Flash From the Past: Why an Apparent Israeli Nuclear Test In 1979 Matters Today

Lasrick writes: Stanford's Leonard Weiss writes about growing evidence that Israel and South Africa cooperated on nuclear weapons testing in the 1970s, and in fact conducted a test: "On September 22, 1979, a US satellite code-named Vela 6911, which was designed to look for clandestine atmospheric nuclear tests and had been in operation for more than 10 years, recorded a double flash in an area where the South Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean, off the coast of South Africa. The detection immediately triggered a series of steps in which analysts at national labs in the United States informed their superiors that the recorded signal had all the earmarks of a nuclear test... The event has been a subject of controversy ever since, but is now recognized by most analysts as the detection of an Israeli nuclear test with South African logistical cooperation." Weiss goes through the history of the investigation and new evidence that has come to light, and relates it to the rhetoric surrounding Iran's nuclear energy program and the recent agreement Iran struck with the P5+1, as well as to efforts for a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East. Terrific cloak-and-dagger read with plenty of technical details.

Comments

Israel hasn't vowed to "wipe Iran off the map"

[Anonymous Coward]

Nor does Israel murder Iranians in Argentina.

Why?

Because Judaism doesn't have the concept of dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb, nor does Judaism demand death or conversion for all kafirs .

Re:Israel hasn't vowed to "wipe Iran off the map"

[Anonymous Coward]

Nor does Israel murder Iranians in Argentina.

Why?

Because Judaism doesn't have the concept of dar al-Islam and dar al-Harb, nor does Judaism demand death or conversion for all kafirs .

This is the difference. Liberal anti-Semites can't seem to wrap their heads around this concept. Israel wants to be left alone in peace; Muslim countries are hell-bent on destroying Israel. Also note: if Israel has had nukes since the 70's as this is claiming, funny how they've never used them, even in defense at this point? Compare that to Muslim countries' vows to eradicate Israel at any possible opportunity. Who do you think is more responsible with nuclear technology?

Re:Israel hasn't vowed to "wipe Iran off the map"

[Anonymous Coward]

Who would israel use nukes against? Only a fool would nuke your neighbors, even if they hate you.

Why does the US and UN continue to allow Israel to have them? They don't really need the weapons, they can't use them in anyway without starting a massive war that will basically eliminate their country.

By having the weapons, it causes their neighbors to want them to keep forces equal. So you have fucking crazy states like Iran constantly trying to even the playing field with Israel.

The only reason I can see for Israel to have them is leverage over the US and other countries. As long as their nukes exist (or everyone thinks they exist), there's a kind of cold war that can be easily sparked into actual war, so the US, UN, etc can't unilaterally do anything to either side without potentially sparking an even bigger war.

Since Israel is one of the bigger powers in the region, this unstableness prevents the larger powers from getting involved and gives more slack to do what they want.

(this isn't meant to be anti-israel rant, just a theory. I'm generally pro Israel as a western style democracy in an otherwise fucked up region of the world).

The nukes are Israel's doomsday weapon aimed at the leaders of the Muslim countries surrounding them. Those nukes say this to those leaders:

"If you follow through on your Islamic tenets and try to reclaim this little bit of dar al-Harb for the greater glory of your Prophet, you personally are going to disappear in a blinding white flash of light. And all your cities will be glassed-over desert."

If you don't know what dar al-Harb is, you don't understand the fundamental nature of the Arab/Israeli war - Israel's very existence is an insult to Islam. Israel is surrounded by a few hundred million people living in a culture that makes right-wing abortion clinic bombers look downright sane. I dare you to try to identify another culture in the history of humanity that actually openly celebrates the murder of innocent civilians like way too many Muslims did on 9/11. Other cultures might kill innocents, but there's always reluctance to accept it and some sort of rationale used to justify it. But not Islam - Muslims were literally dancing in the streets on 9/11.

Honor killing where fathers murder their own daughters.

Execution of homosexuals.

Islam needs to grow the fuck up.

Re:Israel hasn't vowed to "wipe Iran off the map"

[Anonymous Coward]

If Israel wants to be left alone, perhaps they should stop their policy of murdering innocent civilians and building homes in areas that don't belong to them.

Re:Israel hasn't vowed to "wipe Iran off the map"

[CanHasDIY]

Israeli doctrine allows for unprovoked attacks on neighboring countries.

Re:Israel hasn't vowed to "wipe Iran off the map"

[rbrander]

I'm trying to remember what Iraq did to provoke the bombing of Osirak ... I think they built something that might eventually have allowed the development of nuclear parity.

