’tfind it odd at all. “doctor”every chance he had. It is a long time since loyal Americans have Smyth took the bait and, in January 1973, been well-served by their federal government founded his front company, California-based Milco, in the matter of Israel.12 which he ran from his home. U.S. intelligence knew The Trigger that Milco was a new supplier for Israel’smilitary needs, because Smyth sent regular reports to the It is one thing to have the components that go CIA as a condition of maintaining his security clear- into a nuclear bomb, it’sanother to have the device ance. Milchan had told him it was better to operate to set it off. within the system, right under the government’s nose, and then claim it was an innocent mistake if A krytron, pictured here, is a cold-cathode, gas- things went wrong. filled tube intended as a high-speed trigger for detonating nuclear The first items shipped to Israel weapons. For this reason, the export were solid-fuel rocket components. of krytrons is tightly regulated by Later shipments pushed the limits of the U.S. government. This, how- legality, such as barrels of butyl, a ever, did not stop Israel’sMinistry compound used to bind explosive of Defense from receiving 15 ship- powders into solid rocket fuel, ammo- ments totaling 800 krytrons be- nium perchlorate, Butarez, condensers, tween 1979 and 1983. How did it and hundreds of other dual-use com- happen? ponents, totaling in the tens of millions of dollars. All were shipped by Smyth In late 1972, two men sat down to the end-user, Rehovot Instruments for dinner at the Kasbah, an elite Ltd., in Israel. restaurant in northern Tel Aviv. One, , an Israeli in Then came the krytrons. his early twenties, was a member of In the summer of 1975, Milchan’s LAKAM, the superspy agency created by then- assistant, Dvora Ben Yizhak, sent Smyth an order minister of defense to secure, by any for 400 krytrons. Smyth located the tubes, but be- means necessary, the materials and equipment The Link Page 6 cause they could be used for triggering nuclear The police eventually recovered the stolen weapons, he needed an export license from the U.S. goods— the burglar was a young employee— but State Department, which he requested on October when Smyth’swife went to retrieve them, she was 30, 1975. That petition was denied, as were subse- met by a U.S. customs agent who wanted to speak to quent petitions. But, by now, the CIA had become Milco’spresident. Their talks went on for months. interested in Smyth’sactivities. Meanwhile, the orders dried up. Then, on Christmas Four years went by. Then, Eve 1984, Smyth received a in 1979, Dvora Ben Yizhak letter ordering him to appear sent Smyth a coded order for at the Federal Prosecutor’s multiple shipments of 30 to office in Los Angeles “to an- 40 krytrons to be sent to Heli swer questions about export- Trading Ltd., one of Mil- ing krytrons without a li- chan’ssatellite companies. cense, and to discuss possible high crimes and misdemean- Smyth knew it would be ors.” He phoned Milchan in risky but, by now, he wanted Israel, but Milcham didn’t very much to please his major take his calls. client. So, between 1979 and 1982, he sent 13 shipments, In April 1985 Smyth was totally some 810 nuclear trig- indicted for smuggling nu- gers, to Heli. On the export clear triggers to Israel. The statement he called them cold trial was scheduled for mid- -cathode, gas-filled tubes. If August, and he was in- he got caught he would say structed to surrender his he didn’t realize they were passport. Prior to the trial krytrons. But he didn’t get date, Smyth dyed his gray caught … not, that is, until hair black, and he and his the 14th shipment. Arnon Milchan wife took Milco’s $15,000 emergency cash and flew out This time, the U.S. manufacturer, EG&G, had of LA’sInternational Airport to Frankfurt, , placed a clear “WARNING”on the box: “The Export where, now a fugitive from justice, he cleared pass- of This Product Requires a Munitions Export Li- port control by presenting a passport of a Dr. Jon cense.”Smyth ignored the warning and dispatched Schiller who looked remarkably like the hair-dyed the 14th shipment, as he did the others. Dr. Richard Smyth. Where he obtained the passport Shortly thereafter, on New Year’s Day 1983, is a mystery. Smyth went to work at his Huntington Beach, CA Meanwhile, back in Israel, Arnon Milchan, fear- office, having long since moved out of his home of- ing the investigation would lead to him, went to his fice, only to find his typewriters missing, along with recruiter, Shimon Peres, then Israel’sprime minister, a number of computers, and a highly sensitive radio and asked him to ask President Reagan to “make scrambler that had been rejected for export to Israel this go away.”It is another mystery whether or not by the State Department. Smyth had to report the Peres interceded, but Milchan was given assurances break-in to the local police and the FBI and, fearing that he was in the clear. they would find out anyway, he admitted to acci- dentally having shipped the krytrons to Milchan’s Looking back at that dinner at the Kasbah in company. 