No. It is you who are confused or deliberately trying to mislead. The fact he was convicted and jailed is of little import compared to a dispassionate assessment of the information he actually passed on. I will trust Jane’s Intelligence Digest thanks - internationally recognised as the leading independent intelligence assessment available to the general public.
In case you are serious, I wonder why Israel would punish somebody for false statements about their nuclear capabilities. If what was said was false then he did not reveal any secret information. If what he said was true then Israel does indeed posses Nuclear weapons.
A more cynical perspective would be that Israel does not in fact posses Nuclear, but chose to keep an innocent man in prison for two decades, in order to foster the perception that they do have them. It is in Israel’s best interest to neither admit nor deny nukes and at the same time encourages the perception that they do.
Lets face facts. Israel is in a damn tough position. They are a small nation surrounded by nations that would like nothing better than to exterminate them.
Consider the fact that five Arab neighbors attacked Israel almost the same day the British pulled out in 1948. It was an only by an incredible display of determination and resolve that they defeated all five armies despite the fact that the Arab invaders had far more troops and vastly superior weapons.
Then later in the Six Day War Israel once again defeated their aggressive neighbors. They also are subjected to constant terrorist attacks, while Islamic charities openly solicit donations to support the families of suicide bombers. When is the last time you heard a report about a Jewish suicide bomber killing innocent people, or any body else for that matter?
In light of all this it is clear that fostering the belief that they have nuclear weapons, whether the do have them or not, is clearly in Israel’s best interest.
So claiming Vanunu’s conviction is reason to disbelieve him is not terribly convincing. There are any number of reasons for his imprisonment and most of them actually make his statements more credible.
The JANE’S Link was quite informative…thanks NOTQUITEKARPOV!
Anyway, 200 warheads! Wow-that is more than enough to wipe out Egypt, Iran, Syria, etc. My question: wouldn’t the use of these bombs be a last-ditch, end-of-options thing? I can’timagine that detonating a nuke on Cairo would not shower Israel with deadly fallout!
This chap Vanunu…he took a great deal of risk-what is his status now?
Even though his information is two decades outdated and no threat to Israel, he is under permanent survelliance, restricted to a single town, and cannot speak to anyone.
whew, I am glad to know I have been whooshed, as I suspected. But with the amount of crazy stuff that occasionally pops up, one can never tell. The fact that you have been around for so long was what made me suspect a whooshing.
Well, a little research shows me that you are right again. Both Shiite and Sunni Muslims despise Saddam because he has been one of their greatest persecutors.
Apparently I mis-remembered somthing I saw on the History Channel (I know, I know. . .sort of like trusting news from Fox or deriving your ideology from Rush Limbaugh). I thought they said that he pretended to be devout in order to gain favor. Maybe I was thinking of Adolph Hussein. Anyway, I stand corrected.
I have learnt that is best to play these things with a straight bat - fortunately the rebuttals were both civilised in tone. Even if we suspect a whooshing from the like of **Apos ** leaving it there festering only risks the ignorant taking it seriously.
Sadly there is **no ** link between post count and wisdom - so lets not appear elitist here to the passing traffic!
why is he “no threat”?-
he is threatening to publicly disclose nuclear information which is classified as most highly secret .The official policy is to refuse to reveal nuclear capabilities, and this policy is 100 per cent supported by ALL of Israel’s highest politicians and generals. If a citizen threatens to do exactly the opposite, by revealing secrets, then he is a very real threat to the strategy which the highest level leaders depend on for defending their country.
(this should probably be in a seperate thread of its own. /hijack )
Shodan:We don’t particularly want anyone else to have nukes, but we object particularly when unstable, dangerous regimes like North Korea and Pakistan/India develop them.
Er, cite for India being an unstable, dangerous regime?? Last time I looked (and I’m living in India at the moment), India was a secular democracy (currently undergoing general elections, in fact) and had been one since its founding over a half-century earlier, except perhaps for the several years of imposition of martial law by Indira Gandhi during the “Emergency” of the mid-70’s, some thirty years ago.
Now admittedly, India’s governmental stability and safety don’t rank with those of, say, Iceland or Denmark. India has had and continues to have a lot of problems, such as persistent corruption, the failed state government of Bihar, religious communalist groups undermining official secularism, two assassinated prime ministers (although the US in almost the same period has had about one and a half assassinated presidents, counting Kennedy and the near-fatal attempt on Reagan), and the ongoing terrorism and insurgencies in J&K and the northeast.
Still, I think it’s a hell of a stretch to put India in the same category with ruthless and/or insecure dictatorships like, say, Libya or North Korea, or even Pakistan. I’m not saying that I have total confidence that India would never use nukes unless absolutely necessary. Hell, I don’t have total confidence about the US in that regard, at least not at present. But I do think it is far more stable and accountable to its own citizens and the rest of the world than the countries you’re lumping it together with.
We’re completely harmless, our heads are firmly planted far up the Us’s rear end, and maybe we’d be respected enough for certain countries to extradite terrorists they are harbouring. We’re just looking for security and justice, really. Pretty please?
That was a diplomatic fiction between washington and tel aviv at the time. Israel possessed no nuclear weapons , specially between the 5 to 50 kiloton range. What the did have ,was dissasembled devices ,that when mated up became weapons.
Israel could claim it did not possess weapons , washington said , yup , no weapons ,while no one else believed them for some reason.
Anyway, I stand corrected.