Israel Zionist Terrorists Use Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Weapons
Posted by USHOSTAGE1 at 4/7/2008 8:30 PM 
Categories: Hillel,jcfsandiego.org,aipac.org,uscourts.gov,ATTORNEY,USD Law,University of San Diego School of Law,California Western School of Law,cwsl,aclu.org,ADL,Jewish Community Foundation,IFCJ
Categories: Hillel,jcfsandiego.org,aipac.org,uscourts.gov,ATTORNEY,USD Law,University of San Diego School of Law,California Western School of Law,cwsl,aclu.org,ADL,Jewish Community Foundation,IFCJ
Israel: Unconventional weapons & cluster bombs
By Lubna Samara
April 3, 2008
english.alarabonline.org
An unconventional weapon is one that has either nuclear, chemical or biological capabilities. So the weapons we are going to be looking at are:
- Nuclear Weapons
- Depleted Uranium
- Chemical & Biological Weapons
- Cluster Munitions
It is believed that Israel has used all the above during the last 60 years, with the exception of dropping a nuclear bomb, although it seems certain that it possesses a nuclear arsenal.
A little word about international humanitarian law: the treaties that govern it are the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols. The 1st Protocol prohibits indiscriminate attacks, including "those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective," and "those which employ a method or means of combat, the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol" (1). In effect, any attack has to be directed at a military target and contained to that target.
We are going to look at the different categories, and Israel's use of them…
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nuclear Weapons
According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative - headed by CNN founder Ted Turner and Senator Sam Nunn, who served as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee - Israel is the sixth nation in the world to develop and acquire a nuclear weapons capability, and they explicitly state that since 1970, Israel's status as a nuclear weapon state has become an accepted international fact (2).
As far back as 1986, Israeli nuclear technician Mordechi Vanunu showed photographs and other evidence of nuclear production to the Sunday Times, and told the newspaper that Israel had 100-200 nuclear devices (3). This estimate is backed up by the Arms Control Association, which put the figure at 75-200 warheads in October 2007. These numbers are based on the amount of fissile material Israel is estimated to have produced; this is highly enriched uranium, a key element for making nuclear weapons (4).
Israel is not a member of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, and its official stance has always been one of opacity and deliberate ambiguity on the subject. It wants people to think it has nuclear capabilities, but refuses to confirm it. It was Israeli military leader and politician Moshe Dayan who famously said: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother" (5).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Depleted Uranium
Depleted Uranium is a by-product of the enriching of natural uranium for use in nuclear reactors. It is a chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metal used particularly in armour-piercing ammunition (1).
There are many reports that Israel has been using DU since as far back as 1973. Dr Doug Rokke was head of the US Army’s investigative team into the assessment of the dangers of DU, and has been called on to advise the US Senate, Department of Defense and House of Representatives, the British House of Lords and House of Commons, and the UN. According to him, the Israelis first used DU munitions against the Egyptians in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, and more recently, he says the US sold Israel over 100 GBU 28s (precision-guided bombs) for use in Lebanon.
There were pictures posted on several news websites of Israeli soldiers loading these DU weapons onto Israeli tanks. These photographs mysteriously disappeared from several news websites just after they were published, but a few were retrieved from the Getty archive (6):
Correspondent Robert Fisk wrote in the Independent in October 2006 that "scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri, suggests that uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel's weapons inventory - and were used against targets in Lebanon. According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli bombs showed 'elevated radiation signatures'. Both had been forwarded for further examination to a laboratory used by the Ministry of Defense, which has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples."
The Busby report goes on to say: "The health effects on local civilian populations … are likely to be significant ... we recommend that the area is examined for further traces of these weapons with a view to clean up" (7).
The Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said: "Israel does not use any weaponry which is not authorised by international law or international conventions."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chemical & Biological Weapons
Allegations that Israeli forces have used chemical and biological weapons date back to the war of 1948. According to Israeli military historian Dr Uri Milstein, the typhoid epidemic that spread in Acre that year, just before the town fell, was due to the Israeli Defence Force's deliberate contamination of the city's water supply (8).
There seems to be little doubt that Israel possesses an active chemical weapons programme, and that this is located at the Israel Institute for Biological Research in Ness Ziona.