1972, the two men seated at the table would embark on two disparate journeys. Smyth would remain a In Israel, the new LAKAM chief, , di- fugitive until he foolishly applied for his Social Se- rected Milchan to sever all contact with Smyth, curity benefits and was arrested in Malaga, , in whom he called “burnt.” July 2001. He would plead guilty to violating the The Link Page 7

U.S. Arms Export Control Act and, in November Six Day War in June 1967, the South African govern- 2001, be sentenced to 40 years in prison along with a ment released over $28 million to Israel from Zionist $20,000 fine, although he would be free within four groups and permitted South African volunteers to years. work and fight in Israel. As the prime minister of Milchan, meanwhile, would prosper as a Holly- South Africa B. J. Vorster put it, both countries must wood mogul, producing over 100 movies, and as- “fight against enemies bent on their destruction.” suming ownership of the Israeli network which To that end, Israel and South Africa engaged in transmits Israeli television programming to the joint research and production of nuclear weapons. United States and Canada. In 2006, Forbes listed him In 1963, South Africa, which has the fourth largest as the 240th richest person on the planet, with a net uranium reserves in the world, shipped ten tons of worth of $3.6 billion. uranium to Israel for use in the Dimona nuclear re- actor. In September 1979, the two countries deto- Israel and South Africa nated a nuclear device over the South Atlantic. At It is the worst kept of secrets that Israel has the same time, Israel supplied South Africa with the somewhere between 80 and 400 nuclear warheads. Jericho missile, capable of carrying a nuclear war- Still, it is one thing to have the bomb and another to head. Both countries developed a project to build have tested it— which brings us to South Africa. nuclear submarines in South Africa, with assistance In our April-May 2007 issue of The Link, “About from Israeli engineers and design experts. Indeed, That Word Apartheid,” we noted the affinity be- Israeli expertise provided South Africa with Dabur tween Israel and apartheid South Africa. In June patrol and Reshef missile boats, Gabriel sea-to-sea 1917, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the future first presi- missiles, training in Israel for South African navy dent of Israel, and Gen. Jan Christian Smuts, the fu- personnel, electronic border fences, microwave de- ture prime minister of South Africa, met in tection and radar system, natural uranium rods, to exploit British imperial interests for their own minefields, and state-of-the-art night vision helicop- purposes. Weizmann argued that a Palestine opened ter equipment. for Jewish settlement would help England safeguard In 1968, Israel and South Africa refused to sign its Middle East interests. Smuts, who participated in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and they planning the Balfour Declaration, saw the wisdom barred inspection of their nuclear plants by the In- of supporting the Zionist enterprise, as Jews in ternational Atomic Energy Commission. South Africa, by the end of World War I, constituted per capita the wealthiest Jewish community in the In November 1977, The United Nations Security world. Council imposed a Mandatory Arms Embargo on South Africa. However, Israel’s foreign minister, This alliance was examined in our October- Moshe Dayan, said Israel would ignore the resolu- November 1988 Link, “Israel and South Africa: A tion. South Africa traded 50 metric tons of yellow- Natural Alliance”by Robert Ashmore. What apart- cake uranium for 30 grams of Israeli tritium, a radio- heid South Africa and the Jewish state had in com- active isotope used as a component in triggering mon was a theology of seeing themselves as God’s thermonuclear reactions. “chosen people,”as well as a self-appointed mission to be an outpost of western civilization in dark cor- On December 13, 1984, the United Nations Gen- ners of the Third World. Both had to deal with in- eral Assembly passed resolution 39/72C, entitled digenous populations, either by killing them, driv- “Relations between Israel and South Africa.” It de- ing them from their ancestral land, or rounding clared: “that the increasing collaboration by Israel them up into Bantustans. And because of this, both with the racist regime of South Africa, especially in had to rely on development of military superiority the military and nuclear fields, in defiance of resolu- as a guarantee of status quo survival. tions of the General Assembly and the Security Council, is a serious hindrance to international ac- By 1961, South Africa had become Israel’schief tion for the eradication of apartheid … and consti- trading partner in Africa. When Israel launched its tutes a threat to international peace and security.” The Link Page 8

