Revealing Israel's Nuclear Secrets

[Jefferson23]

The Pentagon Declassifies a Surprising 1987 Report

By Michael Karpin
Published March 25, 2015.



In early February, the Pentagon declassified a 386-page report from 1987, exposing for the first time ever the actual depth of top-secret military cooperation between the United States and Israel — including, amazingly, information about Israel’s unacknowledged nuclear program.

In view of the caustic tension that has increased lately between Washington and Jerusalem, the timing of the publication’s declassification, after a long legal process, might raise a few eyebrows. I have some knowledge about the build-up process of Israel’s nuclear capacity and after reading the report in question I must express my astonishment: I have never seen an official American document disclosing such extensive revelation on subjects that until now were regarded by both administrations as unspeakable secrets.

The report — titled “Critical Technological Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations” — describes in detail the march of Israeli military and technological advancement in the 1970s and 80s. The authors drew particular attention to the development and progression of Israel’s nuclear infrastructure and research labs.

The most surprising segment in the report states that the Israelis are “developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs. That is, codes which detail fission and fusion processes on a microscopic and macroscopic level.” In practice, this short expression confirms that in the eighties, Israeli scientists were reaching the capabilities to employ hydrogen fusion, possible creating the sort of bombs that are thought to be a thousand times more powerful than atom bombs.

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/217397/revealing-israels-nuclear-secrets/#ixzz3VRAD5ym8

[guillaumeb]

1. If the country name was replaced with any other Middle Eastern country

what would the US response be, and what would the GOP have to say about the "existential threat to world peace"?

The answer is obvious and reveals the utter hypocrisy of the GOP and the Democratic Party on this issue.

[Jefferson23]

2. The bigger question is why now is this declassified.

I believe one could safely call what Obama is doing as hardball.

[guillaumeb]

3. good point. Actions have consequences.

but in this geostrategic game Israel cannot lose in the long run because the President cannot really cut off funding to Israel. Congress and the media would go ballistic and frame it as an abandonment of one of the US's oldest and most reliable allies.

Unless or until Israel felt that the US would withhold money and support, I feel there will be no substantive change on the part of the Israeli government.

[Jefferson23]

4. I don't presume to know how things will end up. I only see a huge shift, for many reasons.

Israel has been given warnings before Bibi came to our congress and they have stomped on a sitting president in
an unprecedented manner. They have interfered in the Iran negotiations, so now they are seeing a push
back..how much further, I don't know. Maybe this will change, if not, then at the least they are being warned
to back off:

And 2012, 2012, you know, there was to be a meeting in Finland, December, to take steps towards establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region. This is an old request, pushed initially by Egypt and the other Arab states back in the early '90s. There's so much support for it that the U.S. formally agrees, but not in fact, and has repeatedly tried to undermine it. This is under the U.N. auspices, and the meeting was supposed to take place in December. Israel announced that they would not attend. The question on everyone’s mind is: How will Iran react? They said that they would attend unconditionally. A couple of days later, Obama canceled the meeting, claiming the situation is not right for it and so on. But that would be—even steps in that direction would be an important move towards eliminating whatever issue there might be. Of course, the stumbling block is that there is one major nuclear state: Israel. And if there’s a Middle East nuclear weapons-free zone, there would be inspections, and neither Israel nor the United States will tolerate that.

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/3/2/noam_chomsky_opposing_iran_nuclear_deal

Obama seems quite serious to me, never seen anything like it before. I have said before and I'll say
again, he does not want a war with Iran, he does want a deal and it is dumb to fuck around with
a president's legacy...he does not need to be re-elected.