"I have no doubt that Israel has worked on both chemical and biological offensive matter for a long time… (but) I do not think you will find much on it," Bill Richardson, deputy secretary of defence responsible for the chemical and biological warfare programmes in the Reagan and Bush administrations, said in 1998. "We have always seemed to have a double standard on Israel, compared to talking about the threats from other countries. There is no doubt they have had stuff for years" (13).
In October 1992, an Israeli El Al cargo plane bound for Israel crashed near Amsterdam. In the following months hundreds of people, local residents and those who had been working on the crash site complained of unidentified health problems, including respitory problems, skin disorders, nausea and neurological problems.
The Israeli authorities refused to publish a full list of the cargo manifest, and after persistent speculation in the Netherlands about the nature of the freight, the Dutch government finally had to conduct an inquiry. The report, published in April 1999, concluded that toxins were released during the crash, including three of the four chemicals used in the manufacture of the nerve gas sarin, as well as depleted uranium which was recovered after the crash.
The Israeli authorities admitted to having on the plane 50 gallons of the chemical dimethyl methylphosphonate, enough to produce 594 pounds of the sarin, but "the material was non-toxic and was to have been used to test filters that protect against chemical weapons" (11, 12, 22, 23).
The chemical weapon that has been used most by Israel is probably white phosphorous. It combusts when it comes into contact with air, and can burn flesh to the bone (20). Independent correspondent Robert Fisk writes that in 1982 in Lebanon, "journalists discovered dying and dead civilians whose wounds caught fire when exposed to air," and that he himself saw "two dead babies who, when taken from a mortuary drawer in West Beirut during the Israeli siege ... suddenly burst back into flames" (6).
During the 2006 war in Lebanon, many civilians were photographed with injuries consistent with white phosphorous burns. In one case, a doctor working in a hospital near Ba'albak said he had received three corpses "entirely shriveled with black-green skin," a phenomenon characteristic of phosphorus injuries (21).
Emile Lahoud, Lebanon's president at the time, said the IDF used phosphorus munitions against civilians in his country (21).
There are also reports of Israel having used unidentified toxic weapons. In March 2003, the BBC aired Israel's Secret Weapon, an investigation of the country's development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. "The Israeli army has used new unidentified weapons," the BBC reported. "In February 2001 a new gas was used in Gaza. A hundred and eighty patients were admitted to hospitals with severe convulsions…Israel is outside chemical and biological weapons treaties, and still refuses to say what the new gas was" (9).
On 10 June 2004, medical units in the West Bank town of Al-Zawiya reported that they treated 130 patients for gas inhalation. The patients were children, women, old people and young men. Dr Abu Madi related said there was a high number of cases of tetany, spasms in legs and hands, connected to the nervous system. "Pupils were dilated … and symptoms included shock, semi-consciousness, hyperventilation, irritation and sweating" (10).
In July 2006, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that Israel is using "a new type of explosive in its offensive on the Gaza Strip. These explosives contain toxic and radioactive materials which burn and tear the victim's body from the inside and leave long term deformations" (9).
In October 2006, Israel finally admitted that it had used white phosphorous in southern Lebanon that summer, but that "according to international law, the use of phosphorous munitions is authorised and the [Israeli] army keeps to the rules of international norms" (7).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cluster Munitions
Cluster bombs scatter either dozens or hundreds of sub-munitions, depending on their type, over an area the size of one or two football pitches (1 & 14). One of the biggest problems of cluster munitions is that many of these bomblets fail to explode when they are first dropped or fired. They end up being much like landmines and, when dropped, can settle in trees and fields unexploded, posing a grave danger to local civilians.
During the conflict in Lebanon in July-August 2006, the Israeli Defence Force dropped around 4 million sub-munitions over the south of the country (14). Estimates vary, but this figure is according to Human Rights Watch.
The UN's mine disposal agency says about 40% of the cluster bombs fired by Israel failed to detonate (15). David Shearer, then the UN humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, called the attack "outrageous" (16). UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland went further: "What is shocking, and I would say completely immoral, is that 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution, when we knew there would be an end" (17).
Chris Clark, the programme manager for the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre, added: "What we have seen are strikes on top of strikes on top of strikes on top of strikes. It is tantamount to shooting a dead body 20 times" (18).
And an IDF spokesman said: "All the weapons and munitions used by the Israeli Defence Force are legal under international law, and their use conforms with international standards" (19).