It would take another decade of international through the , eventually ending up in Aus- sanctions to end apartheid in South Africa, despite tralia where he took a job as a taxi driver in . the racist regime’smilitary superiority. On May 10, During this time he joined the Anglican Church of 1994, while watching Nelson Mandela take the oath Australia. He also met Oscar Guerrero, a freelance of office as president of the new, desegregated South journalist, who persuaded him to sell his story, Africa, F. W. de Klerk, the out-going president of the claiming that it along with the photographs were apartheid regime reflected on his Afrikaner ances- worth up to $1 million.15 tors: “The dream they had dreamt of being a free Newsweek turned down the story, but the Brit- and separate people, with their own right to national ish Sunday Times showed interest. In early Septem- self-determination in their own national state in ber 1986, Vanunu flew to London and, in violation southern Africa was the ideal to which I myself had of his non-disclosure agreement with the Negev Nu- clung until I finally concluded, after a long process clear Research Center, he revealed to The Times of deep introspection, what he knew of that, if pursued, it Israel’snuclear pro- would bring disaster to gram, along with all the peoples of our the photographs he country, including my had taken at the own.” Might there be Dimona site. He a message here for Is- also gave detailed rael’sleaders? descriptions of lith- ium-6 separation Mordechai required for the Vanunu production of trit- ium, an essential He was born in ingredient of fusion 1954 in , the -boosted fission son of Orthodox Jews bombs. And he Mordechai Vanunu who emigrated to Is- went on to describe rael in 1963 and settled in , the largest city the plutonium processing that was used which, he in the Negev desert. said, gave a production rate of about 30kg per year. In 1977, after intensive training, Mordechai was From this it was estimated that Israel had sufficient 16 employed as a nuclear plant technician and shift plutonium for about 150 nuclear weapons. manager at the Negev Nuclear Research Center, an Vanunu has said that he intended to share the Israeli facility, south of Dimona, that developed and money he would have received from the Sunday manufactured nuclear weapons. Times with the Anglican Church of Australia. But In 1979, he became a part-time student at Ben- the Times put a hold on the payment, while it Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, checked his story with leading nuclear weapons ex- graduating in 1985 with a BA in philosophy and ge- perts. ography. In his security file at the Negev Nuclear Frustrated, Vanunu approached a rival newspa- Research Center it was noted that he had displayed per, the tabloid Sunday Mirror owned by Robert “left-wing and pro-Arab beliefs” at the university. Maxwell, a businessman widely believed to have In 1985, Vanunu secretly smuggled a camera into close links with Mossad. Whether through Maxwell the research center and covertly took 57 photo- or through his journalists who may have contacted graphs. Soon after, he was fired for participating in a the Israeli embassy to confirm Vanunu’sstory, the pro-Arab rally that called for the creation of a Pales- Israeli government learned of the “traitor” and de- tinian state.14 cided it had to act. In late 1985, Vanunu took a backpacking trip Vanunu was known to welcome female compan- The Link Page 9 ionship, so an Israeli Mossad agent, masquerading min Netanyahu, Defense Minister and as an American tourist called “Cindy,” befriended Interior Minister requesting that Vanunu him, and persuaded him to fly with her to Rome on be allowed to receive the medal at the Award Cere- a holiday. At the same time, the Israeli Navy’sINS mony in Berlin scheduled for December 12. All three Noga was ordered to the Italian coast. Disguised as turned down the request. a merchant ship, the Noga was fitted with electronic Mordechai Vanunu and these men are polar op- surveillance equipment and satellite communica- posites: for Vanunu, Judaism is a religion, for them tions gear. In an encrypted message to the captain, it is a racial designation; Vanunu is a pacifist, they the ship was ordered to drop anchor in international are military men; Vanunu wants a