Alwaght- While the Israeli regime is already the only holder of nuclear weapons in West Asia region, media reports recently said that Tel Aviv has started secret new efforts to expand its nuclear capabilities.
According to the Guardian newspaper, construction work is evident in new satellite images published on Thursday by the International Panel on Fissile Material (IPFM), an independent expert group. The area being worked on is a few hundred meters across to the south and west of the domed reactor and reprocessing point at the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center, near the desert town of Dimona.
Tel Aviv is believed to have produced its first nuclear weapons by 1967, and it is estimated that it has between 80 and 400 nuclear warheads. In addition to refusing to provide information on its activities and permitting international organizations to visit its nuclear facilities, the Israeli regime has continued to threaten the territorial integrity of other countries in the region on the strength of nuclear weapons and without fear of international pressure due to US and Western support. Its actions have been largely destabilizing in the region.
History of Israeli nukes
The Israelis began their research for nuclear weapons from the earliest days of the regime declaration in 1948. In 1949, a special unit of the Israeli Army Scientific Corps began a two-year geological survey of the Negev Desert aimed at discovering uranium reserves.
The program took another step forward with the establishment of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) in 1952. Its chairman, Ernst David Bergmann, advocated the Israeli bomb because “the State of Israel needs a defense research program of its own, so that we shall never again be as lambs led to the slaughter.”
The Israelis sought French help to design and build the reactor. Nuclear cooperation between the two sides began in the early 1950s with the construction of a 40-megawatt heavy water reactor in France and a chemical processing plant in Marcule.
In the fall of 1956, France agreed to provide the Israeli giovernment with an 18-megawatt research reactor. However, the start of the “Suez crisis” a few weeks later changed the situation dramatically. Following the closure of the Suez Canal by Egypt in July, France and Britain urged the Tel Aviv to start a war with Egypt to send peacekeepers to occupy and reopen the canal. Following the Suez crisis, European governments increased their support for the Israelis to become nuclear weapons holders.
On October 3, 1957, Paris and Tel Aviv signed an amended agreement to build a 24-megawatt reactor. The complex was built secretly outside the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection regime by French and Israeli technicians in Dimona, in the Negev Desert.
To keep the project secret, the French customs authorities were told that the largest components of the reactor reserve were part of a desalination plant being shipped to the Latin America.
Dimona remained secret as a nuclear site until two years later. The Israeli officials referred to the complex as a textile factory or agricultural and metallurgical research center, until Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion declared in December 1960 that the Dimona complex was a nuclear research center built for "peaceful purposes.”
In early December 1960, the CIA released a report detailing Tel Aviv’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. The Israelis agreed to allow only American inspectors to visit their nuclear facilities and covert activities.
US inspectors visited Dimona seven times during the 1960s, but most were unable to obtain an accurate picture of what was going on there due to the regime’s tight control over the timing and schedule of visits. The Israelis went so far as to install fake control room panels and covered with walls the elevators and corridors that had access to certain areas of the facility.
Although it was clear to the American intelligence and political officials that the nature of the Israeli nuclear program was unpeaceful, the US government took no actions in prevention.
Nukes production during Arab-Israeli wars
In early 1968, the CIA released a report concluding that the Israeli regime had successfully begun producing nuclear weapons. The estimate was based on an informal conversation between Carl E. Duckett, head of the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology, and Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb. Teller believed that the Israelis had the ability to build a bomb, and that the CIA was not waiting for the Israeli nuclear tests because they could never be conducted.
The true size and composition of Israel's nuclear arsenal is unclear and is the subject of many - often contradictory - estimates and reports. The regime reportedly had two bombs in 1967, and Prime Minister Levi Ashkol ordered the two bombs to be made during the Six-Day War with the Arab countries. The Israelis also reportedly assembled 13 20-kilogram atomic bombs for fear of losing the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, actions that show that the Israeli regime's nuclear capability is not defensive in nature and that the regime is fully prepared to use this weapon in wars.
Big scandal after revelations by defected nuclear technician
By the mid-1990s, Tel Aviv had produced enough fissile material to make 100 to 200 nuclear warheads. In 1986, photos of Israeli nuclear warheads at an underground bomb factory at the Dimona nuclear reactor were published in the British Sunday Times newspaper. The high-profile revelation was made by ousted Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu. He also unveiled the secret construction of a new series of super-secret facilities, which led some experts to conclude that the Israelis had stockpiled between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons at the time.
In the late 1990s, even some published estimates suggested that there might be 400 nuclear weapons in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Vanunu was later abducted by Mossad agents in Italy and transported on a cargo ship to the occupied territories. The court tried him on charges of treason and espionage and sentenced him to 18 years in prison. In the spring of 2004, Vanunu was released from prison but remained subject to severe restrictions such as passport denial, restrictions on freedom of movement, and inability to communicate with the press.
In another revelation in 2004, Vanunu stated that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was carried out by the Israelis and was due to US leader’s pressures on Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to clarify the activities of the Dimona nuclear reactor. “This was also repeated by the ousted Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi during the United Nations General Assembly in 2009.
Israeli nuclear threats under Western silence
The Israeli regime, which has so far rejected to sign the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and other nuclear-related pacts, is pursuing its threatful nuclear program with confidence of the Western backing.
However, the Israeli regime's nuclear weapons are not a matter of military balance, and the regime is the only holder of nuclear weapons in the region. The Israeli officials have repeatedly threatened Iran with a nuclear attack, for example, in one case in September 2016, during a visit to the Dimona nuclear facility, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Iran. "Any country that threatens us puts itself at a similar risk," he said.
Now revelations about the secret plan to expand the nuclear program and the deaf ear turned by the West— while the latter is extremely fussy and sensitive about the peaceful Iranian nuclear program and even seeks to close the way of Iranian scientific developments in this area— even further demonstrate to the world the hypocritical approach of the Western countries.
