For the past 40 years, Israel has sought to maintain a veil of secrecy over its nuclear capacity even if Mordechai Vanunu's revelations erased any shred of doubt about its possession of an atomic arsenal.
Ever since the 1965 inauguration of the Dimona plant in the southern Negev desert, the one-time workplace of the whistleblower Vanunu, Israel has consistently refused to deny or confirm that it possesses nuclear arms.
But even before Vanunu, who is to be released on Wednesday after 18 years in prison, leaked details of the program to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper in 1986, the official policy of ambiguity had left few people fooled.
Israel currently has two nuclear facilities, the reactor at Dimona in the Negev desert built with French aid and capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium and a smaller research reactor at Nahal Sorek, south of Tel Aviv.
Under an understanding with the US dating back to 1969, Israel has committed itself to abstain from any comment on its nuclear potential and not to carry out nuclear tests.
In return, the US does not pressure Israel to adhere to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which would oblige the Jewish state to submit its nuclear facilities to international supervision by the UN's atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The agency's Director General Mohamed ElBaradei recently urged Israel to give up its nuclear arsenal, claiming it spurred a regional arms race.
"I am not happy with the status quo, because I see a lot of frustration in the Middle East due to Israel's sitting on nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons capability, while others in the Middle East are committed to the NPT," he told the Israeli daily Haaretz.
As an extra precaution, the whole program is also covered by military censorship, which the Israeli media regularly bypasses by quoting foreign publications.
According to these "foreign experts," Israel has used its reactor at Dimona to produce around 200 nuclear warheads.
Peter Hounam, the journalist who first broke the Vanunu story for the Sunday Times, criticized Israel's "gall" for still failing to come clean about its capabilities but said it was determined not to upset its allies in Washington.
But its decision to try to gag Vanunu at all costs even after his release was likely to backfire and serve to increase demands for clarity, he added.
"I think that the international reaction to the way he is being treated will add to the impetus for the UN" being given access to the Dimona plant, he said.
"Everything about this stinks of hypocrisy," he added.
No Israeli leader has ever broken the long-standing taboo by unequivocally recognizing the existence of a nuclear arsenal, but allusions have become less and less oblique.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
INFLUTENTIAL THEORIST: Habermas was particularly critical of the ‘limited interest’ shown by German politicians in ‘shaping a politically effective Europe Jurgen Habermas, whose work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers and a key intellectual figure in his native Germany, has died. He was 96. Habermas’ publisher, Suhrkamp, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich. Habermas frequently weighed in on political matters over several decades. His extensive writing crossed the boundaries of academic and philosophical disciplines, providing a vision of modern society and social interaction. His best-known works included the two-volume Theory of Communicative Action. Habermas, who was 15 at the time of Nazi Germany’s defeat, later recalled the dawn of
RSS