nuclear-free Mid- waters just off the Italian port city of La Spezia. dle East, they want Israeli nuclear hegemony in the Once in Rome, Vanunu and “Cindy”took a taxi Middle East; Vanunu is an ex-Zionist, they are Zion- to an apartment, where three Mossad operatives ists in the tradition that goes back to Zalman overpowered Vanunu, injecting him with a paralyz- Shapiro and David Ben Gurion. ing drug. Later that night, a white van hired by the Israeli embassy arrived at the apartment. Vanunu The Samson Option was carried to it on a stretcher. The ambulance then proceeded to a prearranged meeting point along the The United Nations General Assembly, on Dec. coast. Vanunu was transferred to a waiting speed- 4, 2012, approved a resolution calling on Israel to boat, which then rendezvoused with the waiting join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) Noga. (One wonders if the cab driver, ambulance “without further delay,”and to open its nuclear fa- driver, speedboat driver and apartment owner were cilities to inspection by the International Atomic En- all sayanim.) ergy Agency (IAEA). The vote was 174 to six, with Mordechai Vanunu arrived back in Israel on Oc- six abstentions. Voting against the resolution were: tober 6, 1986, the day after pub- Israel, the United States, Canada, the Marshall Is- lished his exposé, and the world could see what Is- lands, Micronesia and Palau. rael has so long refused to admit. He was sentenced Israel, of course, has never owned up to having to 18 years in prison. More than 11 of those years “the bomb”— or of not having it; it’scalled “nuclear were spent in solitary confinement, allegedly out of ambiguity.”This both allows it to continue receiving concern that he might spill more Israeli nuclear se- direct U.S. aid, now totaling some $3.15 billion per crets. year, and shields it from inspections and the threat On April 21, 2004, he was released from prison, of IAEA discretionary and obligatory sanctions. subject to such prohibitions as no contact with non- It’sa charade, of course. The U.S. government Israelis, no phone calls, no Internet access, and no knows that Israel has a full range of nuclear weap- leaving the State of Israel. He has been arrested sev- ons for every imaginable contingency: atomic bombs eral times for violating these restrictions. to reduce every Arab capital to ashes; nuclear land Seldom mentioned in his biography is his adop- mines to obliterate Arab tanks should they try to tion by an American couple, Mary and Nick Eoloff; enter Israel; neutron bombs to explode over Arab their story is told by them in our April-May 2004 forces on Israeli territory, that reduce the risk to Is- issue of The Link. raeli citizens while devastating enemy forces. There is increasing speculation that Israel possesses ther- In October 2010, the International League for monuclear weapons, H-bombs, making it not only a Human Rights announced that Mordechai Vanunu regional but a world superpower, as well as was awarded the Medal , named “micronukes”and “tinynukes,”suitable for destroy- for the German pacifist and recipient of the 1935 No- ing buried command and control facilities. Indeed, bel Peace Prize, who was imprisoned for speaking Israeli officers have been taught by U.S. military out against Nazi militarism. On November 16 the strategists on how to use tactical nuclear weapons in League sent an open letter to Prime Minister Benja- a crowded environment.17 The Link Page 10

How this nuclear arsenal has affected U.S. for- To hold on to the lands it had captured in 1967— eign policy was the subject of investigative journalist not to mention its pre-’67 land— Israel called on the ’s 1991 exposé “The Samson Op- United States for an immediate airlift of tanks, guns, tion.”The Samson here is the biblical Samson who, planes, and ammunition. The problem was, the endowed with superhuman strength, pulled down Nixon Administration was monitoring the war and, the pillars of the temple in an act of suicidal revenge, according to Seymour Hersh, Henry Kissinger, then killing thousands of Philistines along with himself. Secretary of State, wanted to delay the resupply in Hersh picked Samson as the face of a nuclear Israel order to let the Arabs win back some of their lands, because, more than once, when confronted with along with some self-respect, thereby setting up the Arab military resistance, it threatened the U.S. that it possibility of a serious land-for-peace negotiation would pull down the entire Middle East if its super- after the war.22 power friend didn’tdo what it wanted. Or as former The Israeli government was furious. Meeting Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon put it: “We are with her kitchen cabinet on October 8, Prime Minis- much more important