A friend of mine in MI6 told me earlier this year that for the first time, the Israeli nuclear arsenal is now bigger than the British nuclear arsenal.
Plainly that is of no concern to Gordon Brown, because while he exhibited righteous indignation today at Iran’s attempts to acquire a nuclear weapon, Israel’s large and expanding nuclear arsenal was not mentioned at all. The potential to make a bomb in a few years should bring sanctions; the possession of an illegal arsenal of 162 warheads (in February – probably 165 by now) should not even rate a mention. New Labour have of course been providing heavy water and nuclear components to Israel, with a false paper trail through Norway.
I am very pleased that Brown has put the UK’s nuclear weapons into disarmament talks and has endorsed the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons. But with Israel not a party to any of the treaties, and with Brown and Obama refusing to admit even that the World’s fourth largest nuclear arsenal exists, I can only presume they believe that nobody should possess nuclear weapons – except Israel,
And don’t forget, the UK give Israel the know how to build their arsenal, illegally off course.
And don’t forget, the UK give Israel the know how to build their arsenal, illegally off course.
Have to pick you up on one point: Israel’s nuclear arsenal is not illegal, as they are not party to the relevant treaties.
Clarification: Israel’s posession of a nuclear arsenal is not illegal. How they got it is another matter.
Have you considered a nuclear-free Israel would put Europe on the front line?
Apparently Europe is already on the front line, because a large proportion of Israel’s nuclear weapons are targetted at European cities, and everyone realises how crazy they are – which explains the extent of their influence.
The above may of course not be true, but I did read it somewhere a few months ago. I can’t remember where – but it did explain a few things with regards to Israel’s behaviour and the lack of condemnation and sanctions for a regime operating both Apartheid and Genocide policies.
As strange as it may seem, I actually wanted to spend some time in a Kibbutz in my youth and know someone who did.
Tony
Carol Roberts
How I would love it if the Middle East and its Islam and its truth and hospitality were on the front line of Europe. Apart from its weapons of varying degrees of destruction and its prisons, Israel is the Holy Land and I would love to be able to go there to a free country instead of a vicious and violent apartheid nightmare.
Israel should have been the gateway to world peace, but they have made it a gateway to Armaggeddon
Carol,
No, because it’s nonsense.
Israel is not only a nuclear menace. I believe I’m right in saying it has not signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. It has signed but not
ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, similarly the Chemical Weapons Convention. Israel is totally out of control weapons-wise and a basket case in every other sense.
Israel of course got its bomb largely courtesy of the French, and most of the knowledge transfer would have taken place before the NPT made this illegal. One reason why the Israelis understood the Iraqi bomb programme so well was that it was based on the same underlying technology. The Iranian programme is rather different.
What Israel would actually do with a bomb, and whether it actually makes the country safer is an interesting question. They started in 1958, a time when the US was not the absolute support to them that it is now. The problem is, as pointed out beautifully in the film “Dr Strangelove” that the whole point of a deterrent is that people know you have got it (and would use it). As Israel refuses to acknowledge this, it is impossible to have a rational open discussion with Israeli officials about what circumstances might trigger its use. India and Pakistan have begun to start developing “Confidence Building Measures” on the basis of this kind of discussion.
As the last Shah made clear to Henry Kissinger, Iran was willing to accept not having the bomb so long as this did not put him at a disadvantage with its neighbours. The Shah would never have tolerated a nuclear Pakistan without demanding his own nukes (which Israel might have helped him out with?).
Putting to one side the international law aspects of Israel developing nuclear weapons, the west continues to supply Israel with the weapon delivery vehicles.
From the F-4 Phantom jets in 1969 to the F-15 Eagle and F-16 the U.S. has supplied advanced jets knowing they will be tasked with nuclear weapon delivery.
The Germans have supplied advanced Dolphin submarines 1998 to 2000, probably knowing they will be used for cruise-missile carried nuclear weapons. Giving Israel a “second strike” capability.