Re:Israel hasn't vowed to "wipe Iran off the map"

[Anonymous Coward]

Too what extremist christian sect are you referring....I am sick and tired of hearing this as an argument. Please, citation, what modern christian group has danced around in the streets because innocent civilians where killed? ....Im waiting....I really want to hear your response....

Re:Israel hasn't vowed to "wipe Iran off the map"

[dinfinity]

I dare you to try to identify another culture in the history of humanity that actually openly celebrates the murder of innocent civilians

Didn't the US have a little problem with lynching in the past?
But I guess you're going to say all those blacks were criminals, right? No white supremacist would ever just want to see black guys dead, 'guilty' or not.

The thing you have to realize is that almost all humans are very, very good at dehumanizing their out groups (i.e.: the 'not us' people), to the extent that there are no innocents among those groups (hell, they're not even human. They're 'less than dogs').

'The only good [x] is a dead [x]' isn't just some farcical mythological exclamation, it is deeply ingrained in our biology. It takes hard work to build up civilization to prevent that instinct from surfacing and even then that layer of civilization is very thin and easily destroyed.

Muslims were literally dancing in the streets on 9/11

If I'm not mistaken, there are no records of Muslims in the biggest Muslim nation on earth (Indonesia) dancing in the streets because of 9/11, nor do I believe that American Muslims did so. Ask yourself what the difference is between the dancing ones and the non-dancing ones and their relation to the US (and their relationship with Israel). I'm not saying they are right to hate the US or excusing them for it, just that their human capability for hating enemies and disregarding the humanity of those killed in 9/11 is fueled by that relation, not by the specific religion they were brought up with.

I don't know if you've looked at the ongoings in central and southern Africa in the last couple of decades, but I'm pretty sure there have been some pretty horrendously acting Christians there as well: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/afr...

Bottom line:
Humans don't need a lot to deeply hate an entire group of people and rather see them die than live.

Re:Israel hasn't vowed to "wipe Iran off the map"

[Runaway1956]

The Japanese in World War Two had dehumanized themselves to the point that NO ONE GAVE A FUCK about 300,000 civilians. Have you bothered to READ SOME HISTORY?!?! Open a google search, and enter "rape of nanking". Go ahead, you can do it. Try to distinguish between the more authoritative and historical links, as opposed to simple minded propaganda. Yes, look for the actual numbers of people killed by beasts in Imperial uniforms. Tossing babies into the air, and catching them on bayonets, then tossing them to another soldier to catch on his bayonet. Raping any female large enough to accept an adult penis, and maybe cutting a hole large enough if the girl wasn't large enough.

The Imperial army and navy had to be DEFEATED, and the civilians were in the way.

You can bitch and whine about those civilians - but if the shoe were on the other foot, no one would be mourning the loss of our parents and grandparents after the Japanese bombed Los Angeles, or New York, or any other city.

In short, you can blow it out your ass.

Re:Israel hasn't vowed to "wipe Iran off the map"

[dinfinity]

And why the fuck are we supposed to specifically differentiate Indonesian Muslims

You don't have to, but you are proving my point exactly: Humans don't need a lot to deeply hate an entire group of people. I showed you ~220 million members of a group who did not engage in celebrating the deaths of 9/11 (and are generally quite peaceful) and you respond by implying that they and all other members of their group will do terrible things to naive people. If that's not blind hatred of an out group, then I'm not sure what would qualify as such.

Likening unrelated and dissimilar historical circumstances is a red herring.

I was providing the exact thing that was requested: "I dare you to try to identify another culture in the history of humanity that actually openly celebrates the murder of innocent civilians"
I identified (granted: implicitly) white supremacist culture as one that has quite undoubtedly openly celebrated the murder of innocent civilians. QED.

Re:Israel hasn't vowed to "wipe Iran off the map"

[nbauman]

There are 0 Israelis who live in Gaza. There are 0 settlements in Gaza. All the Gazan Israeli wars of the last 10 years wars have been Gaza attacking Israel.

They tried taking the high road, the Gazans still won't accept living in Gaza and not Israel.

Gaza is surrounded on all sides by a blockade which doesn't allow them to import or export any significant goods, or leave and come back to a university, for example. It reminds a lot of Jews, including me, of the Warsaw Ghetto.

A blockade is an act of war. A people have a right to defend themselves against an attack.

The people who are firing those missiles and making those attacks are usually not controlled by Hamas, but are smaller militant factions, which don't want peace with Israel and often sabotage the peace efforts.

Israel claims that those militant factions are the "responsibility" of Hamas. If that's true, then logically, the Israeli government is responsible for the illegal land grabs and killings by the settlers, for example, but I can't remember an Israeli prosecution of settlers for killing Palestinians.

