Israel has long refused to confirm or deny the existence of its nuclear arsenal. Everyone knows they have these weapons, but just how many they have is up for debate, the estimates range between 200 and 350.
What we [or I if you did] didn't know is that they have tried to sell them in the past
To what lovable regime did they offer to sell these charming weapons?
Why to Botha's Apartheid S.Africa? One of the most despised regimes in recent memory.
How do we know this? Only now that the democratic government in S. Africa decided against Israel's wishes to release the documents.
These are in fact the first documents that show Israel has nuclear weapons, and they were/are for sale, since the secrecy is so great we must assume they are still for sale.
Israel is often held up to be the beacon of democracy in an otherwise backwards part of the world, well at least for many American's point of view that is the case. How could this enlightened state sell weapons to one of the most racist and oppressive governments in the last 100 years?
The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
I would prefer that these documents are fake,
How could a nation, that grew from the horrors of the Holocaust that itself was fed by the type of policies S. Africa had in place at the time of the proposed sale, want to sell them weapons of such horrific potential?
S. Africa did not buy the weapons, but did Israel help them design the ones they built?
The documentary evidence is pretty complete for such a secretive action.
Who can say that Israel is not continuing down this road of nuclear proliferation, or perhaps they stopped because there are no other racist segregationist regimes that they approve of to sell them to?
With this in mind, it is time that Israel was open about its nuclear arsenal.
Israel must also confirm that it is no longer involved in nuclear proliferation, either by direct sales or technology transfer.
Haaretz has also reported on this story
Last month, Haaretz reported ahead of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Review conference in New York that Israel reportedly passed radioactive material to help South Africa's nuclear program in the 1970s.