The Canadians have supplied turboprop engines for the IAI Eitan unmanned air vehicle. As the Eitan can carry a payload of more that 500kg over 300km, supplying turboprop engines comes I think under the Missile Technology Control Regime (which now also covers UAVs). A non-WMD end-user case was probably argued for.
I’m sure there are more.
Britain buying £800 million of UAVs from an Israeli Elbit partnership greatly assists the Israeli arms industry, even if it is not against controls.
This does greatly weaken the case when arguing Russia should not supply purely defensive anti-aircraft systems to Iran.
Well said Woody.
But it is hard for them to not have nuclear weapons if they feel that the nations around them have them, such is the logic of nucelar arms, hopefully we can break that logic.
Carol Roberts:
On the front line of what? Since Britain is a target of Israeli nuclear weapons are we not already on the front line?
One of the reasons why I thoroughly despise the late Diana Princess of Wales is the stupidity of the cause for which she chose to advocate, the banning of land mines. One cannot think of another cause both so futile and so much of a free kick as being popular with the mindlessly stupid.
She could have chosen a truly worthy but unpopular cause such as ending the damage done by the war on drugs where her profile might have made a difference, but no she chose to advocate another prohibition, the prohibition of land mines. Land mine prohibition like drug prohibition can not achieve its aims, it simply will simply create a more profitable black market for illegal arms traders.
The banning of nuclear weapons is similarly futile. No reasonable person believes that either the US or Russia will abandon their nukes, and if they don’t why should anyone else. If I were running a nation like Iran nearby a hostile nuclear armed Israel and next door to an Iraq invaded and occupied by the nuclear armed US, I would want nuclear weapons. The fact is that no nation armed with nukes has been invaded since its acquisition of them, except for Pakistan which has not actually been invaded apart from the occasional predator drone, and I wonder how much longer Pakistan will put up with this.
The nuclear non proliferation treaty is an hypocritical farce. If mutually assured destruction worked with Russia and the US why should it not work in other regions. The sensible course is for all nations to be required to publish all their nuclear arms research so that other nations do not have to do unnecessary and polluting testing of bombs when they decide to develop their own.
Incidentally the US has its very strange second amendment, should this not mean that individual US citizens be allowed to acquire hydrogen bombs and missiles or aircraft to deliver them and not be restricted to mere assault rifles, OK for shooting up schools and conducting workplace massacres but not for much else.
One of the reasons why I thoroughly despise the late Diana Princess of Wales is the stupidity of the cause for which she chose to advocate, the banning of land mines. One cannot think of another cause both so futile and so much of a free kick as being popular with the mindlessly stupid.
She could have chosen a truly worthy but unpopular cause such as ending the damage done by the war on drugs where her profile might have made a difference, but no she chose to advocate another prohibition, the prohibition of land mines. Land mine prohibition like drug prohibition can not achieve its aims, it simply will simply create a more profitable black market for illegal arms traders.
The banning of nuclear weapons is similarly futile. No reasonable person believes that either the US or Russia will abandon their nukes, and if they don’t why should anyone else. If I were running a nation like Iran nearby a hostile nuclear armed Israel and next door to an Iraq invaded and occupied by the nuclear armed US, I would want nuclear weapons. The fact is that no nation armed with nukes has been invaded since its acquisition of them, except for Pakistan which has not actually been invaded apart from the occasional predator drone, and I wonder how much longer Pakistan will put up with this.
The nuclear non proliferation treaty is an hypocritical farce. If mutually assured destruction worked with Russia and the US why should it not work in other regions. The sensible course is for all nations to be required to publish all their nuclear arms research so that other nations do not have to do unnecessary and polluting testing of bombs when they decide to develop their own.
Incidentally the US has its very strange second amendment, should this not mean that individual US citizens be allowed to acquire hydrogen bombs and missiles or aircraft to deliver them and not be restricted to mere assault rifles, OK for shooting up schools and conducting workplace massacres but not for much else.
