US, French and Israeli officials in the past few weeks are all saying publicly: that Israel is a nuclear power with hundreds of weapons aimed at its neighbors.
ISRAELI NUKES - HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT:
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Bruce Dixon
The nuclear cat is officially out of the bag. It's not new news that the state of Israel possesses hundreds of nuclear weapons, or that for more than two decades these have been aimed at every Arab and other capital in the Middle East. But like the obvious parallels between the Israeli settler state and the bygone white settler state of South Africa which brought us the word apartheid, the subject of Israeli nuclear weapons is one that is virtually off-limits in US mainstream media for legal as well as propagandistic reasons.
Since 1986, when Mordecai Vanunu, an Israeli nuclear processing tech, smuggled out proof that Israel was manufacturing hundreds of nuclear devices, it has been no secret to the public in Israel, Europe, or the Middle East. For revealing this truth, Vanunu did 18 years in prison, including 11 in solitary confinement - longer than Nelson Mandela. Vanunu remains under house arrest two years after his release. And though he is known around the world, the name of Mordecai Vanunu is little known here. Only in America, Israel's military, diplomatic and financial sponsor to the tune of at least six billion US taxpayer dollars a year, is the subject of Israeli nukes off limits in the mainstream media and therefore little known to the public.
"The subject of Israeli nucelar weapons is virtually off-limits US mainstream media."
Thus when Robert Gates, whom the Senate refused to confirm as CIA director 20 years ago because he had lied to Congress about the mix of drug running, mercenary armies in Central America, and arms smuggling to Iran that came to be known as Iran-contra --- when Gates casually admitted during last week's confirmation hearings for the post of Secretary of Defense, that Israel posed a nuclear threat to neighbors hundreds of miles distant from its own borders, there was consternation among Israeli officials, and coverup in the US corporate media.
This slip-up was followed by Israeli Prime Minister Olbert's admission in a German TV interview, that Israel possessed nukes. The Jerusalem Post made the PM's statement front page news, only to withdraw the story without comment a few hours later. The US corporate media, always more subservient to authority, managed to overlook both these revelations handily.
And with good reason. US law strictly prohibits American foreign aid from going to rogue nations which develop and deploy nukes outside the framework of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970. Although Iran and the other nations in the region have lived for decades under the threat Israeli attack, Israel alone has never signed, and does not honor this treaty. Public admission of its nuclear capability on the part of senior US and Israeli government officials calls into question the legality of continuing aid to Israel. Fat chance.
If US politicians really paid attention to polls, it might make a difference. If Democrats were really an opposition party it might make a difference. If we were not saddled by a cowardly press and a lawless administration which considers international norms "quaint" this contradiction might be resolved. But this is America at the dawn of the 21st century. And I'm Bruce Dixon, for Black Agenda Radio
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Foreign policy is our focus on Black Agenda Radio this week.
Dr. Gerald Horne is an author and historian who currently holds the John J. and Rebecca Moores Chair of History and African American Studies at the University of Houston.
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