The Arab world and Israel's nuclear arsenal

By Khalid Amayreh in Occupied East Jerusalem

The vociferous Israeli campaign against the Iranian nuclear program is undoubtedly a classical example of Israel’s pornographic hypocrisy in this regard.

After all, it was Israel that introduced nuclear weapons into the Middle East more than four decades ago, with the knowledge and acquiescence of western powers.

The CIA first concluded that Israel had begun to produce nuclear weapons in 1968, but few details emerged until 1986 when Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at the Dimona nuclear facility, gave the Sunday Times detailed descriptions that led defence analysts to rank the Jewish state as the sixth largest nuclear power

Today, Israel is widely believed to posses 250-300 nuclear weapons, along with their delivery systems which include the Yariho ( Jericho ) missiles and the long-range F-15 and F-16 fighter warplanes.

Needless to say, these nuclear missiles are not trained toward Berlin or Warsaw but toward Muslim capitals such as Cairo, Damascus and Tehran .

Israel had consistently denied possessing nuclear weapons and for many years repeated ad nauseam the vague abracadabra that “ Israel won’t be the first state to introduce nuclear weapons to the region.”

In recent years, however, Israeli officials began to admit, although tacitly, that Israel is indeed a well-established nuclear state.

On 12 December, 2006 , Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Germany's Sat.1 channel that “Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly, threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel and Russia?"

Israeli strategists claim that the Jewish state needs the nuclear deterrent as a “doomsday” or “weapon of last resort” to prevent the possible destruction of the “Third Temple .”

However, this claim seems to be as mendacious and hypocritical as the stale lie that Israel won’t be the first state to introduce nukes to the region.

Hence, one can safely argue that Israel ’s nuclear arsenal is intended not merely for “self-protection” or “self-preservation” but also for strategic-aggrandizement and spreading military supremacy all over the Middle East , from Iran to Morocco .

When translating this into simple political language, one reaches the inescapable conclusion that Israel’s ultimate goal is to enslave hundreds of millions of Muslims and Christians from Tehran to Mauritania and from Istanbul to Khartoum.

This is not a phobic assessment of the Israeli strategic doctrine and intentions. This is rather an accurate and realistic reading into Israel ’s collective thinking.

From the Nile to the Euphrates

According to the late Yisrael Shahak, author of “Jewish History, Jewish Religion: the Weight of Three Thousand Years,” some rabbinic authorities see the borders of Israel as the following: In the south, all of Sinai and parts of northern Egypt up to the environs of Cairo; in the east, all of Jordan and a large chunk of Saudi Arabia, all of Kuwait and a part of Iraq south of the Euphrates, in the north, all of Lebanon and all of Syria and a huge part of Turkey!! (up to the Lake Van) and in the West, Cyprus.

According to Shahak, these are not, as one would think, anecdotal views among an eccentric rabbinic class. On the contrary, an enormous body of research and learned discussion based on these borders, embodied in atlases, books, articles and more popular forms of propaganda was published in Israel, often with state subsidies, or other forms of support.

Shahak adds that there are influential Jewish religious figures in Israel who believe that Israel will have to conquer these countries sooner or later on the ground that doing so is a divinely commanded act.

This is why Muslims should be vigilant and constantly on the watch as to Israel’s real intentions. Muslim states should also pay more attention to what Israel does and less to what Israel says.

In 1979, Israel attacked and destroyed an Iraqi nuclear plant in Baghdad and in 1986; Israel bombed the PLO headquarters in Tunis . A decade later, Mossad agents assassinated Khalil al Wazir (Abu Jihad), Fatah’s number-2 in his home, also in Tunis . Israel is also believed to have carried out a number of covert operations in several Arab and Islamic countries, mostly recently in Sudan .

In addition, Israeli agents are believed to have been responsible for the mysterious assassination of numerous Arab and more recently Iranian scientists in a hell-bent effort to foil the development of any sound technological base in any Muslim country that could pose even a potential threat to Israel’s hegemony and regional supremacy.