Carlyle Moulton,
Sweet Post.
You didn’t have to say it twice though.
I actually was really upset, because she used to go to the gym across the road from where I worked.
She also used to take her Kids to the Ballet, where my Wife took ours.
And She Was Lovely.
I Thought Her Land Mine thing demonstrated the kind of courage that inspired Benazir Bhutto.
Of course they both had to be taken out.
Tony Blair pulled a Blinder
One of the best performances Ever
What a CUNT
Tony
The excellent Paul Craig Roberts recently published an article entitled ‘Why Not Crippling Sanctions for Israel and the US?’ which says it all really. It’s at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23398.htm
Carlyle Moulton: I agree with much of what you say but the second amendment is hardly strange. It may yet save us all. It was put there so the American people could oust any government that tried to undermine the Constitution. The time has surely come and I wish they’d get on with it.
Tony.
The first time I submitted the post it did not appear and I thought that I had done something wrong.
The problem is land mines are effective weapons and impecunious combatants are not going to give them up. I imagine that the US and the UK will be able to develop other things that fulfill the same function, things like hidden robot mortars that can reload themselves and aim a round anywhere in a specified area. Maybe these will do less damage after a war is over, but insurgent groups and poor governments are not going too give land mines up. If they cannot buy the mines legally they will buy them on the black market or they will buy the materials necessary to make them and fabricate them themselves.
Thus Diana’s crusade will not succeed in its objective. The thing that irritated me is that campaigning against land mines is something that no one except a rational misanthropic cynic like me would oppose. It was a task both too easy for her to demonstrate a worthy commitment and yet futile. There are other potential crusades which would go against the grain of society and be much less popular but of which the results are more necessary, reform of drug laws, prisons and the like.
But the reason I introduced Diana was to present another example of an apparently worthy but futile crusade. Nuclear arms are not going to disappear ever, further proliferation is inevitable and the current pretense of an intention to phase them out is mere show aimed at embarrassing Iran. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty is hypocritical, why cannot Iran withdraw from it as Nations can for any other treaty that they find onerous.
My suggestion of minimizing or eliminating nuclear testing by sharing bomb designs makes sense.
MJ.
I believe I have seen recently the assertions that the second amendment was passed at the insistence of the Southern states as they wanted militias to put down any potential slave revolts.
The US right to bear arms would in no way allow the overthrow of tyrannical governments as it seems to apply only to small arms. A citizen revolt could not succeed in overthrowing governments protected by the US army witch has tanks, howitzers, bombs, missiles and strike aircraft.
In any case the only private militias in the US are on the extreme right wing and are more likely to support tyranny than to oppose it.
Ehud BARACK struts and frets his hour upon the stage.
Likud and Netanyahu have not the slightest intention of co-operating or allowing the establishment of an autonomous Palestinian state. The manifesto of the ultra right-wing Likud party expressly requires movement towards a ‘Greater Israel’ from Eilat to the Syrian border by the expedient of ‘transferring’ all Muslims and Christians out of Israel/ Palestine to neighboring countries such as Jordan and Egypt.
Meanwhile little Ehud Barack struts and frets his hour upon the stage. This Barack is quite a warmonger. He wants to attack Lebanon unless he is allowed to determine the composition of the Lebanese parliament. He threatens to attack Iran unless they immediately stop copying Israel in an attempt to build nuclear weapons. Israel has already between 200 and 500 warheads, enough to wipe out the whole of the Gulf and beyond. And he tells Syria that unless they run their country the way he, Barack, wants, they will be targeted by the IAF. Quite a threatening posture for one small politician, who apparently wants to rule the Middle East.
Carlyle
I am working in a de-mining programme here in Congo. For 6 days a week, myself and my team find,identify,and destroy landmines that otherwise would maim and kill innocent people. Respectfully suggest that you walk a mile in my boots before commenting on ante landmine crusades. My team and I risk our lives every day and the more people that know about and are involved in these programmes the better.
Craig,
You’ve touched a raw nerve, and the Zionists are angry, see here:
http://simplyjews.blogspot.com/2009/09/only-israel-should-have-nuclear-weapons.html
Good luck.
On the Today programme this morning, I was pleased to hear John Humphrys ask David Miliband, quite bluntly, why it was a problem for Iran to be purifying uranium but not a problem for Israel to have (supposably) scores of fully militarised nuclear warheads.
Miliband replied “It’s a problem because Iran has signed the Non Proliferation Pact, and Israel has not”.
And then, believe it or not, they went on with the interview for all the world as if he had answered the question.
Frazer.
My point about Princess Diana was not that it would not be a good thing if land mines did not exist, it was that the crusade against them is going to have limited success. It will probably have more success than the crusade against drugs that has turned into the war against drugs and its side effects, a black market in land mines will be less damaging than the side effects of that war. However land mines will still be made and deployed ban or no ban, when groups are at war they are more concerned with deploying weapons that are effective now than worrying about after the war concerns such as the occasional farmer or child having legs blown off and the expense and difficulty of removing the mines. A campaign against land mines is something that is guaranteed universal support and zero opposition, it is guaranteed to harvest adulation.
There are other more serious problems which need to be addressed but campaigns against them guaranteed only minority support and will provoke considerable opposition by the righteous and respectable and will provoke opprobrium rather than adulation. The leading one of these is the afore mentioned war against drugs which causes enormously more harm than do the drugs themselves.
Princess Diana was most probably a very conventional member of the elite level of respectable society, and when she decided to campaign against land mines she was probably following the advice of a public relations adviser on how best to enhance her image rather or she was following very conventional thought patterns in considering what changes would be good for the world.
I am a cynic so may be I am being unfair to her.
See Tom Welshes comment of September 26, 2009 12:40 PM on the ridiculous Miliband comment “It’s (ie Iran developing nuclear capabilities) a problem because Iran has signed the Non Proliferation Pact, and Israel has not”.
Why cannot the problem of Iran’s nuclear developments be solved by Iran withdrawing from the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. Given that unacceptable climate change sue to Global Warming is already unavoidable any government that is not considering acquisition of nuclear armament for the inevitable resource wars is failing its people.
Tom Welch.
Excellent post.
“And then, believe it or not, they went on with the interview for all the world as if he had answered the question.”
I believe it. Unbelievable, isn’t it?
“And then, believe it or not, they went on with the interview for all the world as if he had answered the question.”
I believe it. Unbelievable, isn’t it?
and in those two answers we have the reasons why the world does not take the west seriously over the middle east.
Why double standards for Israel?
@Junglerunner – it would be expected that Zionists would be annoyed with this post. But once I found the writer tried to dismantle Craig’s argument by quoting Tony Opmoc, I gave up reading. Discrediting a blogger with a commenter is a very silly line to take.
I am an American, so I can say that you all have no idea what you are talking about. Israel is an ally of the U.S. and Britain and is no danger to Europe or any of it’s allies. Iran is a regime ruled by a dangerous Islamo-fascist who believes that “Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth” and at the same time is developing weapons which can attempt to bring that about. Does that remind you of anyone in recent history? I’ll give you a hint: His name starts with Adolph and ends with Hitler. I wish I could respond to all of you but I’d be here all day with the garbage that is touted here.
Some of the posts here are both insane and false. What a combination. To think that Israel has missiles aimed at Europe is beyond speculation – it is sheer lunacy, paranoia and maybe is a result of good old fashioned anti-semitism, European style, where Jews were accused and slaughtered for the Plague, for drinking Christian blood, for consorting with Satan, for ritual slaughter of Christians, etc. It takes a psychiatrist to analyze the guilt and projection of those who see in Israel everything evil. Perhaps Europeans feel better if they think that Israelis are as capable of evil as Europeans have been to the Jews for the past 1000 years.