How Israel offered to sell South Africa the bomb

[tomm2thumbs]

Source: Guardian UK

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.

The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.



The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence.

<snip>

The existence of Israel's nuclear weapons programme was revealed by Mordechai Vanunu to the Sunday Times in 1986. He provided photographs taken inside the Dimona nuclear site and gave detailed descriptions of the processes involved in producing part of the nuclear material but provided no written documentation.

Documents seized by Iranian students from the US embassy in Tehran after the 1979 revolution revealed the Shah expressed an interest to Israel in developing nuclear arms. But the South African documents offer confirmation Israel was in a position to arm Jericho missiles with nuclear warheads.

Israel pressured the present South African government not to declassify documents obtained by Polakow-Suransky. "The Israeli defence ministry tried to block my access to the Secment agreement on the grounds it was sensitive material, especially the signature and the date," he said. "The South Africans didn't seem to care; they blacked out a few lines and handed it over to me. The ANC government is not so worried about protecting the dirty laundry of the apartheid regime's old allies."



* correct title on main Guardian page is noted above. The title on article page reads: 'Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons'

Link to documents:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclear-documents



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/23/israel-south-africa-nuclear-weapons

---

adjusted to new story as dupe of earlier story still went to front page

[aquart]

1. Tall, grande, venti. You can sell anything you don't have.

As long as nobody looks. Show me the inspection. Riiiiiiiiiiight.

[JohnyCanuck]

2. So the Israeli government was supporting

a vile, racist regime in South Africa and apparently willing to do so to the extent of offering to sell them some nukes from their own secret stockpile of nuclear weapons. I am so shocked!:sarcasm:

[formercia]

3. There was a quid pro quo.

Israel needed a location to test its own weapons that would be difficult to detect. South Africa had a remote island that fit the bill.

[Soylent Brice]

4. just wow.

[malaise]

9. Don't forget Jimmy Carter

said that Israel is practicing apartheid.

Nothing surprises me anymore.

[snagglepuss]

13. +1

[Soylent Brice]

5. Israel selling nukes to apartheid master race style regime.

MOST IRONIC SHIT EVER.

[Christa]

6. How the UK gave Israel the bomb

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2005/aug/04/energy.past

Britain secretly supplied the 20 tons of heavy water to Israel nearly half a century ago which enabled it to make nuclear weapons, according to Whitehall documents which have been discovered at the Public Records Office.

Officials in the Macmillan government deliberately concealed the deal from the US, according to the files, which were discovered by BBC Newsnight and broadcast last night.

[Shining Jack]

7. Other countries gave a little help too,

Mostly France:

"France launched Israel on the nuclear path in the late 1950s by building the Dimona reactor, which is still the source of Israel's plutonium--its main nuclear weapon fuel. The reactor's heavy water, essential to achieve a chain reaction, was supplied by Norway in 1959. In 1963, when the reactor started operation, the United States supplied four more tons of heavy water."

"In 1986, Francis Perrin, high commissioner of the French atomic energy agency from 1951 to 1970, was quoted in the press as saying that France and Israel had worked closely together for two years in the late 1950s to design an atom bomb. Perrin said that the United States had agreed that the French scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project could apply their knowledge at home provided they kept it secret. But then, Perrin said, "We considered we could give the secrets to Israel provided they kept it a secret themselves."

http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/israel/nuke.html

[mikelgb]

8. hmm I wonder what other countries or groups made deals

[tomm2thumbs]

10. seems significant enough to me

wonder why it was moved

[tomm2thumbs]

11. sorry, replied to wrong comment - nevermind

[tomm2thumbs]

12. dupe

[arbusto_baboso]

14. Sorry, but they didn't just "offer".

I'm firmly convinced that South Africa has the bomb right now.

[Scurrilous]

15. K & R

:thumbsup: