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Subject: Israeli Nuclear Weapons
Roman    4/21/2004 2:25:58 PM
I have heard the size of the Israeli nuclear arsenal estimated at between 75 and 300 warheads with the number 100 being cited most often. Now that Vanunu has been released, it will put Israel's position into spotlight and international pressure on Israel will increase.

Although I am against nuclear proliferation, I am amazed at how lightly Vanunu has been treated considering the scope of his treachery. I would expect nothing less than a death penalty for a traitor of such magnitude if my country was betrayed in a similar fashion. Really, in my eyes he committed one of the highest forms of treason imaginable - I wonder why Israel has held back from executing him.
 
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interrested 2    RE:Israeli Nuclear Weapons   4/21/2004 2:30:04 PM
Cause Israel is a civilized country, and the secret's he told were very convenient to be told. It really made/makes some arabs think twice before they go all "gung ho" again
 
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bsl    RE:Israeli Nuclear Weapons   4/21/2004 6:25:43 PM
Not really. It's because Israeli criminal law is in the European mold, and often too weak where really serious crime is at issue. What Vanunu did, in broad terms, was treason, and he never ought have seen the light of day.
 
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Covaysh    RE:Israeli Nuclear Weapons   10/19/2004 8:13:07 PM
Actually your both wrong.... Israel has this thing, where they don't want to kill jews. That's why there's no capital punishment... for if they execute the arabs they would have to kill the jews as well... and if they don't, people would scream Apartheid and such... In short, They don't want Jew's killing other jew's... even converted ones. Never again.
 
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Shirrush    RE:Israeli Nuclear Weapons   10/25/2004 8:32:03 PM
You're both FOS. The way Vaanunu has been treated, and the publicity that has accompanied the whole affair, have been aggravating me all along the way. He was found guilty of nothing more than breach of contract and perjury, and failing to keep secrets he was entrusted with. He certainly deserved the jail sentence he served, but the restrictions foisted on him after his release serve no other purpose than granting him yet more undeserved publicity, instead of letting him quietly slip into psychiatric anonymity in some Anglo-Saxon country that'd accept him. The treason he is most guilty of IMO is his apostasy, and I feel just like bsl that wants his head off, only that justice and emotions are, fortunately, two different places in democratic countries.
 
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bsl    RE:Israeli Nuclear Weapons   10/25/2004 8:51:33 PM
Nope. It's legitimate to cite the specific legal charges. It's also legitimate to cite the facts supporting those charges and see how they relate to the kind of laws common in the first world. The import of the incident was treason, in the sense the term is understood in Anglo-American law and history. I didn't say he was charged with treason. I said that the nature of what he did fit into the traditional pattern of treason. As it did. Of *course* the Israeli government is trying to make his life miserable. If you believe that there is any basis, at all, to maintain government security regarding what most of the world seems to believe is very nearly the single most sensitive weapons issue, then there has to be some basis apart from the unanimous, voluntary consent of an entire nation on which to enforce such secrecy. Vanunu didn't look at a national issue and try to foster public debate. He took advantage of a special public trust and access and chose to form his own national policy based on his personal whim. That one strains even theoretical libertarianism. If he wants to wage a personal war, he should be prepared to take the consequences, which, frankly, have been rather mild given the nature and weight of the issues.
 
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elcid    RE:Israeli Nuclear Weapons   1/25/2005 5:50:13 AM
I am surprised (Roman). It is amazing to me he was kept in prison so long. He did no more than a reporter would do - and he did it for sound ethical reasons. Israel's nuclear force is quite the worst on the planet. When it was secret (pre Vaununu) it could not even deter! It is the only one with anything remotely as aggressive in terms of implementation planning - according to Israeli academics - not Arab propaganda. There is reason to fear for several ME countries if anyone does something Israel does not like. I can imagine nothing much worse than SECRET nuclear policy debates. The only good news is that Israel has decided to change the total secret nature of this stuff. To quote the former head of the main Jewish lobby group in the USA ("this interview will lead to lots of protests to NPR"): "just because the government of Israel adopts a policy does not automatically make that policy right, even for Israel. We need to think for ourselves, not automatically support anything the government does." True anywhere.
 
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Roman    RE:Israeli Nuclear Weapons   1/25/2005 3:05:47 PM
I am sorry elcid, but whether you approve of Israeli nuclear weapons or not and whether you approve of their nuclear policy or not (and I myself am against nuclear proliferation, as I stated mutiple times already), what Vanunu did was clear and unadulturated treason on a massive scale. As I said, if somebody engaged in such level of treason against my country, I would expect nothing less than the death penalty for him or her. And that is an aside anyway, since I started this thread at the time he was released, really the thread was supposed to discuss the Israeli nuclear arsenal.
 
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Alexis    Was Vanunu's a convenient treason ... or an organized deterrence operation ?   2/18/2005 9:34:20 AM
I agree disclosing details about secret weapons is a grave treason. It's just that I always have found Vanunu's history fishy. Let's face it : his treason was in practice a great service to Israel, and it solved neatly what had been a peculiar Israeli problem for a long time : - Israel has to be clear about the scope of her nuclear abilities, so as to deter potential enemies efficiently - At the same time, there is no way she could do that the traditional way, like most nuclear powers announcing they got N missiles, P subs and Q bombers, or testing bombs ... otherwise the massive US military help to Israel would have to stop, for a legal reason (US Congress decision) independent of even the will of the US administration ! So what do you do ? Imagine you're leader of an Israeli intelligence service and the civilian authority asks you for a solution to that dilemma ? We will probably never know, but I strongly suspect that Vanunu did not stay in his prison for very long periods of time ... I'd say he was mostly living elsewhere under assumed identity, enjoying his freedom like any good servant of the state ...
 
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bsl    RE:Was Vanunu's a convenient treason ... or an organized deterrence operation ?   2/18/2005 5:33:49 PM
Alexis and elcid, Sorry, but you both seem to have a badly erroneous idea of what the status of the Israeli nuclear program was, before Vanunu. Neither of you has indicated your ages, but I wonder if you're not young? I'm old enough to remember the era before Vanunu. There was no doubt in the world about whether or not Israel had a nuclear capability. If you are not prepared to take my word on this, I invite you two to check into news reports from the 70s and 80s, and in Europe, as well as in America. Israel was clearly believed to have a nuclear capability, was described as having one, not only by mere media, **but by virtually every Western government of that era**. The issue was raised in the UN, repeatedly. Indeed, if you check histories of the background of the Arab/Islamic efforts to acquire nuclear weapons you'll find, as well, that most of the Arab world ALSO believed that Israel had nukes. I have an academic background which encompassed strategic (i.e. "nuclear") warfare. Believe me, the academic world also took for granted that Israel had nukes by the late 70s. It believed this *in* the late 70s. There is just no basis to argue that Vanunu surprised the world. He "confirmed the existence" is the best an honest journalist or historian can winkle out of his antics. Arguments based on the assumption that Vanunu told the world something it had not already decided was true are nonstarters. bsl
 
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