HRW researchers who were on the ground during and after the conflict say their findings paint quite a different picture: "Research in more than 40 towns and villages found that the IDF's use of cluster munitions was both indiscriminate and disproportionate, in violation of International Humanitarian Law, and in some locations possibly a war crime" (14).
Al-Arab, London -
April 3, 2008
english.alarabonline.org
An unconventional weapon is one that has either nuclear, chemical or biological capabilities. So the weapons we are going to be looking at are:
- Nuclear Weapons
- Depleted Uranium
- Chemical & Biological Weapons
- Cluster Munitions
It is believed that Israel has used all the above during the last 60 years, with the exception of dropping a nuclear bomb, although it seems certain that it possesses a nuclear arsenal.
A little word about international humanitarian law: the treaties that govern it are the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Additional Protocols. The 1st Protocol prohibits indiscriminate attacks, including "those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective," and "those which employ a method or means of combat, the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol" (1). In effect, any attack has to be directed at a military target and contained to that target.
We are going to look at the different categories, and Israel's use of them…
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nuclear Weapons
According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative - headed by CNN founder Ted Turner and Senator Sam Nunn, who served as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee - Israel is the sixth nation in the world to develop and acquire a nuclear weapons capability, and they explicitly state that since 1970, Israel's status as a nuclear weapon state has become an accepted international fact (2).
As far back as 1986, Israeli nuclear technician Mordechi Vanunu showed photographs and other evidence of nuclear production to the Sunday Times, and told the newspaper that Israel had 100-200 nuclear devices (3). This estimate is backed up by the Arms Control Association, which put the figure at 75-200 warheads in October 2007. These numbers are based on the amount of fissile material Israel is estimated to have produced; this is highly enriched uranium, a key element for making nuclear weapons (4).
Israel is not a member of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty, and its official stance has always been one of opacity and deliberate ambiguity on the subject. It wants people to think it has nuclear capabilities, but refuses to confirm it. It was Israeli military leader and politician Moshe Dayan who famously said: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother" (5).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Depleted Uranium
Depleted Uranium is a by-product of the enriching of natural uranium for use in nuclear reactors. It is a chemically toxic and radioactive heavy metal used particularly in armour-piercing ammunition (1).
There are many reports that Israel has been using DU since as far back as 1973. Dr Doug Rokke was head of the US Army’s investigative team into the assessment of the dangers of DU, and has been called on to advise the US Senate, Department of Defense and House of Representatives, the British House of Lords and House of Commons, and the UN. According to him, the Israelis first used DU munitions against the Egyptians in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, and more recently, he says the US sold Israel over 100 GBU 28s (precision-guided bombs) for use in Lebanon.
There were pictures posted on several news websites of Israeli soldiers loading these DU weapons onto Israeli tanks. These photographs mysteriously disappeared from several news websites just after they were published, but a few were retrieved from the Getty archive (6):
Correspondent Robert Fisk wrote in the Independent in October 2006 that "scientific evidence gathered from at least two bomb craters in Khiam and At-Tiri, suggests that uranium-based munitions may now also be included in Israel's weapons inventory - and were used against targets in Lebanon. According to Dr Chris Busby, the British Scientific Secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk, two soil samples thrown up by Israeli bombs showed 'elevated radiation signatures'. Both had been forwarded for further examination to a laboratory used by the Ministry of Defense, which has confirmed the concentration of uranium isotopes in the samples."
The Busby report goes on to say: "The health effects on local civilian populations … are likely to be significant ... we recommend that the area is examined for further traces of these weapons with a view to clean up" (7).
The Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said: "Israel does not use any weaponry which is not authorised by international law or international conventions."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chemical & Biological Weapons
Allegations that Israeli forces have used chemical and biological weapons date back to the war of 1948. According to Israeli military historian Dr Uri Milstein, the typhoid epidemic that spread in Acre that year, just before the town fell, was due to the Israeli Defence Force's deliberate contamination of the city's water supply (8).
There seems to be little doubt that Israel possesses an active chemical weapons programme, and that this is located at the Israel Institute for Biological Research in Ness Ziona.
"I have no doubt that Israel has worked on both chemical and biological offensive matter for a long time… (but) I do not think you will find much on it," Bill Richardson, deputy secretary of defence responsible for the chemical and biological warfare programmes in the Reagan and Bush administrations, said in 1998. "We have always seemed to have a double standard on Israel, compared to talking about the threats from other countries. There is no doubt they have had stuff for years" (13).