In recent years, Israeli officials and leaders have threatened to exterminate entire Arab and Muslim countries in the region. The current Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, suggested that Israel should drop a nuclear bomb in Gaza during the recent genocidal blitz against the blockaded coastal territory.

The very same Lieberman had said that Israel would bomb Egypt’s Aswan Dam, and send Tehran back to the Middle Ages. Matan Vilnaai, another Israeli military leader, threatened to inflict a holocaust on the Gaza Strip, a threat partially fulfilled when Israel showered Gaza with death from air, sea and land, using hellish weapons of death such as White Phosphorus which incinerated Palestinian children in the hundreds.

Such threats should never ever be taken lightly, especially by the potential victims, namely the Arabs, the Iranians and the Turks and probably other peoples as well.

This is a deadly serious issue that ought be treated with the utmost seriousness it deserves. And in any case when our very survival, our very existence, is at stake, we should take no chances. This is what all serious countries do. So why don’t we?

Again we must pay more attention to what Israel does, not what Israel says. And what Israel does and has been doing shows that the criminal-minded state poses a real existential threat to every Arab and Muslim country in the Middle East and beyond.

In 2006, Israel rained death on Lebanon by dropping 2-3 million cluster-bombs that killed and maimed (and will continue to kill and maim) Lebanese civilians, shepherds, farmers and peasants and families picnicking in the vicinity of their homes for many many years to come.

And in Gaza recently, Israel rained death on an essentially prisoner population that, contrary to Israel’s wishes, forgot to die quietly, and had to be incinerated and exterminated with White Phosphorus from high altitudes.

The pornographic slaughter was being watched around the world and no Arab or Muslim country moved or even contemplated moving to rescue the helpless Palestinians who were paying the price of Muslim weakness.

This begs the ultimate question, namely how Muslims ought to relate to this madness, this arrogance of power, this existential menace by a satanic state that thinks it has the right to inflict death and destruction on other peoples and other countries?

Are we going to just continue the erstwhile ignominious practice of giving our children as sacrificial offerings at the Jewish alter of insolence? Are we going to keep arranging our dead children and dead women in long rows in the hope of gaining sympathy from a whoring world that only respects military might? Are we going to keep hoping for a change of heart or a change of might on the part of whoever comes to the White House?

To be sure, Israel’s nuclear arsenal is not a passing threat. It won’t go away, it won’t be neutralized by displaying “more moderation” by the “capitals of wisdom” in the Arab world. (a truer description is probably the capitals of impotence).

We all know that Israel and Zionist leaders around the world interpret moderation and peace-mindedness on the part of Arab leaders as an expression of fear, cowardice and weakness. Just read the Hebrew press and see how Israel views Arab moderation and good will.

In fact, Israel’s nuclear threat is going to be more real and more tangible in the coming years when manifestly fascist Jewish forces take control over Israel’s nuclear arsenals. This is not a matter of “if” but “when” it will happen. Just imagine how the Middle East and the rest of the world would look like when the likes of Lieberman, or the gurus of the Yichud ha’leiumi or ha’Bayt ha’Yehudi gained control over Israel’s 250-300 nuclear weapons?

We Muslims don’t lack the resources to be powerful and deter our enemies. What we do lack is the will to be free, united, sovereign and truly independent.

So, what are we waiting for? Are we waiting for Israel to strike at Mecca and Madina, a possibility that should never be ruled out, given the nefarious nature of the Zionist entity?

Indeed, who would deter, let alone repulse Israel from embarking on the unthinkable? Egypt? Saudi Arabia? Or perhaps the hedonistic, illiterate and ignorant Sheikhs and Emirs and kings who think that erecting high buildings is the ultimate sign of progress and civilization?

The answer is clear. And unfortunately, only one country in the region, apart from the aggressor Israel, is serious about protecting its people from an external aggression of genocidal proportions.

This country ought to be lauded and praised for its dignified determination to be free, not castigated by impotent Arab states that continue to cede their respective sovereignty to the United States .