than Americans think. We ter Gold Meir decided to arm Israel’snuclear arsenal can take the Middle East with us whenever we and, resorting to the Samson Option, to target the go.”18 Hersh called this by its unvarnished name: Egyptian and Syrian military headquarters, among nuclear blackmail. other strategic sites. Then she informed Washington This sense of invincibility reached its peak in of the unprecedented action, and demanded that, if 1967 when, in the predawn hours of June 5, Israeli it wanted to avoid the nuclear option, it had to warplanes attacked 25 Arab airbases from Damascus launch an immediate airlift of replacement arms and in Syria to Luxor in Egypt. When the war ended— it ammunition.23 took six days— Israel had seized the Gaza Strip and It worked. “By the evening of October 9,”Kiss- Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the , includ- inger wrote in the second volume of his memoirs, ing East , from Jordan, and the Golan Years of Upheaval, “Israel had been assured that its Heights from Syria. The Jewish state appeared a war losses would be made up.” Later, Kissinger David, surrounded by paper tiger Arab Goliaths. would admit to Hermann Eilts, U.S. Ambassador to In the years that followed, Arab leaders tried to Egypt, that there had been intimations that if the Is- negotiate the return of their lands, but a triumphant raelis “didn’tget military equipment, and quickly, Israel had little incentive to trade land for peace.19 they might go nuclear.”24 In the summer of 1973, Defense Minister Moshe And they did get it. First covertly. To obviate Dayan declared Israel “on the threshold of the standard procurement procedures, weapons of ac- crowning era of the return to Zion,”a judgment he tive duty, front-line units in the U.S. Seventh Army based on “the superiority of our forces over our ene- in were shipped without the required con- mies and the jurisdiction of the Israeli Government sultation with the government of West Germany. In from the Jordan to the Suez.”20 America, air shipments from Oceana Naval Air Sta- Then the unthinkable happened. Preemptively, tion in Virginia were taken from stocks maintained on October 6, 1973, the Egyptian army attacked at Langley, Virginia. These shipments contained across the Sinai and Syria invaded the Golan AIM 9 missiles, artillery and tank ammunition, and Heights. For Jews, it was Yom Kippur, the Day of cluster bombs, which arrived in time for the exten- Atonement, and, for Muslims, Ramadan. In the first sive fighting that developed during the critical week three days, Israel lost 500 tanks and 49 aircraft. In of October 10-17. the Sinai Egyptian forces beat off three Israeli tank The overt operations of the U.S. Military Airlift divisions; on the Golan Heights, Syrian forces rolled Command took place between October 13 and No- through Israeli defenses right up to the edge of Gali- vember 22; they consisted of $2.2 billion of weapons lee. was hours away. A chastened Moshe shipped in what turned would be the largest airlift Dayan lamented “This is the end of the Third Tem- operation in military history.25 ple.”21 The Link Page 11

When the final cease-fire was concluded on Oc- the U.S. Senate Committee of Foreign Relations tober 24, 1973, Israel again had the Sinai, the West looked into them and found just the opposite: Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Golan could not have taken even the most preliminary Heights. The next 40 years would see no successful steps to produce a nuclear bomb without detection land-for–peace negotiations between Israelis and by the IAEA, and the July date for going critical was Palestinians; they would see only a half million Jew- equally untrue, as Dr. Herbert Kouts, chairman of ish settlers now living on Palestinian West Bank the Department of Nuclear Energy at Brookhaven land. Israel, concluded Seymour Hersh, had used its Laboratories testified before the Senate Foreign Rela- nuclear arsenal to blackmail Washington into a ma- tions Committee. jor policy change.26 As for Saddam’sstatement in Al-Thawra, Israel later admitted it was bogus, explaining that the Babylon and Beyond prime minister had been the victim of “poor staff work.” And about that “secret bomb installation,” The threat to go nuclear is infinitely more credi- Begin, when pressed, changed the depth from 130 ble if there is no corresponding threat of nuclear re- feet to 13, and a few days after that, Major General taliation. It’sone thing to have “the bomb,”it’san- Yehoshua Sagi, head of Modiin (Israeli military in- other to know that the one you’re aiming it at does telligence), announced that there was no “secret not. This has been Israel’sever-present preoccupa- room.” tion. On June 19, 1981, the U.N. Security Council Case in point: on June 