In October 1992, an Israeli El Al cargo plane bound for Israel crashed near Amsterdam. In the following months hundreds of people, local residents and those who had been working on the crash site complained of unidentified health problems, including respitory problems, skin disorders, nausea and neurological problems.
The Israeli authorities refused to publish a full list of the cargo manifest, and after persistent speculation in the Netherlands about the nature of the freight, the Dutch government finally had to conduct an inquiry. The report, published in April 1999, concluded that toxins were released during the crash, including three of the four chemicals used in the manufacture of the nerve gas sarin, as well as depleted uranium which was recovered after the crash.
The Israeli authorities admitted to having on the plane 50 gallons of the chemical dimethyl methylphosphonate, enough to produce 594 pounds of the sarin, but "the material was non-toxic and was to have been used to test filters that protect against chemical weapons" (11, 12, 22, 23).
The chemical weapon that has been used most by Israel is probably white phosphorous. It combusts when it comes into contact with air, and can burn flesh to the bone (20). Independent correspondent Robert Fisk writes that in 1982 in Lebanon, "journalists discovered dying and dead civilians whose wounds caught fire when exposed to air," and that he himself saw "two dead babies who, when taken from a mortuary drawer in West Beirut during the Israeli siege ... suddenly burst back into flames" (6).
During the 2006 war in Lebanon, many civilians were photographed with injuries consistent with white phosphorous burns. In one case, a doctor working in a hospital near Ba'albak said he had received three corpses "entirely shriveled with black-green skin," a phenomenon characteristic of phosphorus injuries (21).
Emile Lahoud, Lebanon's president at the time, said the IDF used phosphorus munitions against civilians in his country (21).
There are also reports of Israel having used unidentified toxic weapons. In March 2003, the BBC aired Israel's Secret Weapon, an investigation of the country's development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. "The Israeli army has used new unidentified weapons," the BBC reported. "In February 2001 a new gas was used in Gaza. A hundred and eighty patients were admitted to hospitals with severe convulsions…Israel is outside chemical and biological weapons treaties, and still refuses to say what the new gas was" (9).
On 10 June 2004, medical units in the West Bank town of Al-Zawiya reported that they treated 130 patients for gas inhalation. The patients were children, women, old people and young men. Dr Abu Madi related said there was a high number of cases of tetany, spasms in legs and hands, connected to the nervous system. "Pupils were dilated … and symptoms included shock, semi-consciousness, hyperventilation, irritation and sweating" (10).
In July 2006, the Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that Israel is using "a new type of explosive in its offensive on the Gaza Strip. These explosives contain toxic and radioactive materials which burn and tear the victim's body from the inside and leave long term deformations" (9).
In October 2006, Israel finally admitted that it had used white phosphorous in southern Lebanon that summer, but that "according to international law, the use of phosphorous munitions is authorised and the [Israeli] army keeps to the rules of international norms" (7).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cluster Munitions
Cluster bombs scatter either dozens or hundreds of sub-munitions, depending on their type, over an area the size of one or two football pitches (1 & 14). One of the biggest problems of cluster munitions is that many of these bomblets fail to explode when they are first dropped or fired. They end up being much like landmines and, when dropped, can settle in trees and fields unexploded, posing a grave danger to local civilians.
During the conflict in Lebanon in July-August 2006, the Israeli Defence Force dropped around 4 million sub-munitions over the south of the country (14). Estimates vary, but this figure is according to Human Rights Watch.
The UN's mine disposal agency says about 40% of the cluster bombs fired by Israel failed to detonate (15). David Shearer, then the UN humanitarian coordinator in Lebanon, called the attack "outrageous" (16). UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland went further: "What is shocking, and I would say completely immoral, is that 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution, when we knew there would be an end" (17).
Chris Clark, the programme manager for the UN Mine Action Coordination Centre, added: "What we have seen are strikes on top of strikes on top of strikes on top of strikes. It is tantamount to shooting a dead body 20 times" (18).
And an IDF spokesman said: "All the weapons and munitions used by the Israeli Defence Force are legal under international law, and their use conforms with international standards" (19).
HRW researchers who were on the ground during and after the conflict say their findings paint quite a different picture: "Research in more than 40 towns and villages found that the IDF's use of cluster munitions was both indiscriminate and disproportionate, in violation of International Humanitarian Law, and in some locations possibly a war crime" (14).
Al-Arab, London -
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