- JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Forty
years ago a flustered Shimon Peres faced off with U.S. President John F.
Kennedy on a secret seen as key to the Jewish state's survival, and got
away with saying next to nothing.
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- "Kennedy began bombarding me with questions. Suddenly
he says, 'Are you making an atom bomb?' I told him, 'Mr. President, I can
promise you one thing: Israel will not be the first to introduce nuclear
weapons into the Middle East,"' Peres recalled in the recent documentary
film "A Bomb in the Basement."
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- That sidestep by Israel's veteran statesman evolved into
a strategy of ambiguity straddling two national needs -- to strike fear
into numerically superior foes while calming global jitters at any doomsday
saber-rattling in the volatile Middle East.
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- "We chose uncertainty, which afforded deterrence
as far as the Arabs were concerned and convenience as far as our friends
were concerned," Peres said.
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- Critics insist the policy -- enforced at home by military
censors and abroad by agents who, in one case, abducted an Israeli whistleblower
-- is counterproductive, breeding speculation that it could spur a regional
arms race.
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- The director of a Washington-based watchdog group likened
Israel's "opacity" to that of the Soviet Union in the Cold War,
saying this hastened the U.S. nuclear programs and increased tensions.
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- "As it turned out, the Soviets were not so well-stocked,"
said Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association. "Ever since, it
has been proven that greater knowledge about different nations' nuclear
weapons generally leads to greater responsibility."
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- Daniel Seaman, director of the Israeli government press
office, who liaises between the media and the security services, disagrees.
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- "Israel won't discuss non-conventional capabilities,
but it wants to keep the enemy guessing," he said. "Ambiguity
is not all about denial. Speculation also makes for deterrence."
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- 200 NUKES REPORTED AT DESERT SITE
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- Israel did not sign the 1970 U.N. Treaty on the Non-Proliferation
of Nuclear Weapons and thus kept its main reactor, in the desert town of
Dimona, exempt from inspections.
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- At least 200 nuclear warheads are believed to have been
produced at Dimona, an estimate based on disclosures by nuclear technician
Mordechai Vanunu to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper in 1986 and other
exposes quoting unnamed intelligence sources.
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- Last month, as international calls for the inspection
of Iran's atomic reactors mounted, the Los Angeles Times reported that
Israel had extended its reach to the Islamic republic by arming U.S.-made,
submarine-launched missiles with nuclear warheads. The newspaper cited
U.S. administration sources and -- in the first such claim by a reputable
publication -- said an Israeli "official" confirmed the missile
had been modified.
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- The Pentagon and Israeli government declined comment.
Duncan Lennox, editor of Jane's Strategic Weapons Systems, said the report's
timing was no less important than its truthfulness.
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- "Iran must be very worrying to Israel. Hence I would
think that the stories of Israel's capabilities may be aimed at saying
to Iran, 'You may get some nuclear weapons, but there will always be retaliation
if you attack first,"' Lennox said.
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- WHISTEBLOWING HOT AND COLD
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- Such theories sit well with Israeli journalists like
Michael Karpin, whose "A Bomb in the Basement" enjoyed unprecedented
access to the nation's atomic architects and privileged files.
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- He attributed this to the fact the film was made shortly
after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States: "It seems Israel,
fearing a new and yet-unknown global terror threat, decided it was time
to reveal more of its own threats."
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- Yet a senior Israeli official insisted such initiatives
are unnecessary. "The appeal of uncovering our capabilities -- whatever
they may be -- is such that people will talk no matter what we do,"
said the official on condition of anonymity.
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- Israel does not tolerate leaks. Vanunu was abducted overseas
by the secret service and jailed for 18 years.
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- More recently, Yitzhak Yaacov, a retired chief of Israel's
military arms-research branch, was tried as a spy for granting the leading
national daily Yedioth Aharonoth an interview and writing a memoir. He
denied trying to circumvent censorship.
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- Such crackdowns are far from consistent, however.
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- In June 2000, a month after Israel ended its 22-year
occupation of south Lebanon in a unilateral move many saw as harmful to
national deterrence, the Sunday Times reported an Israeli test of nuclear-capable
missiles in the Indian Ocean.
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- Israeli officials denied the report but apparently took
no action against Sunday Times reporter Uzi Mahnaimi, an Israeli who works
out of Tel Aviv. He could not be reached for comment.
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- Israel's nuclear ambiguity lets it skirt U.S. laws against
supporting countries that proliferate non-conventional weapons, and thus
it receives $2.8 billion in annual aid from Washington.
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- http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3814034
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