7, 1981, 16 Israeli Air passed Resolution 487, condemning the attack and Force planes took off from Etizion airbase in occu- calling on Israel to compensate Iraq for damages and pied eastern Sinai. Crossing over Saudi Arabia, to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards. without the Saudis’ permission, the planes ap- The United States, fearing an Arab backlash if it ve- proached the huge dome of Iraq’sOsirak nuclear toed the resolution, voted for it, but in the months reactor, located just southeast of Baghdad. Eight F- that followed, it made no effort to bring pressure on 16 planes, each carrying two 2,000-pound laser- its close friend to comply with the resolution. Israel guided bombs, then swept down and decimated the had sent the message it wanted: We have the bomb, reactor, core and all. All planes returned safely. Op- there shall be no other bombs before us. eration Babylon was declared an unqualified suc- cess. That message was sent to Syria on September 6, 2007, in Operation Orchard, when The next day, Israeli Prime Minister Menahem fighter jets crossed into Syrian airspace, destroyed a Begin gave the reasons for the strike: Sources of suspected nuclear reactor in the Deir ez-Zor region “unquestionable reliability”had confirmed that Iraq of the country, then violated Turkish airspace on intended, despite statements to the contrary, to pro- their return. The Israelis claimed that soil samples duce atomic bombs, and that the reactors would “go taken from the facility contained nuclear material critical” as early as July 1, 1981; Saddam Hussein that came from North Korea. had stated in the “official” Iraqi newspaper Al- Thawra of October 4, 1980, that the nuclear reactor In his memoir “Decision Points,” President was to be used “against the Zionist enemy”and, fi- George W. Bush wrote that Israeli Prime Minister nally, Iraq had built a secret bomb manufacturing Olmert had requested that the U.S. be the one to installation 130 feet below the nuclear core which bomb the Syrian site, but that he, Bush, refused, say- could not be seen by the International Atomic En- ing he did not consider the intelligence definitive on ergy Agency (IAEA) inspectors. whether the plant was part of a nuclear weapons program.28 Not one of these allegations was true, as Stephen Green pointed out in his book “Living by the IAEA Director Mohamed ElBaradei criticized the Sword.”27 raid, saying that Syria’sability to construct and run a complex nuclear process was doubtful. And he As for the sources of “unquestioned reliability,” The Link Page 12 noted that satellite photographs had led experts to Again! doubt “that the targeted construction was in fact a nuclear site.”29 The story is told that, when the first bomb rolled Indeed, more than one news source, including off the Dimona assembly line, one of the workers of January 12, 2008, noted that wrote on it the words NEVER AGAIN. The refer- at the time of the attack the site had no obvious ence, of course, is to the Holocaust. But, if the intent barbed wire or air defenses that would normally of the writer was to prevent another unspeakable ring a sensitive military facility. As for the soil sam- horror, then the focus would have been better ples, Syria pointed out that had the facility been a placed on the cause of the Holocaust. And the cause nuclear site, inspectors should have found a large of the Holocaust was the hideous ideology of Na- amount of graphite, which they didn’t,while the 80 zism. particles of uranium that were found in over half a In our December 1992 issue of The Link, Norman million tons of soil more probably came from the Finkelstein wrote that historians generally divide missiles themselves that Israel launched.30 nationalism into two types: liberal nationalism with And now it’sIran’sturn. roots in the French Revolution and ethnic national- ism with roots in German Romanticism. Finkelstein In 1992, , then a member explains the difference: “Liberal nationalism has as of the Israeli from the Likud list, warned his its main pillar the citizen: the state is constituted by fellow parliamentarians that Iran was three to five its citizens and between citizens is complete legal years from producing a nuclear weapon, and that equality. Romanticism’s the threat had to be “uprooted by an international main pillar is the ethnic front headed by the U.S.” nation: each state be- In 2007, the National Intelligence Estimate, longs to a particular eth- representing the findings of America’s16 spy agen- nic nation, and the latter cies, concluded with “high confidence”that Iran had consequently occupies a given up its nuclear weapons effort. In May 2009, privileged position in the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee re- the state.” ported, “There