topic by
real watcher
7/4/2002 (18:06) |
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Note the big lie that Israel needs nuclear weapons to deter a possible Arab nuclear attack. Nothing could be further from the truth. The real reason Israel is so worried about Moslem nuclear weapons is that these would serve as deterrent to Israeli nuclear blackmail.
The Israelis may as arrogant as they want, but if they should ever use nuclear weapons first, an outraged world may finish what Hitler started.
Sharon Threatens
Global Nuclear War
Thursday, July 04 2002 @ 04:54 PM GMT
By Jeffrey Steinberg
If there is one nation on this planet that deserves to be
described and dealt with as a rogue state, armed with
weapons of mass destruction and intent on using them,
it is Israel, under the terror reign of war criminal Ariel
Sharon.
If this was a matter of assertion or conjecture in the
past, statements coming out of top Israeli officials in the
past days have eliminated any cause for hesitation.
On June 26, the Israeli newspaper of record, Ha'aretz,
cited two top Israeli space scientists, who declared that
Israel now has the capacity to fire missiles at targets
anywhere on earth.
Prof. Moshe Gelman, head of the Asher Institute at
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, boasted to
Ha'aretz that 'From the moment the State of Israel has
the capability to launch a satellite into orbit around the
earth at a height of hundreds of kilometers, it
established [its] capability to launch, by means of a
missile, a payload to any location on the face of the
earth.'
Dr. Gelman's words were seconded by Avi Har-Even, the
director-general of the Israeli Space Agency (ISA), which
recently launched the Ofek 5 satellite, who told
Ha'aretz's Amnon Barzilai that the Ofek 5 launch had two
strategic objectives: providing Israel with an
independent spy satellite capability to monitor military
activities in targeted countries throughout the entire
Near East. 'The second involves Israel's launch
capabilities.'
Democratic Party Presidential candidate Lyndon
LaRouche reacted strongly to the Israeli announcement
about an ICBM capability. He characterized it as a direct
threat by Ariel Sharon against any nation that attempts
to interfere with Israel's mad drive for its 'Greater
Israel' permanent annexation of the West Bank and
Gaza and the mass expulsion of the 3.5 million
Palestinians living in those territories.
'Israel is threatening global thermonuclear war,'
LaRouche warned, and this is unacceptable. He called
upon the international community to immediately make
the entire Mideast a 'denuclearized zone,' by forcing
Israel to dismantle its nuclear weapons arsenal.
LaRouche characterized the announcement of the Israeli
ICBM capability as a 'phase-change' in a global strategic
situation, already driven to the brink of war by the
onrushing financial collapse and the June 25 speech by
President George W. Bush, which gave Sharon a defacto
American 'green light' to take any action against the
Palestinians which he deems necessary.
NATO Officially Warned
The Israeli intent to use nuclear weapons was a topic of,
at minimum, implicit discussion, at a June 26 Brussels
behind-closed-doors meeting of NATO's North Atlantic
Council, which was addressed by the current head of the
Israeli Mossad, Ephraim Halevy. According to the June 27
Ha'aretz, Halevy reported to the NATO officials that
Mossad is convinced that Iran is developing intermediate
and long range missiles, and 'weapons-grade nuclear
capabilities,' as well as VX gas and biological weapons.
As Ha'aretz's Amir Oren reported, Halevy asserted that
'Israel cannot spare any effort to foil, prevent or delay
the attainment of weapons of mass destruction by
countries like Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya.'
Pushing A New Regional War
According to Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld,
who wrote that 'Sharon's Plan Is to Drive Palestinians
Across the Jordan,' the intent of the present Israeli
government is to seize upon either a US military attack
on Iraq, aimed at overthrowing Saddam Hussein, or a
serious attack inside Israel to launch a 'mass transfer'
of more than two million Palestinians living in the West
Bank and Gaza, across the river into Jordan.
'Should such circumstances arise,' Van Creveld wrote in
the April 28, 2002 issue of Conrad Black's Sunday
Telegraph, 'then Israel would mobilise with lightening
speed--even now, much of its male population is on
standby.'
He spelled out a precise order of battle for the 'mass
transfer,' although he wrote of his own personal
opposition to the Sharon scheme: 'First, the country's
three ultra-modern submarines would take up firing
positions out at sea. Borders would be closed, a news
blackout imposed, and all foreign journalists rounded up
and confined to a hotel as guests of the Government.'
He continued, 'A force of 12 divisions, 11 of them
armoured, plus various territorial units suitable for
occupation duties, would be deployed: five against
Egypt, three against Syria, and one opposite Lebanon.
This would leave three to face east as well as enough
forces to put a tank inside every Arab-Israeli village just
in case their populations get any funny ideas.
'The expulsion of the Palestinians would require only a
few brigades. They would not drag people out of their
houses but use heavy artillery to drive them out; the
damage caused to Jenin would look like a pinprick in
comparison.'
Van Creveld estimated that none of the Arab states
would respond militarily to the Israeli move, adding,
'Should Saddam be mad enough to resort to weapons
of mass destruction, then Israel's response would be so
`awesome and terrible' (as Yitzhak Shamir, the former
prime minister once said) as to defy the imagination.'
There is no question that this was a direct reference to
an Israeli use of nuclear weapons against Iraq.
He added, 'Israeli military experts estimate that such a
war could be over in just eight days.'
Van Creveld concluded that only the United States could
stop such an Israeli doomsday scenario from playing out,
and right now, chances are slim to nil that America will
step in to stop Israel, which is seen by Bush as a major
ally in the 'war on terrorism.' After Bush's June 25
speech, copies of Van Creveld's article were taken from
the files and studied, intensively, by many Arab military
and intelligence commanders, according to a
well-informed Egyptian source.
Deadly Arsenal
The scale of the Israeli nuclear weapons program is
vast, and has now been qualitatively transformed, by
Israel's acquisition of three German-made diesel
powered submarines, which, according to a recent study
by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, are
armed with nuclear warheads on Cruise missiles.
Carnegie published a report early in June 2002, detailing
the Israeli nuclear weapons program. That booklength
report on global nuclear weapons proliferation, Deadly
Arsenals--Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction,
included an entire chapter on Israel's nuclear, chemical
and biological weapons program.
The authors wrote, 'Probably the most important
nuclear-related development in Israel is the formation of
its sea-based nuclear arm. By July 2000 Israel completed
taking delivery of all three of the Dolphin-class
submarines it had ordered at the
Thyssen-Nordseewerke shipyard in Kiel, Germany. In
doing so, it is widely believed, Israel moved significantly
toward acquiring a survivable second-strike nuclear
capability. All indications are that Israel is on the way to
finalizing a restructuring of its nuclear forces into a triad,
like the United States.
'Since the early 1980s (and probably even earlier) the
Israeli navy (jointly with other governmental agencies)
lobbied hard for the notion that Israel should build a
small fleet of modern diesel submarines for `strategic
purposes,' an Israeli euphemism for a sea-launched
nuclear capability... It is also believed (but not
confirmed) that the most sensitive aspect of the project,
the cruise-missile technology that renders the diesel
submarines nuclear-capable launching platforms, was
developed and built in Israel...
According to one report in the London Sunday Times, by
early 2000 Israel had carried out the first launching tests
of its cruise missiles.'
The Carnegie study concluded, 'A fleet of three
submarines is believed to be the minimum that Israel
needs to have a deployment at sea of one
nuclear-armed submarine at all times.'
The fact that Israel has achieved a deployable nuclear
triad was advertised in a June 15 report in the
Washington Post, under the headline, 'Israel Has
Submarine-Based Atomic Arms Capability.'Arab News
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