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Israel Raises Nuclear Stakes:
ISRAEL AND INDIA TO ATTEMPT AGAIN TO
TAKE OUT PAKISTAN'S "MUSLIM" BOMB?
MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org
- Washington - 6/20/00:
The "peace process"
may be dominating the headlines; but it is the "arms race" -- including
its nuclear component -- which is also transforming the entire Middle East
region.
Even as the Israelis
push the U.N. into protecting its northern border, and even while intense
attempts are being made to consolidate the gains made in restricting the
Palestinians while Arafat remains alive, the Israeli military is racing
ahead with major new weapons systems to insure regional domination and
impose political will.
These first two articles
were published last weekend in the London Sunday Times, the same newspaper
that more than a decade ago first provided the public details of Israel's
extensive nuclear weapons capabilities.
And the third article,
this one from Ha'aretz about the still growing nuclear cooperation between
India and Israel, only hints at the extensive military ties the two countries
have had for some time, including still secret joint attempts in the past
to destroy Pakistan's nuclear capabilities.
FEARS OF NEW ARMS RACE AS ISRAEL TESTS CRUISE MISSILES
Uzi Mahnaimi and Peter Conradi
London Sunday Times,
18 June:
ISRAEL has test-fired
cruise missiles capable of carrying nuclear
warheads, fuelling
fears of an escalation in the Middle East arms
race.
Israeli defence sources
revealed that the tests, involving two
German-built Dolphin-class
submarines, took place last month off Sri
Lanka.
The Israeli-made missiles,
which were equipped with conventional
warheads, hit targets
at sea at a range of about 930 miles, they said.
Israel is the third
country - after America and Russia - to be able to
fire nuclear cruise
missiles from submarines.
The tests will alarm
Israel's neighbours and embarrass the German
government. It paid
for the £200m submarines to compensate for
Iraq's use of German-made
weapons against Israel during the Gulf
war. A third submarine
is expected to be operational within weeks.
Despite moves towards
Middle East peace, Israel remains concerned
about its vulnerability
to attack, particularly from Iran. Israeli
intelligence believes
Tehran will develop nuclear weapons within
two years.
Israel has never acknowledged
its nuclear programme, revealed by
The Sunday Times in
1986. However, its military planners are
believed to have produced
between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons.
Sources said these
included several 200kg warheads - each
containing 6kg of
plutonium - that could be mounted on cruise
missiles.
Israel already has
land and air-based nuclear weapons. It now plans
to equip each of the
three submarines, which have the advantage of
being almost impossible
to detect, with four cruise missiles.
Their ability to strike
back after a non-conventional attack on Israel
makes them a formidable
deterrent. Under a system of rotation, two
of the vessels will
remain at sea: one in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf,
the other in the Mediterranean.
A third would remain on standby.
The missiles could
be fired only after approval by four people: the
prime minister, defence
minister, chief of staff of the Israeli army and
the commander of the
navy.
The 1,720-ton diesel-electric
submarines, which are among the most
technically advanced
of their kind in the world, can remain at sea for
up to 30 days.
---------------
ISRAEL MAKES NUCLEAR WAVES WITH SUBMARINE MISSILE TEST
Uzi Mahnaimi and Matthew Campbell
London Sunday Times
- 18 June:
JUST as President
Bill Clinton is engaged in a bitter public debate
about how best to
defend America from missile attacks launched by
"rogue" countries
such as Iran, Israel's intensely secretive military
preparations against
the same threat have gone a stage further.
Israeli defence sources
claim the country has secretly carried out its
first test launches
from submarines of cruise missiles capable of
carrying nuclear warheads.
The launches last month from
German-built vessels
in the Indian Ocean were designed to simulate
swift retaliation
against a pre-emptive nuclear attack from Iran.
While Israel's generals
may be jubilant at the breakthrough - the
missile is said to
have hit a target more than 900 miles away - the
development raises
the worrying prospect of an escalation in the
Middle East's nuclear
arms race just as peace talks have been thrown
into uncertainty after
the death of President Hafez al-Assad of Syria.
According to Israeli
sources, the three Dolphin-class submarines will
give Israel a crucial
third pillar of nuclear defence to complement the
country's already
much-vaunted land and air ramparts. While the
Israelis' intention
of using the German submarines as roving nuclear
launch platforms had
long been suspected, few experts had expected
them to develop the
capability to fire submarine-based cruise
missiles so soon.
Planning for a submarine-launched
nuclear deterrent was accelerated
after reports in the
early 1990s by Mossad, the Israeli intelligence
service, that Iran
would be capable of staging a nuclear missile
attack against Israel
by 2000.
The latest Israeli
estimate has put that threat back by two years. But
uncertainty over Iran's
level of nuclear capability has not slowed
Israel's drive to
bolster its defences.
The Dolphin-class vessels
are among the most technically advanced
of their kind in the
world. They are twice as big as the 23-year-old
Gal-class submarines
that the Israeli navy has relied on to date.
Israel ordered the
submarines from Germany when it could not find
an American shipyard
to produce the diesel and electric-powered
vessels it needed,
according to Israeli sources.
In a sign of the sensitivity
of the project, elite crews have been
assembled to man them:
the 35 officers and men aboard each vessel
have been nicknamed
"force 700" because of the average 700 points
they scored in psychological
tests devised by the Israelis. The
scores are equivalent
to an IQ of 130-140. Another five specially
selected officers
solely responsible for the warheads will be added to
each vessel once the
missiles are operational.
America's supply of
military technology to Israel is a sensitive
political issue. Last
week there were calls in Washington for a cut in
aid to Israel unless
it cancelled the sale to China of a spy plane built
with American-supplied
technology. The Pentagon fears it could be
used against American
pilots.
