MORGAN: Do you have nuclear weapons?
NETANYAHU: Well, we have a long-standing policy that we won't be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East and that hasn't changed.
MORGAN: You don't have any?
NETANYAHU: That's our policy. Not to be the
first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. [1]
Also on March 17, 2011, Prof.
Uzi Even, a former top official at Israel's Dimona, which is similar in technology to the reactors in
Japan said:
"The reactors were built about the same time, 40-50 years ago. In principle, the planning of the reactors is similar. The soft underbelly is the cooling system, which must be operated with great force, even after the reactor is turned out. If there is a breakdown in the cooling system, it will cause the core to collapse. That's what happened at the Japanese reactors.
"While we don't have tsunamis or such strong earthquakes, the chances of a breakdown in the cooling system, either by chance or deliberately, are very great. Our reactor is 50 years old, far older than what is permitted to operate in other countries. Another factor here, which is absent in Japan, is the possibility of deliberate sabotage of the reactor's cooling system. We have enough crazies who wouldn't hesitate to do it if they could." [2]
However, my first question to PM Netanyahu and CNN begins on May 23, 2010, when I sent CNN a NEWS TIP and filed two I-Report's in response to "Israeli nuclear whistle-blower back in jail" which can be read here:
http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/meast/05/23/israel.vanunu.jailed/?hpt=T3
In my I-Report's I also included this photo, which exposes Vanunu's sense of humor:
Vanunu is the most
infamous of all photographers ever for he exposed Israel's WMD Facility in 56
photos he shot in 1985 while he was a technician in the Dimona 7 story underground WMD Facility that were published as a front
page story by the London SUNDAY TIMES just as Vanunu was being kidnapped by the Mossad in October 1986.
My initial report
was accepted, but when I returned an hour later to check on it, I learned it
was "NOT AVAILABLE."
Imagining a technological glitch, I re-posted it and again it was accepted.
But, within five
minutes it was again rendered "NOT AVAILABLE."
What I wrote:
Why Israel Put
Mordechai Vanunu Back In Jail
On 24 April 2004, which was three days after Mordechai Vanunu was released from
18 years in a windowless tomb sized cell jail for providing the photographic
proof and telling the truth about Israel's clandestine seven story underground
WMD Program in the Negev, Uri Avnery wrote:
"Everybody understands that he has no more secrets. What can a technician
know after 18 years in jail, during which technology has advanced with giant
steps?
"But gradually it becomes clear what the security establishment is really
afraid of. Vanunu is in a position to expose the close partnership with the
United States in the development of Israel's nuclear armaments.
"This worries Washington so much, that the man responsible in the State
Department for 'arms control', Under-Secretary John Bolton, has come to Israel
in person for the occasion. Vanunu, it appears, can cause severe damage to the
mighty super-power.
"The Americans, it seems, are very worried. The Israeli security services
have to dance to their tune. The world must be prevented by all available means
from hearing, from the lips of a credible witness, that the Americans are full
partners in Israel's nuclear arms program, while pretending to be the world's
sheriff for the prevention of nuclear proliferation." [3]
A brief history since then:
On April 30, 2007, the Jerusalem Magistrate's Court, convicted Vanunu on 14
[out of 21] counts of violating a court order prohibiting him from speaking to
foreign journalists in 2004. Vanunu was also convicted for traveling the four
miles from Jerusalem to Bethlehem when he hoped to attend Christmas Eve mass at
the Church of the Nativity, his first Christmas after being released from 18
years in jail [most of it in solitary] on April 21, 2004.
On July 2, 2007, Israel sentenced Vanunu to six more months in jail for speaking
to foreign media in 2004.
On September 23, 2008, the Jerusalem District Court reduced Vanunu's six-month
jail sentence for speaking with foreign media in 2004, to three months,
"In light of his ailing health and the absence of claims that his actions
put the country's security in jeopardy."
After appealing that sentence, the Israeli Supreme Court returned Vanunu to
jail on May 23, 2010, after they refused his counter-offer to do three-months
of community service in Arab east Jerusalem, the only community he has known
since 21 April 2004. The Court insisted Vanunu must serve in west Jerusalem,
which is 99% Jewish-populated, but Vanunu feared attack there by angry
Israelis, most of whom consider him a traitor.
The restrictions that have subjected Vanunu to 24/7 surveillance [his
movements, phone calls and emails] for the last six years come from the
Emergency Defense Regulations, which were implemented by Britain against
Palestinians and Jews after World War II.
Attorney Yaccov Shapiro, who later became Israel's Minister Of Justice,
described the Emergency Defense Regulations as "unparalleled in any
civilized country: there were no such laws in Nazi Germany."
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