is no sign that Iran’sleaders have The Germanic no- ordered up a bomb.” tion of nationalism cul- Yet, on September 16, 2012, now Prime Minister minated in , Netanyahu told NBC’s“Meet the Press” that the which preached the Iranians are “six months away from being about 90 domination of society percent of having the enriched uranium for an atom by the racially superior Norman Finkelstein bomb.”Later that month he lectured the U.N. Gen- Aryan race. To preserve the purity of this master eral Assembly: “It is not a question of whether Iran race, Nazis sought to purge society of people de- will get the bomb. The question is at what stage can clared inferior and a threat to national survival, such we stop Iran from getting the bomb.” as Jews and Romani (Gypsies). And they supported territorial expansion in order to gain Lebensraum And when President Obama visited Israel in (living space) as a law of nature, whereby peoples of March 2013, Netanyahu reminded him that the clock the superior race, especially those facing overpopu- is ticking. In response, Obama assured the prime lation in their given territory, can displace peoples minister that the U.S.’s$1 billion funding for Israel’s of an inferior race. Iron Dome, the mobile air defense system designed to intercept short-range rockets, would not be inter- has its roots in Germanic nationalism. rupted by U.S. sequester cutbacks— even though Finkelstein quotes the mainstream Israeli historian U.S. defense and social programs would be. Anita Shapira, who acknowledged that Zionism “adopt[ed] and transplant[ed] concepts deriving from German or Pan-Slavic sources of volkish na- The Link Page 13 tionalism.” Nor was the irony lost on the Israeli West Bank and East Jerusalem, forcing the remain- writer, Aharon Barnea, that “a state for the Jewish ing Palestinians into Bantustan-like enclaves. people was … created which regards the Holocaust It should be noted that, when Pappe refers to as the ultimate reason for its existence… . [Yet] the this as Zionist ideology, not all Jews are Zionists; current Jewish ethnic concept of nationality traces its indeed there have been a number of courageous origins to the national romantic model which Ger- Jews, including Ilan Pappe, Norman Finkelstein and many developed to such perfection.”31 Mordechai Vanunu, who have denounced Zionism In his April-May 2008 Link, Israeli historian Ilan for the racist ideology it is. And there are Christian Pappe noted that, when the United Nations in No- Zionists, who view Jews as God’sChosen People, vember 1947 offered whose return to the Promised Land is a mandatory to partition Palestine prelude to the Second Coming of Christ. into a Jewish and an What we tend to forget, however, but what all Arab state, it gave Zionists know instinctively, is that, if you take some- the Jewish minority one’sland, you better have a very powerful defense 56% of the land. The system in place, because these dispossessed people problem, however, will want to get their land back, no matter how long was that this 56% it takes— or what it takes. This may mean erecting a contained an equal high separation wall, or a billion dollar iron dome, number of Jews and or manufacturing a nuclear bomb, and making sure Palestinians, thereby the dispossessed, or their allies, don’t get their threatening the Jews’ hands on one. Truth be told, the words on that first racial dominance; it bomb that came out of Dimona should have read: also jeopardized the YET AGAIN. Zionist aim to in- Ilan Pappe gather Jews from all So what’sthe answer? We get some clues from over the world who, and only who, upon proof of another racist state that developed nuclear weap- their Jewishness, would receive automatic citizen- onry: apartheid South Africa, where Bantustans ship. were born. It was world condemnation and eco- nomic sanctions that finally convinced the white Af- “Even a cursory knowledge of Zionist ideology rikaners that, as Bismarck reputedly put it, you can and strategy,” says Pappe, “should have made it do everything with a bayonet except sit on it. So clear to the U.N. architects that such a demographic they abandoned their racist laws and adopted a sys- reality would lead to the cleansing of the local popu- tem of one person, one vote, whereby each person lation from the future Jewish state.” stands equal before the law. Not surprisingly, the And that’swhat happened. new South Africa found it no longer needed nuclear On March 10, 1948, the , the main Jew- bombs. ish underground in Palestine, devised a plan, called Can the same happen to apartheid Israel? Plan D, which resulted in its taking over 78% of Pal- One hopes against hope. ■ estine. It instructed the Jewish forces to cleanse the Palestinian areas that fell under their control. This End Notes cleansing lasted well into the 1950s. When it was over, of the approximately 1,050,000 Palestinians 1Israel’sNuclear Weapon Capability: An Overview, July- living in these areas, 950,000 were expelled. Then, as August 1996: www.wisconsinproject.org we noted, following the preemptive war of 1967, Is- 2Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, ”Revisiting the NUMEC rael took over the last 22% of historic Palestine, and Affair,” March 2010, vol. 66, no. 2/ 61-75. immediately began colonizing it, to the point where 3Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, Columbia University today more than 500,000 Jewish settlers live in the Press, 1998. The Link Page 14

