Topic: world
We hold to the view as published last Wednesday 31st December that the spooky subtext to the latest Horror in Gaza with the bombing of many innocent children amongst militant nationalists, and now ground invasion, is the nuclear weapons issue/perceived threat. Significantly News Corp's weekend quality broadsheet led page 1 with a variation on the nuclear theme that it is Israel's Dimona nuke plant/weaponry at risk with regional consequences from any Islamist missiles (Hamas or Hezbolah), as if nuke warheads weren't safely stored underground:
A problem with the headline of The Oz story with byline by Abraham Robinovich in Jerusalem is that there is nothing about nukes in the reporter's article. Such is "quality" press. However we still think there is truth in the nuclear dimension to the warmongering in Gaza. And we think it's more likely this: It's Israeli fear and loathing of dirty bombs, suitcase nukes, and/or supply tunnels for same via bogeyman Iran (or Syria) as The Oz asserts 'driving Israel's hard line'.
We bring to our perspective some 6 years up until 2001 working with Friends of the Earth Sydney which held some serious expertise on nuclear weapons and peace related issues.
Is the Israeli open secret for 20 years now of 'covert' nuke weaponry doing things to their leadership's mind? A neurosis out of secrecy? Indeed is Israel projecting it's own nuke arsenal onto it's enemy in woe begotten Gaza, an open air prison? We are well into the Fog of War territory here as per the documentary film about the Vietnam war. What is fantasy and what is real?
Probably the general public will be the last to know. It will take some Robert Macnamara type figure as per the film 25 years after the event as then secretary of defence for the USA during the Vietnam War to find out. For instance that Mac was against use of nukes on the Viet Cong while madman Nixon wanted to go for it. Last Wednesday 31st December 08 we wrote of the donkey cart scenario as per an old fictional tv West Wing episode complete with ex Clinton presser as their content adviser (bold added):
Truly the Palestinian people are cannon fodder and hostage for cynical politicians. Truly the Jewish population in southern Israel of moderate disposition are hostages of a much reduced kind too. Israel desperate to prevent an effective delivery system of military grade weaponry into Gaza. Hamas desperate to break the blockade for humanitarian but surely also less honourable purposes (?).
Is Israel's military violence proportionate or disproportionate? Depends who you ask. Depends what's at stake. An Iranian A bomb on a donkey cart? Or is this a nightmarish fantasy like Saddam's non existent WMD? Who the hell knows? Is the Israeli Right in a neurotic Holocaust loop? We wonder.
We wrote back on 21 May 2008 about Mordechai Vanunu, Israeli Jew who spent time in Sydney and blew the whistle on Israel's nuke weapons, with 20 years gaol to reflect on that, as follows:
Nuke weapons road block to a one state solution for Palestine/Israel?
Mood:sad
Topic: peace
Notice from our earlier SAM story, one of recently released on home detention: Mordechai Vanunu
The green non government groups keep an eye on Mordechai's fate always - as here:
Mordechai Vanunu arrested again | Earth Island Journal |Spring 2005
And secondly this detail from US scientists:
"Israel could potentially have produced a few dozen nuclear warheads in the period 1970-1980, and is thought to have produced sufficient fissile material to build 100 to 200 warheads by the mid-1990s. In 1986 descriptions and photographs of Israeli nuclear warheads were published in the London Sunday Times of a purported underground bomb factory at the Dimona nuclear reactor. The photographs were taken by Mordechai Vanunu, a dismissed Israeli nuclear technician. His information led some experts to conclude that Israel had a stockpile of 100 to 200 nuclear devices at that time.By the late 1990s the U.S. Intelligence Community estimated that Israel possessed between 75-130 weapons, based on production estimates. The stockpile would certainly include warheads for mobile Jericho-1 and Jericho-2 missiles, as well as bombs for Israeli aircraft, and may include other tactical nuclear weapons of various types. Some published estimates even claimed that Israel might have as many as 400 nuclear weapons by the late 1990s. We believe these numbers are exaggerated, and that Israel's nuclear weapons inventory may include less than 100 nuclear weapons. Stockpiled plutonium could be used to build additional weapons if so decided."
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http://www.fas.org/about/index.html
"The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) was founded in 1945 by scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project to develop the first atomic bombs. These scientists recognized that science had become central to many key public policy questions. They believed that scientists had a unique responsibility to both warn the public and policy leaders of potential dangers from scientific and technical advances and to show how good policy could increase the benefits of new scientific knowledge."
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Here belatedly is the Greens Federal Party statement from their leader Senator Bob Brown challenging Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard (bold added):
Greens call on Gillard for Israel Action
Saturday January 3, 2009
Australian Greens Leader Bob Brown has called on acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard to add Australia's weight to calls on Israel to end the gross and disproportionate violence and bombing of Palestinians in the Gaza strip.
"We call on the acting Prime Minister to speak out against the violent and disproportionate action by Israeli leaders which has lead to the death of 400 Palestinians including many women, children and innocent men," Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.
"Australia's voice should also be raised against the threat of an imminent invasion of Gaza by the Israeli army and instead push for internationally brokered peace talks.
"The Greens have consistently condemned violence from both sides, including the rocket attacks on Israel.
"Australia should be active at the United Nations in condemning the violence and promoting an international peace operation.
"The Rudd Government's record is woeful. It voted down a Greens Senate resolution in December - before this recent violence started - calling for Israel to lift its ban on foreign journalists entering Gaza," Senator Brown said.