Israel would also be responsible for the illegal killings of civilians during the Gaza wars, including the "white flag" incidents where Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians, including children, who came out carrying a white flag as ordered (documented in the Goldstone report), but Israel has never prosecuted a solider for killing a Palestinian, or even admitted that it happened.

Re:Israel hasn't vowed to "wipe Iran off the map"

[nbauman]

It reminds a lot of Jews, including me, of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Between 1940 when it was established and mid-1942 when the uprising started the 1,125 calories a day allocation caused over 1/5th of the population of the Warsaw Ghetto to starve to death. When the first uprising happened the Germans killed another 10% of the population within 3 months are exported the remaining population to death camps.

In Gaza the death toll from multiple uprisings is around 1/4%. The starvation is not remotely similar. It is an obscenity to compare the Warsaw Ghetto to If you are a Jew, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for saying something like that.

I read Emanuel Ringelblum's Warsaw Ghetto diaries, and I read the Amnesty International reports of Israeli human rights abuses. I read the accounts of how ambulances took pregnant Palestinian women to the border crossings, where the Israeli border guards forced them to get out and wait, until they delivered their babies at the crossing, where many of the children (and some of the mothers) died. I read a story of how a 50-year-old Palestinian man with a heart attack arrived at the border crossing, trying to get to an Israeli hospital, and the border guards wouldn't let him through, and he died. My father had a heart attack at the same age, he went to the hospital, and he lived another 20 years. I used to call the Israeli public relations office to verify these stories, and they simply lied. I saw many uncomfortable similarities between what I read in Ringelblum's diaries and what I read (and verified) in the Amnesty International report.

When I grew up, people used to say, "How could the world stand by silently when Jews were being killed?" Well, now you know. Palestinians are being killed, just as the world, including you, are standing by silently. I made a vow that if it ever happened again, I wouldn't stand by silently. That's why so many Jews led the opposition to the Vietnam war (and to every war).

If you are a Jew, or even if you're not, you should be ashamed to stand by silently while Palestinians are being killed.

Gaza is surrounded on all sides by a blockade which doesn't allow them to import or export any significant goods, or leave and come back to a university, for example.

Gaza has declared a state of war. The parent asserted that the Palestinians were interested in peace but the settlement enterprise prevented it. Gaza has no settlement enterprise.

I don't think Gaza declared a state of war, but I do know that immediately after -- at American and Israeli urging -- they had their elections, and Hamas won, the Israelis blockaded most of Gaza's imports and exports. There was no provocation. According to the Israelis themselves, they're deliberately keeping the Gazans in a state of "starvation." The doctors on the ground say that they're not getting enough food, medical supplies and other necessities. I remember Ringelblum saying that when the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto complained that they weren't allowed enough food, one of the arrogant Nazi officers said, "You Jews are very clever, you can smuggle in all the food you need." (The penalty for smuggling was death.) I saw the Israelis brag about the inadequate food they were supplying, and that's when the similarity to the Warsaw Ghetto became stark.

If that's true, then logically, the Israeli government is responsible for the illegal land grabs and killings by the settlers [in the West Bank], for example

I don't know how something that the operating government permits can be "illegal"

After WWII, a movement of international lawyers -- led in large part by Jewish lawyers, motivated by the example of the Nazi crimes -- wrote a body of law to make these activities illegal. Those were codified in the Geneva Conventions and other international laws. Even the Israeli government's own lawyers, such as Theodor

Apartheid

[Anonymous Coward]

Two apartheid states working hand-in-hand. Quelle surprise.

Re:Apartheid

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it would. But they're not going to get one if every single time they're under threat we treat it as a simplistic game of bad guys vs good guys.

The entire existence of Israel is itself a cause of a number of issues that nobody's willing to address, and which itself causes hatred - not that the hatred is right, but let's not pretend that things would somehow be exactly the same if the Palestinian death rate wasn't so high, if conspiracy theories about their existence weren't treated as historical fact by so many pro-Israelis, and if Israel hadn't been clearing people out of their homes to make way for Israeli settlers since the early 1970s.

I don't think Apartheid is quite the right term. I'd prefer to compare Israel's political attitude to that of Britain after the conquest of Ireland. Few people are pro-IRA, just as few are pro-Palestinian terrorism, but seriously guys, Israel, you are following the worst example of a country trying to protect its borders in history. You KNOW what happened to the UK and to the Irish people as a result, yet this is your model?

Re:Apartheid

[caseih]

A complicated and nuanced situation that's not nearly so clear-cut as you maintain.