4David Martin, “Mysteries of Israel’sBomb,”Newsweek, Jan. 9, 1979, cited by Grant F. Smith, “Divert,”Institute for In Appreciation Research: Middle Eastern Policy, 2012, p. 19. 5Grant Smith, “Divert,”p. 22. Ruth Pauline Monson 6Smith, “Divert,”p. 23. 1926-2013 7Business Insider, a U.S. business and technology news website, Aug. 7, 2012. In his reflections on Ruth Monson’slife, The Rev. Kent Johnson of the English Lutheran Church in La 8Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “Revisiting the NUMEC Crosse, WI, noted that Ruth regularly gave him mate- Affair,” March 2010, vol. 66, no. 2/61-75. rial on the plight of the Palestinians, specifically cop- 9Los Angeles Times, June 16, 1986. ies of The Link. It reminded him, he said, of the 10NCR, http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ widow in the parable of the judge who refused to ML092720878.pdf grant her justice against her opponent. Undeterred, 11Smith, “Divert,”p. 217. the widow persisted to the point where the judge re- lented just to keep her quiet. Pastor Johnson then ech- 12Smith, “Divert,”pp. 222-223. oed Jesus’sown commentary: “Will not God grant 13Most of this section on Arnon Milchan is based on the justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and 2011 book “Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent night?” Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan,”by Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman; seeesp.; pp. 74-105; p 145 ff; Ruth was such a crier after justice. For some 11 161 ff. years she lived with her husband, John, in the Middle 14The information in this paragraph is taken from the East, where they witnessed, as do so many Americans Wikepedia entry for “Mordechai Vanunu.” with eyes to see, the cruelty of a military occupation that is being subsidized with American tax dollars. 15Wikepedia, “Mordechai Vanunu.” When they returned home to La Crosse in 1990, Ruth 16Wikepedia, “Mordechai Vanunu.” became an active member in the Prayer Vigil for 17William E. Burrows & Robert Windrem, “Critical Mass: Peace with Justice in the Middle East, the La Crosse The Dangerous Race for Superweapons in a Fragmenting ELCA Synod Middle East Subcommittee, several World,”London: Simon & Schuster, 1994, p. 199; cited in Events at English Lutheran and, last year, “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine,”Geoff Simons, she offered a four-week series at the church entitled Crown House, 2006, p. 129. Steadfast Hope. 18Seymour Hersh, “The Samson Option,”p. 42. Prior to her death, Ruth expressed the wish that, 19 Hersh, “The Samson Option,”p. 221. in lieu of flowers, a donation be made in her memory 20”Dado: 48 Hours and 20 Days”by Hanoch Bartov, Tel to Americans for Middle East Understanding. Such Aviv, Ma’Ario Book Guild, 1981, pp. 189-190. Cited by recognition was for us a profound honor. Stephen Green, “Living By the Sword,”Amana Books, 1988, p. 82. But Ruth went further. She asked that each donor 21Hersh, “The Samson Option,”p. 225. be sent a complimentary copy of The Link. Getting the word out, after all, was what mattered. And, indeed, 22 Hersh, “The Samson Option,”pp 227. each of the contributors— and there were many of 23Hersh, “The Samson Option,”pp. 225-227. them — will receive this issue of The Link which we 24Hersh, “The Samson Option,”p. 234. are pleased to dedicate in Ruth’smemory. 25Green, “Living By the Sword,”pp. 94-97. Sumud is the Arabic word that’soften translated 26Hersh, “The Samson Option,”p.223. as steadfastness. But it’smore than that. It’smore a 27Green, “Living By the Sword,”pp 135-141. single-minded, raw tenacity, not unlike the kind the 28George W. Bush, “Decision Points,”pp. 421-422. widow had before her unjust judge. 98 Broad, William, The New York Times, Jan. 12, 2008. Ruth Monson had that kind of steadfastness. 30Operation Orchard, in Wikipedia, pp. 8-9. 31Ha’aretz, April 11, 1991, cited by Finkelstein in The Link, John Mahoney, Executive Director v. 25, #5 (December 1992). The Link Page 15 Recommended Materials

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