Israeli nuclear ambiguity as an illusion

[Jefferson23]

Recently revealed documents from the U.S. archive could be the trigger for Israel to change its policy on official recognition of a nuclear program.

Israel’s nuclear capability is an eternal “festive mystery,” the late Foreign Minister Abba Eban once said. According to the famous formula, what hasn’t been tested and exposed does not exist. Suspicions, conjectures, inferences and circumstantial evidence are not enough. As long as things are not seen with the naked eye or under a microscope – and not officially declared – Israel has no nuclear weapons.

The Director of Security for the Defense Establishment (DSDE, but known by the Hebrew acronym malmab), operates under the authority of the prime minister and defense minister, and enforces the zealous standards of secrecy for Dimona, the site of Israel’s nuclear reactor. The malmab’s policy of nuclear ambiguity, which swept up his superiors, the State Prosecutor’s Office and the courts, rules out the publication of anything in Israel that dares depart from the official line.

The concern is not necessarily about a leak, but a diplomatic avalanche. Publishing something would force the U.S. government to take a position on it, and there will also be those in Congress who would demand hostile legislation against Israel and an end to the mystery. To be convincing, the malmab and his associates covertly brandish classified materials.

However, the Office of the Historian at the U.S. Department of State recently revealed just how flimsy this strictness is. The White House does not get flustered by articles in the Israeli press, because even reports of CIA intelligence evaluations fail to set off chain reactions.

in full: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.566994#

[Jefferson23]

1. further:

The latest volume of declassified documents deals with Washington-Moscow relations during the Carter administration in the late 1970s. A war of espionage, subversion and propaganda existed between the two superpowers at the time, and they did not eschew technical means such as radiation and tunnel-digging. Sometimes, they did not even spare their agents – Malcolm Toon, the American ambassador who was transferred from Tel Aviv to Moscow in 1976, endorsed abandoning a U.S. spy who was caught and sentenced to death. Americans who volunteered to distribute books in Russia didn’t know the CIA paid for the printing.

The Soviets did not always lie: Some dissidents did have indirect ties with the CIA. There were agents who were rescued in spy exchanges, but the Israelis can learn from the records of talks at the highest level – Israel chose a louder alternative in its struggle to free the Jewish refuseniks from the Soviet Union. The more presidential attention garnered by a prisoner such as Andrei Sakharov or Anatoly Shcharansky (or by the Diaspora in general), the more the Soviets grew determined not to give up. Despite all the differences, the Americans were studious – just look at the Pollard affair.

But the most important fact casts a new light on the concept of nuclear ambiguity within Israeli discourse. Three straight times in a month and a half during the spring of 1978, Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin put pressure on U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance to officially respond to reports in American media that the CIA believed Israel had a nuclear weapon.

It’s not that the KGB needed friends in the CIA, or Vance’s courtesy. The KGB had sources, especially in South Africa, that kept tabs on the country’s nuclear program, and allowed for a peek at Israel as well. Dobrynin’s nagging – in reports in the foreign press on the new policy of then Prime Minister Menachem Begin, about how the supposed Israeli nuclear missiles could reach the southern part of the Soviet Union – was about politics, not intelligence. Dobrynin’s nagging was meant to drive the United States to tighten its supervision over Israel’s nuclear program.

[shaayecanaan]

2. They can reach a lot further than the Soviet Union now...

in fact they can reach both coasts of the United States with a stiff breeze. The Jericho system must be costing the Israelis a song, based on what broadly similar systems cost Britain and France.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

5. Hmmmmm... what are you suggesting?

they can reach both coasts of the United States

[azurnoir]

3. Illusion indeed or

why then is Mordechai Vanunu living under orders to not speak with foreigners or leave Israel?

[Jefferson23]

4. He's allowed to have lots of coffee.

snip*There’s no complaint against him on this matter. They [the state] say he sits in cafes and meets with foreigners and they see him – all right, he meets with foreigners … The state has to explain why information from 30 years ago is still relevant. Vanunu, whether he’s in Israel or abroad, is dangerous. You don’t have to travel abroad in order to reveal secrets … If he violated the court orders, why isn’t he put on trial?

“He says he’s willing to be tried, but they aren’t doing that. I don’t know why. Maybe there’s a negative impact if he’s returned to prison again.

“You should be aware that interest in him in Israel is very limited. There’s an organized group that thinks he’s a serious person, that he’s a person who should be heard. They see him as someone who expresses opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the State of Israel also supports that position.”

The government was represented in proceedings by attorney Dan Eldad, who presented the judges with an opinion “attesting to the fact that the severity of the danger from the information that the petitioner [Vanunu] has in his brain has not lessened. The relevance of this information today, [and] the fear it will harm state security if published, has not lessened. The opinion reveals that the petitioner’s motivation to harm state security has not lessened, either.”

Part of the proceedings took place only in the presence of the judges and state representatives, with Vanunu and the public asked to leave the courtroom. The petition continues.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.565612