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1. Israel now may have as many as 400 atomic and hydrogen nuclear weapons,[5][6] as well as the ability to launch them via long range missiles, submarines and aircraft.[7] It can use them in a second strike even if its military is devastated.

   Originally a strategy of last resort retaliation – even if it means Israel’s annihilation – it has developed into being a nuclear bullying strategy to further Israel’s territorial goals through threats and blackmail. Israel has bullied not only Arab and Muslim nations, but the United States and Russia with its Samson Option threats. Mordechai Vanunu has alleged that Israel uses for purposes of blackmail its ability to “bombard any city all over the world, and not only those in Europe but also those in the United States.”[8]

   Seymour Hersh documents in detail in his book The Samson Option, from 1973 these weapons have been used to discourage the Soviet Union – now Russia – from intervening militarily on behalf of Arab nations.[13] Obviously an Israeli nuclear attack on Russia by the United States’ great ally Israel would result in Russia sending thousands of nuclear weapons towards the U.S. and the U.S. responding in kind.

   Not surprisingly, no nation state has attempted to attack Israel since 1973. A former Israeli official justified Israel’s threats. “You Americans screwed us” in not supporting Israel in its 1956 war with Egypt. “We can still remember the smell of Auschwitz and Treblinka. Next time we’ll take all of you with us.”[14] General Moshe Dayan, a leading promoter of Israel’s nuclear program[15],

   In 1977, after a right-wing coalition under Menachen Begin took power, the Israelis began to use the Samson Option not just to deter attack but to allow Israel to “redraw the political map of the Middle East” by expanding hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers into the West Bank and Gaza.[18] Then-Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon said things like “We are much more important than (Americans) think. We can take the middle east with us whenever we go”[19] and “Arabs may have the oil, but we have the matches.”[20]

   To dissuade the Soviet Union from interfering with its plans, Prime Minister Begin immediately “gave orders to target more Soviet cities” for potential nuclear attack. Its American spy Jonathan Pollard was caught stealing such nuclear targeting information from the U.S. military in 1985.[23]

   Samson Option Supporters

   Two Israel supporters are frequently quoted for their explicit support of the Samson Option. Martin Van Creveld, a professor of military history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has been quoted as saying: “Most European capitals are targets for our air force….We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that that will happen before Israel goes under.”[38]

   In 2002 the Los Angeles Times, published an opinion piece by Louisiana State University professor David Perlmutter in which he wrote: “What would serve the Jew-hating world better in repayment for thousands of years of massacres but a Nuclear Winter. Or invite all those tut-tutting European statesmen and peace activists to join us in the ovens? For the first time in history, a people facing extermination while the world either cackles or looks away–unlike the Armenians, Tibetans, World War II European Jews or Rwandans–have the power to destroy the world. The ultimate justice?”[39]

   Jerome Corsi, a Harvard Ph.D. in political science and author of two books encouraging Israel to use nuclear weapons[41], writes that “Israel’s Samson Option” could be “a preemptive strike against Iran.”[42]

   The Israelis also are egged on in its nuclear threats by “Christian Zionists” like Hal Lindsay who believe Israel must expand its control of territory to its Biblical borders in order to bring about Armageddon and the return of Jesus Christ.[43] Some suspect that former President George W. Bush holds such beliefs,[44] especially after his November 2007 statement “If you want to see World War Three, you know, a way to do that is to attack Israel with a nuclear weapon.”[45]

   Unlike Israel, Iran has accepted supervision of its nuclear program under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Iran claims its program is only for production of nuclear power as oil becomes more scarce and expensive, and not for nuclear weapons. However, Israel opposes any challenge to its nuclear hegemony since not only would it be less able to use its nuclear threat to keep confiscated lands, but fear of Iran actually might cause citizens to leave Israel and investment to dry up.[47][48]

   Meanwhile, Israel still considers Russia a target because of its technical assistance to Iran’s nuclear program and its continued arms sales to Iran and other “enemy” nations.[53] [54][55] In 2007 Israeli officials warned Russia: “We hope they understand that this is a threat that could come back to them as well.”[56]

   In 2005 George Bush admitted that the U.S. would support an Israeli attack on Iran.[57] Soon after his election President Barak Obama seemed to accept the inevitability of an Iranian nuclear bomb.[58] However, in early 2009 Likud Party hawk Benjamin Netanyahu was elected Israeli Prime Minister. Netanyahu already had threatened that Israel would attack Iran to stop its nuclear program if Obama did not do so.[59]

   After May[62] and September meetings with Netanyahu in 2009, Obama threatened Iran with attack if it did not “come clean about” and curb its nuclear program.[63][64] This statement came a day after Netanyahus’ speech to the United Nations where he invoked the memory of Auschwitz and family members slain by Nazis.[65] Obama also has suffered constant pressure to take a more belligerent stand against Iran from neoconservatives and the “Israel lobby.”[66][67][68][69]

   Too few peace or political activists, left or right, are willing to challenge Israel’s Samson Option threats or even to make a nuclear free Middle East a central demand.[70] Until military and political leaders, as well as activists, are willing to change U.S. policy of defacto support for Israel’s Samson Option the whole world remains a potential victim of this horrific strategy.
   * * *
   URL for this article from which these excepts were taken and footnotes available, most with links is: http://www.carolmoore.net/nuclearwar/israelithreats.html

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   Comment by Bill Mitchell | October 18, 2011 | Reply

2. Millett repeats the usual canards of the Ziocons”.

   1. “All the evidence points to Iran trying to obtain a nuclear bomb”. Where is the evidence? IAEA does not see this. Even US Intelligence reports, despite presumably very significant political pressure, in 2007 did not believe this. Ahmedinajad offered a few days ago to cease all enrichment if the west provided it with 20% enriched uranium for use in medical applications – nowhere near enough to produce a bomb. So if “all the evidence points to Iran trying to obtain a nuclear bomb, let’s see it.

   2. “Ahmedinajad said that he would “Wipe Israel off the map”. This has been debunked so many times I am amazed that a supposedly serious journalist would continue to use it.

   http://antiwar.com/orig/norouzi.php?articleid=11025

   It is not hard to discover Millett’s agenda:

   http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/

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   Comment by Deviant | October 19, 2011 | Reply

3. Agree Deviant.

   Ahmadinejad’s statement is clearly explained here:

   A more literal translation of the statement he made in 2005, at The World without Zionism conference in Tehran, is:

   “The regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time”.

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   Comment by Charlene Richards | October 20, 2011 | Reply

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