Saudi Arabia, the only Arab nation contiguous to Israel which remains in a total state of war with Israel since 1948, has taken a step towards posing a nuclear threat against Jerusalem. This past week, The Tel Aviv based Institute of National Security Studies issued a report which confirms the ata that Riyad has been working to prepare a nuclear infrastructure.
That report can be found at: http://www.inss.org.il/publications.php?cat=21&incat=&read=3973
The report, entitled "The Saudi Nuclear Option", authored by a senior intelligence analyst, Yoel Guzansky, asserts that Pakistan will be the most likely developer of a Saudi nuclear option
The report said that a key Saudi option involved the Saudi alliance with Pakistan, which has received billions of dollars from the Gulf Cooperation Council kingdom for strategic programs. In the words of the report...”Should Saudi Arabia find itself in a sensitive security situation, it may well be that it would seek to capitalize on its investment in the Pakistani program."
The report went in to say that “Despite Saudi Arabia’s relative transparency and cooperation with the international community on nuclear issues, there are more than a few doubts as to its credibility, given that in the past it had very close relations with Pakistan," the report said. "More than once the claim has been made that Saudi Arabia was in fact behind the financing of Pakistan's nuclear and missile programs. After the Islamic revolution and throughout the 1980s Pakistan stationed military forces in Saudi Arabia and the two nations cooperated in assisting the Afghani mujahadeen."
The report also stated that Pakistan wields the manpower and technology for the nuclear weapons program for Saudi Arabia.
In the 1980s, Saudi Arabia procured the Chinese-origin CSS-2 surface-to-surface missiles from Pakistan. The CSS-2, although not regarded as accurate, was designed to contain a nuclear warhead.
"Various developments therefore may lead Saudi Arabia to accelerate its timetable, and along with or instead of developing independent nuclear
infrastructures, it is not inconceivable that it would prefer buying turnkey components, enter into a military treaty with Pakistan, and in certain
scenarios, even deploy Pakistani nuclear forces on Saudi soil because of the urgency and its lack of appropriate infrastructures," the report said.
This seminal study has hardly been reported in Israel - because INSS couched Saudi's nuclear option only as a response to a possible Iranian threat against Saudi Arabia.
Yet Saudi Arabia is not in a state of war with Iran.
Saudi Arabia is in a state of war with Israel, expressed in terms of consistent Saudi aid to Palestinian terrorist organizations, and Saudi funding for middle east studies programs on Unversity campuses around the world which prepare the next geneation of intellectuals to carry on the war with Israel and with Zionism.
View this story at Israel Behind the News
Showing posts with label NPT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NPT. Show all posts
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Thursday, May 7, 2009
The Philadelphia Bulletin: Obama Follows JFK Example and Pressures Israel to Limit Nuclear Capacity
by David Bedein
For the first time since the Kennedy administration, a senior American official has commented explicitly and negatively about Israel’s nuclear capability.
According to GlobalSecurity.org, Israel is suspected to have between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons based on various intelligence estimates.
Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller called on Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) along with Pakistan, India and North Korea.
Ms. Gottemoeller said this on Tuesday, on the second day of a gathering of representatives of the 189 states that are signatories of the treaty.
“Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea (countries that are not members of the treaty despite being considered to have nuclear capabilities) remains a fundamental objective of the United States,” Ms. Gottemoeller said.
She did not mention Iran even once in her address, thereby breaking the custom during the Bush administration, when officials used to specify and condemn Iran and North Korea in every meeting of NPT members.
Ms. Gottemoeller refused to address the question of whether Washington would initiate new measures in order to pressure Israel to join the NPT and give up the nuclear weapons that it allegedly holds, while speaking later to reporters.
She said the Obama administration encourages all countries that have not signed the treaty to join it.
A former senior Israel Foreign Ministry legal adviser Alan Baker, who is an expert on international law, said that this was a “surprising and worrying statement.”
“I don’t think the Americans have said such a thing in the past,” he said. “This sounds to me like the new administration is shooting from the hip, without having studied in depth the diplomatic situation and our positions. If they study the material properly, they will find that our approach is that we will not sign this treaty as long as we are threatened by our neighbors.
“The Americans know what our position is, and as long as we are under a threat from neighboring countries, both in the immediate circle and in the external circle, we cannot be expected to assume commitments that will place us at a disadvantage.”
