How did Israel get nuclear weapons? It is said that they have 200. To my knowledge, they have never tested one. Did the US give them the technology and test one for them in Nevada?
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As for the Israeli nuclear program, there have been rumours circulating of a collaboration with South Africa (which apparantly had nukes and conducted at least one test in the south Atlantic, though details are sketchy).
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Arguably, this sort of vague blackmail occured in 1973 when the Americans abruptly supplied an airlift of materiel to save Israel, when the alternative was clearly the nuclear destruction of Cairo, etc. I’m not sure how well-developed the Israeli nuclear program was at that stage, but Nixon took it seriously, so there can be little doubt that he believed they had nukes.
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The Israeli nuclear program dates back to the late '50’s, and Israel probably had nuclear weapons by the mid to late '60’s. The main supplier of outside aid (principally in the form of a nuclear reactor) to the Israelis was not the United States but France. In fact, the U.S. does not seem to have been aware of the details of Israel’s nuclear program as it was happening, although this is no doubt in part due to willful blindness–“looking the other way”–on the part of the U.S.
Minor correction: the suspected South Africa/Israeli nuclear test was in the south Indian Ocean in 1979, not the south Atlantic.
Years ago, I remember reading about a very strange incident concerning uranium , the US, and Israel. It seems that a shipment of uranium was being made from the USA to France?, and the ship carrying the uranium mysteriously disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea. A ship looking the same, with a different name and papers turned up in the port of Haifa a few weeks later, and the uranium cargo was missing.
Anybody ever read anything about this story? Is it true? And did the US actually supply Israel with uranium?
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“And did the US actually supply Israel with uranium?” According to this site, http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/israel/nuke.html which seems to summarize reports that have appeared in the mainstream American media over the past 20 years, Israel’s nuclear weapons program relies mainly on plutonium, not uranium but the U.S. did supply Israel with a small amount (100kg) of highly enriched uranium.
Some day, people will realize that they are wasting their time by debating in GQ. Today, they have actually wasted their time, as the debate is gone.
Wow, that was punitive. Why didn’t you just move it?
just curious about where this will show up since this thread has been disappeared…