Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons

[friendly_iconoclast]

Source: Guardian (UK)

Exclusive: Secret apartheid-era papers give first official evidence of Israeli nuclear weapons


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.

The Israeli authorities tried to stop South Africa's post-apartheid government declassifying the documents at Polakow-Suransky's request and the revelations will be an embarrassment, particularly as this week's nuclear non-proliferation talks in New York focus on the Middle East...

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

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This will surely haywire the non-proliferation talks.

[aquart]

1. "Three sizes, " huh? Neat.

I have three sizes of emerald sitting next to me right now: Big as your head, big as your hand, and only as big as your left testicle. Now let's talk about price.

[tabatha]

2. PW was a nasty piece of shite, like Cheney.

[friendly_iconoclast]

3. And Peres was perfectly willing to do a deal with him. NT

[Junkdrawer]

4. K&R

[dipsydoodle]

5. K & R

.

[xchrom]

6. Recommend

[Pavulon]

7. Shitty writing, not just in the US.

at no point does the document detail nuclear weapon transfer or clearly detail anything. Missile design, payload, but no discussion of yield or anything directly related to nuclear weapons.

[Wilms]

9. From the article:

The top secret minutes of the meeting record that: "Minister Botha expressed interest in a limited number of units of Chalet subject to the correct payload being available." The document then records: "Minister Peres said the correct payload was available in three sizes. Minister Botha expressed his appreciation and said that he would ask for advice." The "three sizes" are believed to refer to the conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons.

The use of a euphemism, the "correct payload", reflects Israeli sensitivity over the nuclear issue and would not have been used had it been referring to conventional weapons. It can also only have meant nuclear warheads as Armstrong's memorandum makes clear South Africa was interested in the Jericho missiles solely as a means of delivering nuclear weapons.

In addition, the only payload the South Africans would have needed to obtain from Israel was nuclear. The South Africans were capable of putting together other warheads.

[Pavulon]

11. Believed IE not stated. This is not church (nt)

[Chulanowa]

23. It's a logical conclusion

States don't tend to engage in ultra-secret negotiations and thick euphemism when talking about conventional arms.

[tabatha]

32. Yes, the South Africans

were quite capable of building arms - they even exported them and may still do so today.

[UndertheOcean]

8. k&R n/t

[McCamy Taylor]

10. Was Kissinger behind this? It was his idea to arm Pakistan. U.S. and Israel

are bosom buddies when it comes to foreign military policy. If Israel felt safe in offering nukes to South Africa, you have to wonder if Nixon/Kissinger/Ford had signalled that South Africa was a special friend.

[New Dawn]

12. Kick for truth.

[starroute]

13. This is why Jack Abramoff was promoting S. Africa in the 80's

Back when Abramoff was running the College Republicans, he also headed a group that later turned out to be a front for the South African apartheid regime, the International Freedom Foundation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Freedom_Foundation)

The Wikipedia article manages to give an account of the IFF at some length without ever mentioning the Israeli/South African ties at the period -- but you can bet there's no other reason why Abramoff would have been involved.

There were some very strange connections going on during that period, and much of it has yet to come out.

[Heywood J]

14. Always nice to see the Israelis doing back-door discussions

with the Apartheid regime. To sell them nuclear weapons to be used against neighboring states, no less! Among other things, this would seem to change the odds on whether the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident">Vela incident was a real nuclear test.

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.

I'll bet they considered it sensitive material! How long will it take before someone/something is called "anti-Semitic" for disclosing this? That seems to be standard procedure these days.

[McCamy Taylor]

16. But what if Israel was just the broker and the U.S. wanted South Africa armed?

Nixon ended the arms embargo to South Africa and started trading with them despite opposition from the U.S. in 1971. Would not Israel get the hint that South Africa was considered to be of strategic military interest to the U.S.?

Israel has its faults, but people are quick to blame them for bad ideas that originate in our own Washington D.C.

[Heywood J]

25. Considering what happened in other governments the US dealt with

in the 1970s, trading directly with Apartheid SA doesn't seem like so much of a stretch they would need an intermediary.

[iandhr]

15. I am sorry...

if it has nuclear weapons, it is a "responsible" power that would not misuse them, whereas countries such as Iran cannot be trusted.

This makes sense. Israel is reasonable for one they do not threaten to wipe anyone off the face of this earth. c

[yurbud]

17. so Israel was peddling nukes to tyrants...isn't that the very definition of nuclear proliferation?

[Oerdin]

18. Very old news.

The old White Minority government in South Africa had something like five nuclear weapons and they cooperated with Israel during the 1960's and 70's so that they both could develop nuclear weapons. They even did a nuclear test in the ocean south east of South Africa in the 1970's when they thought American and Soviet satellites weren't watching but the Americans caught them. Neither country were signatories to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty at the time though (now South Africa is but Israel still isn't). One of the last acts of the White Minority government was to deactivate South Africa's nuclear weapons program and ship the five nuclear weapons to the US for dismantling. F.W. DeClerk said it would be a cold day in hell before he allowed blacks to control nuclear weapons. A true story.

[panzerfaust]

29. Confirmation, if true, is New News

[BreweryYardRat]

19. That's...impressively stupid and greedy of the Israelis.

Jews...willing to sell Nazi-inspired racists nuclear weapons.

What's wrong with this picture?

[Wilms]

21. Israel does not officially recognize the Armenian Genocide.

Yep. "Impressive".

[Chulanowa]

24. And it's American allies wish to scrub others from the Holocaust, as well

Took forever for the Porjamos to get a mention at the Holocaust Museum, for instance.

[Scurrilous]

20. K & R

:thumbsup:

[NNN0LHI]

22. Anyone remember when a couple of nuclear tests were done off of SA and no one knew what happened?

About 30 years ago?

Don

[Heywood J]

26. Yes. That was 1979.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident has a link to the official report and other interesting pages.

[howaboutme]

27. Will it be covered in detail by CNN and Wolf Blitzer?

Will this blatant effort at nuclear proliferation be covered by USA major media? If not why not?

[smalll]

28. Why, those evil Israelis --- we should drive them into the sea!

:eyes:

Look, this was 35 years ago -- South Africa was (and Israel continues to be) a pariah nation. Pariah nations make deals amongst themselves.

Somehow, I suspect you have no problems with Iran, North Korea and Chavez's Venezuela buddying up in the here and now. Something just gives me that feeling. :shrug:

[howard112211]

30. Congratulations to crying anti-semitism in a discussion that offers zero justification for it.

[friendly_iconoclast]

31. FWIW, you named three governments I don't trust with sharp scissors.

Run by:

a) a messianic theocracy
b) a guy whose dad gave him his job, and is doing his level best to channel Benito Mussolini
c) a half-ass rerun of Juan Peron

Now that we've got that out of the way, can we discuss South Africa and Israel's attempt at nuclear proliferation?