The Obama administration’s newfound opposition to Israel’s formally undisclosed nuclear program reverses nearly 50 years of American silence on the subject.
President John F. Kennedy pressured then-Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion to drop Israel’s plans for nuclear weapons in a May 1963 communiqué delivered by the U.S. ambassador.
Dr. Avner Cohen details the Kennedy administration’s efforts in his seminal 1998 book, Israel And The Bomb.
He wrote that Ben Gurion defended Israel’s need for nuclear weapons in the context of the mass murder of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis and the “scenario of a united Arab military coalition launching a war to lilberate Palestine and destroy the Jewish state.”
He documents in his book how Ben Gurion tried in vain to convince President Kennedy that the surrounding Arab states posed just such an existential threat to the Jewish state, conjuring up memories of the Nazi threat from World War II.
In a letter to President Kennedy, dated May 12 1963, Ben Gurion told the president: “I know that it is difficult for civilized people to visualize such a thing - even after they have witnessed what had happened to us during the Second World War... I cannot dismiss the possibility that this may occur again... if the Arab leaders continue to insist on and pursue their policy of belligerency towards Israel”
President Kennedy refused to budge and continued to push Israel to abandon its nuclear option until his death on Nov. 22, 1963. No American president has made an issue of Israel’s nuclear capability - until now.
See this story in the Philadelphia Bulletin
See this story at Israel Behind the News
For the first time since the Kennedy administration, a senior American official has commented explicitly and negatively about Israel’s nuclear capability.
According to GlobalSecurity.org, Israel is suspected to have between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons based on various intelligence estimates.
Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller called on Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) along with Pakistan, India and North Korea.
Ms. Gottemoeller said this on Tuesday, on the second day of a gathering of representatives of the 189 states that are signatories of the treaty.
“Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea (countries that are not members of the treaty despite being considered to have nuclear capabilities) remains a fundamental objective of the United States,” Ms. Gottemoeller said.
She did not mention Iran even once in her address, thereby breaking the custom during the Bush administration, when officials used to specify and condemn Iran and North Korea in every meeting of NPT members.
Ms. Gottemoeller refused to address the question of whether Washington would initiate new measures in order to pressure Israel to join the NPT and give up the nuclear weapons that it allegedly holds, while speaking later to reporters.
She said the Obama administration encourages all countries that have not signed the treaty to join it.
A former senior Israel Foreign Ministry legal adviser Alan Baker, who is an expert on international law, said that this was a “surprising and worrying statement.”
“I don’t think the Americans have said such a thing in the past,” he said. “This sounds to me like the new administration is shooting from the hip, without having studied in depth the diplomatic situation and our positions. If they study the material properly, they will find that our approach is that we will not sign this treaty as long as we are threatened by our neighbors.
“The Americans know what our position is, and as long as we are under a threat from neighboring countries, both in the immediate circle and in the external circle, we cannot be expected to assume commitments that will place us at a disadvantage.”
The Obama administration’s newfound opposition to Israel’s formally undisclosed nuclear program reverses nearly 50 years of American silence on the subject.
President John F. Kennedy pressured then-Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion to drop Israel’s plans for nuclear weapons in a May 1963 communiqué delivered by the U.S. ambassador.
Dr. Avner Cohen details the Kennedy administration’s efforts in his seminal 1998 book, Israel And The Bomb.
He wrote that Ben Gurion defended Israel’s need for nuclear weapons in the context of the mass murder of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis and the “scenario of a united Arab military coalition launching a war to lilberate Palestine and destroy the Jewish state.”
He documents in his book how Ben Gurion tried in vain to convince President Kennedy that the surrounding Arab states posed just such an existential threat to the Jewish state, conjuring up memories of the Nazi threat from World War II.
In a letter to President Kennedy, dated May 12 1963, Ben Gurion told the president: “I know that it is difficult for civilized people to visualize such a thing - even after they have witnessed what had happened to us during the Second World War... I cannot dismiss the possibility that this may occur again... if the Arab leaders continue to insist on and pursue their policy of belligerency towards Israel”
President Kennedy refused to budge and continued to push Israel to abandon its nuclear option until his death on Nov. 22, 1963. No American president has made an issue of Israel’s nuclear capability - until now.
See this story in the Philadelphia Bulletin
See this story at Israel Behind the News
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