If you get a chance, it's very much worth a visit to Israel and Palestine. Will give you a chance to see how things really are on the ground. Palestinians who live within the green line (pre-1967 boundaries) are as you say Israeli citizens that the Israelis call Israeli Arabs. They can vote, and they have relative freedom of movement. However they are treated by many as second-class citizens. The Knesset system is badly broken and as such doesn't really represent people, Jewish or Arab, since seats are apportioned according to a party's percentage of the popular vote. Arab MKs are often marginalized by government. They have never been a part of the government coalitions as far as I know. Israeli Arabs feel like the Israeli government favors Jewish school districts and cities when it comes to funding. In some parts of Israel, such as around Haifa, there has been relatively good integration between Palestinian and Jewish villages and neighbors. But in other parts of the Galilee things are often tense.

In the West Bank, Palestinians are not Israeli citizens, and crossing Israel to get to Gaza to see relatives has always been a difficult task. The vast majority of Palestinians live in the West Bank and aren't citizens, though Israel very much controls their movements.

Inside Jerusalem, things are the most apartheid. Though Israel has annexed Jerusalem, none of the Palestinians there have been granted citizenship. Also, they are not considered residents of the West Bank by the Israelis either. So while a Palestinian in the west bank can travel from one part to another, Palestinians in Jerusalem cannot travel anywhere without getting Israeli paperwork. It's the worst of both worlds. Israel acts like Palestinian Jerusalem residents are favored, but in reality they are more restricted.

So I can understand how people draw parallels between apartheid in SA and Israel. The situation is very much the same. The demographics is why Israel can never annex the west bank too, as doing so would absolutely make them just like SA.

And Carter was one of the good ones

[rmdingler]

Imposing sanctions on Israel, on the other hand, would be a political disaster, involving a major loss of support for the administration among the Jewish diaspora in the United States, an important political constituency for Carter and the Democratic Party. For all these reasons, the administration was highly motivated to offer some explanation other than a nuclear test for the Vela event and to hide, suppress, or otherwise soft-pedal information and evidence to the contrary—in other words, to engage in a cover-up.

Of course there's no way around it, but how might the World look if elected officials didn't put personal considerations ahead of national or earthly considerations.

Hardly the only example

[StevenMaurer]

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building."

- Anne Coulter

Please consider that just for a minute. Imagine if some commentator said "My only regret with Osama bin Laden is he didn't order the planes to fly into the Wall Street Journal." Would they then be welcome on news programs, asked their opinion, sell hundreds of thousands of books, and basically be a spokesperson for ideologically "pure" members of the Democratic party, instead of being rightfully shunned?

You need to open your eyes a little. One of the reason why blacks don't clutch their pearls quite so much over the relatively microscopic handful of terrorist deaths in the U.S., is because they've suffered terrorism for a century: the KKK burning crosses on their front yards, lynchings, and racist police on a hair-trigger, murdering completely innocent people and planting evidence (and getting off scott free, even when the evidence comes to light). But see, terrorism don't matter when it's just black lives being lost - at least not for the millions that Coulter, Rush, and many other mainstream Republicans. They don't even want to call it terrorism. White terrorists are all just "criminally insane", not like real terrorists - you know "them", "those people".

Re:Hardly the only example

[jodido]

You might also keep in mind that the KKK and the Democratic Party were pretty much the same thing, along with the sheriff and the rest of the cops.

Muslims VS Christians

[phorm]

And that sort of shit is really what burns my ass (and I`m not Muslim). Yes, some Muslims did stupid, terrible shit. In more recent ``Christian`` history, we have Kim Davis getting a standing ovation to fucking eye of the tiger after being jailed for multiple instances of contempt because she refused to marry gays like her fucking job says to (apparently it`s against her religion, while her 4 marriages and infidelity weren`t somehow)

And we conveniently forget that in Iran, the major reaction to 9-11 was not celebration but actually this, because they recognize that - regardless or religion - all lives are valuable and a terrible thing had happened. Despite that, some people still want to put Iran in the same camp as ISIS (guess who was fighting ISIS before the rest of us got involved), and major outlets like the New York Times had articles that advocate an unprovoked bombing of Iran as a better alternative than a peaceful settlement.

I`ve met some pretty terrible Muslims in my life. For the most part they were holier-than-thou assholes that thought that praying twice a day made them ``good people`` in spite of their conduct. I see the exact same shit from certain members of Christian churches, as well as Jews, etc. There will always be bad people out there, and there are plenty who would use their so-called religion or beliefs to pretend they are good whilst actually doing evil.