I had intended to write a post about the worsening financial situation in the Eurozone and the USA tonight, but I received a link in my email from a friend that prompted me to write this post instead. A reputable German media source, Der Spiegel, has released a major article that confirms that the Israelis do, in fact, have nuclear weapons (see first two links [1] [2] for two view-points on this article).
To many this conclusion is simply confirming what many of us have known for many years even though the Israelis have been coy about admitting whether it was true or not. I find it most interesting that this information was released by the German media and that it was released at this time. Germany has, for years, been building the advanced submarines which the Israeli navy has been equipping with nuclear-tipped missiles. Since Germany has been an important armorer for the Israelis, and since the article cites secret government-to-government communications on the matter, it seems evident to me that this article was released as an “official leak” approved by both the German and Israeli governments. The timing of this story seems designed to, I think, create some deterrence to the Iranian threats to “wipe Israel off the map” as Iran tries to develop nuclear weapons of its own. I hope it does so, but I’m not sure there is enough rationality in Iran’s leadership to be deterred from their aims.
The article is noteworthy in that it asserts German-Israeli governmental communications on the Israeli nuclear program have occurred as long ago as 1961 and 1977. It is also evident to me that, given the very favorable stipulations granted to Israel by the Germans on the submarine deals, that the German government feels morally obligated to assist the Israelis in defending themselves as a nation. Given the Holocaust of World War II, this is very understandable and appropriate.
The third link mentions a book that examines the development of the Israeli nuclear weapons program and the book’s description mentions past Israeli cooperation with South Africa and Iran on the program. I can’t recommend the book as I have not read it, but the mention of cooperation with Iran must go back to the time when the Shah of Iran still ruled that nation and it was pro-Western. This description reminded me of a 1978 book I read many years ago called The Nuclear Axis by Barbara Rogers and Zdenek Cervenka. It detailed Israeli cooperation with the South African government before the fall of Apartheid. In that book, I had a newspaper clipping of a 1995 AP story which reported that South Africa had built and dismantled six nuclear bombs. I could not find that article anywhere in a websearch, but I did find the same claim asserted in the fourth link that South Africa was once a nuclear power and dismantled its small arsenal of nuclear weapons. I’m sure some readers will wonder whether South Africa really did dismantle all of its nukes, but there is no way we laymen can know for sure.
It has been assumed by various sources that the Israelis have anywhere between 60-200 nuclear warheads. Personally, since they have been working on their nuclear weapons program since at least 1961, my personal opinion is that the Israelis have considerably more than 200 nuclear warheads. The Israelis have long had the means, the motive and the opportunity to build a lot of nukes, given their many enemies. The Israelis have enough nuclear warheads to equip four submarines with an unknown number of nuclear-tipped missiles and they also can deliver nuclear weapons via their air force fighter-bombers and via Jericho Missiles. Since the Israelis can deliver nukes by at least three methods, it argues the Israeli nuclear program is both large and well-diversified.
Zephaniah 2 prophesied the Jews (“Judah”) would have a nation of their own in the old Promised Land during the biblical latter days (one of several sure signs that we are living in the biblical end-times as documented in my article, Are We Living in the Biblical Latter Days?) Genesis 49:8-10 prophesies that the Jewish nation in the latter days would be like a “lion’s whelp” over its prey and that its “hand would be in the neck of its enemies.” A “whelp” is a small lion cub, so the biblical prophecy indicates the Jewish nation would be a young and small nation as well as a very strong one in the latter days. This fulfilled prophecy confirms the Divine inspiration of the Bible and the fact that the Creator God himself is guiding the destiny of modern nations. Those who ignore God’s biblical prophecies do so at their own peril.
http://www.thejewishweek.com/blogs/political_insider/der_spiegel_dolphin_armed_nukes
http://www.amazon.com/The-Samson-Option-Israels-American/dp/0394570065
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/4133904?uid=3739904&uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=47699061564287
