SEE PHOTO of that agreement signed by Shimon Peres and P W Botha of South Africa here: Israel South Africa Nuclear Weapons
Dr. Avner Cohen, is an Israeli-born philosopher, historical researcher and a leading expert in Israel's nuclear policy of deception, which is spun as "Ambiguity.' Cohen's latest release is "The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel's Bargain with the Bomb." And in an interview with Haaretz , Cohen spoke about a late 1969 meeting between Golda Meir and Nixon:
"The United States and most of the Western world agreed to accept Israel's special nuclear status. In other words, Israel did not join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, but it received special status, and pressure was not exerted on it with regard to this topic. Ambiguity is the Israeli-American policy. Without the West's agreement, there would be no ambiguity.
"The bitter irony is that right now, ambiguity serves the interests of Israel's rival in the Middle East. Iran is creating its own version of ambiguity: not the concealment of its project, but rather ambiguity with regard to the distinction separating possession and non-possession of nuclear weapons. It reiterates that it has no intention of building a bomb, but that it has the right to enrich uranium, and even come close to developing [nuclear] weapons -- while still remaining true to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It is straddling the line, and in my opinion, Iran wants to, and can, remain for some time with the status of a state that might or might not have the bomb. Iran is a state of ambiguity." [3]
On October 2, 2009, The Washington Times reported that Obama agreed to keep Israel's nukes secret and reaffirmed a 4-decades-old understanding that has allowed Israel to keep a nuclear arsenal without opening it to international inspections. [4]
Three officials spoke on the condition that they not be named because they were discussing private conversations, but all said Obama pledged to maintain the agreement when he first hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House in May 2009.
Under the understanding, the U.S. has not pressured Israel to disclose its nuclear weapons or to sign the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which would require Israel to give up its estimated several hundred nuclear bombs.
This nuclear deception was reached at a summit between President Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir on September 25, 1969, with "the United States passively accepting Israel's nuclear weapons status as long as Israel does not unveil publicly its capability or test a weapon." [Ibid]
US and Israeli Nuclear Deceptions
During my 2005 interviews with Mordechai Vanunu, he told me: "Did you know that President Kennedy tried to stop Israel from building atomic weapons? In 1963, he forced Prime Minister Ben Guirion to admit that Dimona was not a textile plant, as the sign outside proclaimed, but a nuclear plant. The Prime Minister said, "The nuclear reactor is only for peace.'"
Kennedy insisted on an open internal inspection. He wrote letters demanding that Guirion open up Dimona for inspection. The French were responsible for the actual building of Dimona. The Germans gave the money; they were feeling guilty for the Holocaust and tried to pay their way out. Everything inside was written in French when I was there nearly twenty years ago. Back then, the Dimona descended seven floors underground.
In 1955, Peres and Guirion met with the French to agree they would get a nuclear reactor if they fought against Egypt to control the Sinai and Suez Canal. That was the war of 1956. Eisenhower demanded that Israel leave the Sinai, but the reactor plant deal continued on.
When Johnson became president, he made an agreement with Israel that two senators would come every year to inspect. Before the senators would visit, the Israelis would build a wall to block the underground elevators and stairways. From 1963 to 1969, the senators came, but they never knew about the wall that hid the rest of the Dimona from them. Nixon stopped the inspections and agreed to ignore the situation. As a result, Israel increased production. In 1986, there were over two hundred bombs. Today, they may have enough plutonium to produce ten bombs a year. [5]
When President Obama took office, this muckraker began phoning, faxing and emailing him and Secretary of State Clinton, regarding the fact that Israel continues to deny Vanunu the right to leave the state ever since he emerged from a tomb-sized, windowless cell on April 21, 2004, after 18 years in jail for telling the world the truth and providing the photographic evidence that Israel had manufactured upwards of 200 nuclear warheads by 1986 in the Dimona's seven-story underground nuclear facility.
I have also been requesting a statement from this Administration vis-Ã -vis the fact that Israel's very statehood was established contingent upon their upholding the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. As a Member State of the Declaration of Human Rights, America is obligated to hold all Member States accountable when they fail to honor it.
I have relentlessly reminded my government that Article 13-2 guarantees Palestinian refugees and Vanunu, "the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."
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