Since achieving nuclear
capability in 1966, Israel has kept a hawkish
eye on its neighbours'
fumbling steps towards acquiring weapons of
mass destruction.
Its fears were dramatically
illustrated in 1981 when Menachem Begin,
then prime minister,
sent eight F-16 jet fighters to destroy a nuclear
reactor in Iraq in
an episode condemned around the world as
reckless military
adventurism.
In 1986, Mordechai
Vanunu, a former technician at the Dimona
nuclear reactor who
revealed secrets of Israel's programme to The
Sunday Times, was
kidnapped by Mossad and jailed. He remains
incarcerated.
A decade later, Israeli
fears appear to have proved well-founded.
Washington routinely
cites Iraqi and Iranian nuclear ambitions as
justification for
America's multi-billion-dollar missile defence system,
whose deployment may
be ordered by President Bill Clinton this
year.
America will not look
kindly on Israel's development of a remarkable
new military capability
at such a delicate stage in the peace process.
"This is certain to
irritate the Clinton administration," said a defence
analyst in Washington.
"It makes it that much harder to get
non-proliferation
to stick in the Middle East."
Despite a good personal
relationship between Clinton and Ehud
Barak, the Israeli
prime minister, relations between the two countries
have soured in recent
weeks. On top of reports of the extraordinary
extent of Israeli
espionage in Washington, Israel's proposed sale of
the spy plane to China
has outraged American congressmen.
Under a contract with
the Chinese, Israel Aircraft Industries has
installed a Phalcon
airborne early-warning system in a Russian-made
Ilyushin. China has
an option for three more such planes. American
officials say they
fear they will pose a threat to Taiwan - as much of
an American ally as
Israel - and upset the military balance. Relations
have been strained
further by other Israeli missile tests conducted
without advance warning
to the Pentagon. Last month the American
navy criticised Israel
for test-launching a Jericho ballistic missile off
its coast in April
when an American warship in the vicinity
momentarily thought
it was under attack.
Pentagon officials
said the missile landed about 40 miles from the
warship. "That's pretty
close for a missile that's not the most
accurate," said one
official, adding that this was the third time in two
years that Israel
had conducted "nonotice" missile tests near an
American warship.
------------------
INDIA'S VISITING STRONGMAN
WANTS TO
EXPAND NUCLEAR COOPERATION
WITH ISRAEL
By Yossi Melman
Ha'aretz, Friday 16 June 2000:
The task of hosting India's Minister
of the Interior fell on the shoulders of
Shimon Peres, Minister of Regional
Development, ostensibly because Public
Security Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami
is tied up in final status talks with the
Palestinians.
But the choice of Peres contained
more than a touch of coincidental
symbolism. The Indian and Israeli
ministers each are considered the
architects of their nation's nuclear
power.
Indian Interior Minister Lal Krishna
Advani arrived on Wednesday and met
Peres at the residence of India's
ambassador in Herzliya Pituach.
On his first day he also managed
to meet Mossad head Ephraim Halevi, and the
head of the Shin Bet security service,
Avi Dichter. Today he will see Prime
Minister Barak.
Not every visiting interior minister
managed to meet immediately (if ever)
the prime minister and the top
brass of Israel's secret services. This easily
illustrated the great importance
of the visit - but why?
It comes from a combination of factors
- Advani's special status at home, and
the strategic alliance that increasingly
has emerged between the two states,
which renewed diplomatic ties in
1994 after the Oslo agreements. Since then
the relationship has blossomed.
India is Israel's third largest
export market (after China and Turkey) for
arms and defense equipment - sales
amount to half a billion dollars and there
are programs for additional initiatives.
Scientists involved in developing
India's nuclear arms program visited Israel
and included A.P.J. Abdul Kalam,
science adviser to the prime minister.
Advani is the leader of the ruling
BJP (Bhartiya Janata) party. The Interior
Ministry is considered the second
post in the government after the prime
minister - because of India's vast
size (3 million sq.km. and a population of
one billion), the ministry commands
gigantic budgets and runs the police and
security services.
The heads of these forces arrived
with Advani and will meet for talks with
their counterparts from Israel's
police, Mossad and Army Intelligence.
As if this weren't enough, Advani
enjoys the status of government "strong
man." Fierce international opposition
and domestic fears at home prevented
him from becoming prime minister
when his party vanquished the Congress Party
in the 1996 elections. Advani stepped
aside and his fellow party member Atal
Bihari Vajpayee became prime minister.
Fear of Advani and the BJP derives
from their world view - hardline (Hindu)
religious nationalism. The party
and its leaders accumulated power and public
support in the early 1990s after
pledging to rebuild a Hindu temple in an
area wracked by conflict with Moslems.
The party philosophy is characterized
by a religious devotion, crude
nationalism, hostility to the Moslem
neighbor-enemy Pakistan, and bolstering
military power with a nuclear option..
In May 1998, the government of Vajpayee
and Advani rocked the world with
three nuclear tests - one of them
of the strength of a hydrogen bomb. This
set off a chain reaction in which
Pakistan responded with its first tests and
openly declared itself a nuclear
power.
A clear indication of his ideology
and Weltanschauung was audible in an
interview with Advani. Unlike other
visiting leaders, he did not hesitate to
express his views openly and bluntly,
even on such a sensitive matter as
nuclear cooperation. "Yes," he
said "I am in favor of cooperating with Israel
in all areas, especially the nuclear
field, and this should be strengthened."
(His aides, bidding to play down
the startling impression this statement
might impart hastened to emphasize
that he was not planning to visit Israel's
nuclear reactor at Dimona.)
Asked about past reports that the
two countries had drawn up a joint plan to
take out Pakistan's nuclear sites,
the minister said no. "India has no
offensive plans and nuclear cooperation
with Israel is not aimed against any
other state.
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