Report: Carter confirms Israel's nukes

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"Jimmy Carter reportedly acknowledged Israel's nuclear arsenal.

The Sunday Times of London quoted the former U.S. president as saying during a weekend appearance at a British literary festival that Israel has 150 nuclear weapons.

The report did not provide direct quotes from Carter's speech, which took place Sunday and which dealt with U.S. policies toward Iran and the Palestinians.

If Carter did indeed discuss Israel's military nuclear capabilities, it would mark an unprecedented departure from a longstanding "don't ask, don't tell" policy on the issue.

Israel is widely assumed to have amassed nuclear weapons since the 1960s, but neither confirms nor denies the arsenal's existence under an "ambiguity" strategy."

http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/108748.html

[sellitman]

1. If they didn't have them they wouldn't be.

Just a sad fact.

[azurnoir]

2. If Israel used them they would not be either

unless of course you are talking about nuking Tehran or maybe Dubai. Perhaps a recheck of a map is necessary because there is this proximity problem when it comes to Damascus, Beirut, and Amman perhaps Cairo is their target, the Sinai and Negev make a nice buffer zone.

[sharesunited]

3. Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep it a secret.

Why didn't you tell za verld, eh?!

[Igel]

4. The extent of the confirmation depends on his sources.

If it's based on some previously published source, then it's not an independent confirmation; it's merely one man's endorsement of another's conclusion. Eh.

If it's based on knowledge he obtained as president or as ex-president, then it's as good as that knowledge--and we have him leaking classified information. We can't evaluate how good his confirmation is without knowing the reliability of his source--and then we'd have to wonder about changes in Israel's nuclear inventory since then.

If it's based on knowledge that the Israelis recently provided to him, then he's broken a promise, implicit or explicit.

You can continue to add possibilities--Israeli off-the-record leak, his personal research, information provided by Palestinians, etc., etc.

Only if we buy into Carter's omniscience does do we not require any additional information.

[Disturbed]

5. Why is it so important that Israeli Nukes be kept secret?

Mordechai Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 years in solitary confinement. Vanunu was released from prison in 2004, subject to a broad array of restrictions on his speech and movement. Since then he has been briefly arrested several times for violations of those restrictions, including giving various interviews to foreign journalists and attempting to leave Israel.

http://www.counterpunch.org/goodman08182004.html

http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/8839

http://www.peaceheroes.com/MordecaiVanunu/mvanunu.htm

"I have sacrificed my freedom and risked my life in order to expose the danger of nuclear weapons which threatens this whole region." --- Mordechai Vanunu

[bemildred]

6. Olmert admits Israel has nuclear weapons

A decades-long silence about Israel's possession of nuclear weapons has been broken in an apparent slip of the tongue by the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, during a visit to Europe.

However, his admissions has sparked controversy at home, where one of his ministers urged a return to silence about the country's nuclear capabilities.

"I would suggest that all those who want to talk about the issue, for God's sake and for the sake of Israel's security, stop it," said the Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer.

Currently visiting Germany, Mr Olmert appeared to admit in an interview on Monday with a German television station that Israel was among the states that possess an atomic bomb.

http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:4m0Az8NTUdwJ:www.telegraph.co.uk/news/migrationtemp/1536692/Olmert-admits-Israel-has-nuclear-weapons.html+olmert+nuclear+weapons&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=us

[Scurrilous]

7. Nuclear exposure on the River Wye

<snip>

"Of all the places in the world, Jimmy Carter chose a book fair on the banks of the River Wye in Wales as the spot from which to put an official end to Israel's nuclear ambiguity. One cannot exaggerate the importance of the former American president's statement that Israel has 150 nuclear bombs. More than all the estimates and leaks about the Israeli nuclear program over the past five decades, Carter's comments on Sunday give official cachet to Israel's status as a nuclear power.

This time the speaker is not another scientist basing his assessments on calculations of the output from the Dimona reactor, or a news report with an unclear source. Israel's nuclear weapons arsenal is being revealed by a former American president, someone who, upon entering the White House, adopted the policy of covert American nuclear cooperation with Israel, which was formulated four decades ago.

The principles of the nuclear understandings between Israel and the United States were agreed upon in 1969, when prime minister Golda Meir met with U.S. president Richard Nixon in Washington. That was the first time the United States officially accepted Israel's status as a nuclear power, while agreeing not to publicly reveal details about its weapons. Israel committed not to carry out nuclear testing or declare that it has nuclear weapons. For their part, the Americans promised not to pressure Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Every American president since, and every senior administration official who knew the details of the Israeli nuclear program, kept silent and effectively adopted Israel's official policy: that it would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. Now Carter comes along and changes the rules of the game. After all, he doesn't need to rely on foreign sources or unproven conjecture. When he served as president, he knew exactly what Israel had in its storehouses. Jimmy Carter is not guessing or estimating. He knows."

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