US Declassifies Document Revealing Israel’s Nuclear Program

Obama revenge for Netanyahu’s Congress talk? 1987 report on Israel’s top secret nuclear program released in unprecedented move.

By Ari Yashar, Matt Wanderman, INN

In a development that has largely been missed by mainstream media, the Pentagon early last month quietly declassified a Department of Defense top-secret document detailing Israel’s nuclear program, a highly covert topic that Israel has never formally announced to avoid a regional nuclear arms race, and which the US until now has respected by remaining silent.

But by publishing the declassified document from 1987, the US reportedly breached the silent agreement to keep quiet on Israel’s nuclear powers for the first time ever, detailing the nuclear program in great depth.

The timing of the revelation is highly suspect, given that it came as tensions spiraled out of control between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama ahead of Netanyahu’s March 3 address in Congress, in which he warned against the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program and how the deal being formed on that program leaves the Islamic regime with nuclear breakout capabilities.

Another highly suspicious aspect of the document is that while the Pentagon saw fit to declassify sections on Israel’s sensitive nuclear program, it kept sections on Italy, France, West Germany and other NATO countries classified, with those sections blocked out in the document.

The 386-page report entitled “Critical Technological Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations” gives a detailed description of how Israel advanced its military technology and developed its nuclear infrastructure and research in the 1970s and 1980s.

Israel is “developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs. That is, codes which detail fission and fusion processes on a microscopic and macroscopic level,” reveals the report, stating that in the 1980s Israelis were reaching the ability to create bombs considered a thousand times more powerful than atom bombs.

The revelation marks a first in which the US published in a document a description of how Israel attained hydrogen bombs.

The report also notes research laboratories in Israel “are equivalent to our Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories,” the key labs in developing America’s nuclear arsenal.

Israel’s nuclear infrastructure is “an almost exact parallel of the capability currently existing at our National Laboratories,” it adds.

“As far as nuclear technology is concerned the Israelis are roughly where the U.S. was in the fission weapon field in about 1955 to 1960,” the report reveals, noting a time frame just after America tested its first hydrogen bomb.

Institute for Defense Analysis, a federally funded agency operating under the Pentagon, penned the report back in 1987.

Aside from nuclear capabilities, the report revealed Israel at the time had “a totally integrated effort in systems development throughout the nation,” with electronic combat all in one “integrated system, not separated systems for the Army, Navy and Air Force.” It even acknowledged that in some cases, Israeli military technology “is more advanced than in the U.S.”

Declassifying the report comes at a sensitive timing as noted above, and given that the process to have it published was started three years ago, that timing is seen as having been the choice of the American government.

US journalist Grant Smith petitioned to have the report published based on the Freedom of Information Act. Initially the Pentagon took its time answering, leading Smith to sue, and a District Court judge to order the Pentagon to respond to the request.

Smith, who heads the Institute for Research: Middle East Policy, reportedly said he thinks this is the first time the US government has officially confirmed that Israel is a nuclear power, a status that Israel has long been widely known to have despite being undeclared.

March 26, 2015 | 14 Comments »

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14 Comments / 14 Comments

  1. @ dove:
    I don’t do facebook but maybe you can go there and ask for details:

    Association for Immediate Help for Holocaust Survivors

    https://www.facebook.com/pages/Help-Holocaust-Survivors/347540138607967

    They are the ones who are trying to organize this Seder.

    Oh just found this on the page:

    We desperately need your help in donation

    You can donate directly to the association’s bank account (swift and iban no. will be posted tomorrow
    Or send a check to
    The Association for Immediate Help for Holocaust Survivors
    P O Box 320
    Hertzelia
    Israel 4610301

    You can also donate directly to a Holocaust Survivor please send a message

    G-d bless you, dove

  2. @ Avigail:

    I don’t see a link to donate to a credible organization. Last year I sponsored Kosher Food for families here in poverty. The year I sponsored a single mother in Israel – so I thought but was told by an Israeli it wasn’t a credible organization.

  3. @ yamit82:
    LOL
    You know that it is the heart that ultimately makes the decisions (and the heart is not the siege of feelings in Judaism).

    So he can think and ponder whatever he wants before the decision, because in fine he won’t have a choice, he will just obey (whether he knows it or not)

  4. One of the nice features about having a relatively large number of nuclear — and probably — thermonuclear weapons ready for use with a turn of a screw driver, is that other countries have to treat you with a certain amount of restraint that would not be forthcoming if you lacked such dreadful armaments.

    In short, Israel could be in position to blackmail Mr Obama to an equal or possibly greater extent than the other way around.

    Under no circumstances whatsoever should Israel ever cave in to the demands of any other country regarding its capability of defending the Jewish state from the ultimate threat by its own built-in capability of destroying just about any and all targets within a thousand or more miles radius.

    It goes without saying that, whatever was hidden in that underground chamber south of Dimona, is hopefully and presumably scattered to other similar and perhaps smaller sites.

    As for the Jewish communities in Shomron, Yehuda, and the long-ago annexed parts of Jerusalem, the policy of the new government should be to continue adding Jewish population increases of at least 6 per cent per year, which doubles any such population in just 12 years. The more Jews living there, the more it becomes impossible for anyone to drive them out.

    Be of good cheer. Mr Obama shall be out of power in only 666 days. And before then, chances are excellent that he shall have screwed up America’s foreign policy at an even greater magnitude than he has done in the six years and two months he has been in power.

    Also, the Republican-controlled Congress of the United States has not bought into Mr Obama’s narrative of Israel spying on the USA, and they are now as determined as they were before that the Congress will not agree to back any agreement he makes with Iran that leaves them a capability of constructing weapons of mass destruction. On this at least, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and many others no longer trust Obama’s game plans that would turn the Middle East into a new Iranian Empire.

    Arnold Harris
    Mount Horeb WI

  5. Avigail Said:

    The heart of kings is in the Hand of G-d 🙂

    Obama is a snake. May G-d punish him, mida keneged mida

    Amen!!

    What about his brain??? In whose hands ??? LOL

  6. @ yamit82:
    In his Cairo speech he declared that he sought Nuke free ME

    What a joke: he’s doing everything in his power to give Iran nukes but yeah, Israel must get rid of theirs.

    I do not trust BB to hold the line on this.

    The heart of kings is in the Hand of G-d 🙂

    Obama is a snake. May G-d punish him, mida keneged mida

  7. Avigail Said:

    an attempt to force Israel to accept inspections on its nuclear program (not a chance in Hell) or else…


    Obama’s message to Israel: Freeze settlements or get rid of Dimona
    In an address to AIPAC last week, Dennis Ross outlined the link between peace negotiations and Israel’s nuclear program in delicate but clear diplomatic language.

    Long Standing American policy even before Obama. Bush did everything possible to prevent Israel from attacking Iran and obam’s policy is a continuation.

    In his Cairo speech he declared that he sought Nuke free ME. Clearly referring to Israel. he claimed that it was every nations right to pursue peaceful Nuke technology and energy.

    I see Iran as Obama’s cudgel to force Israel first into signing NPT (Nuke non proliferation ratify and then forcing Israel to trade her nukes for Ian’s.

    I do not trust BB to hold the line on this.

    Israel has been set up to be the scapegoat no matter how the Iranian negotiations turn out.

  8. Israel has a nuclear arsenal? I’m not exactly surprised.

    And why would Israel place its security in the hands of a treacherous friend like the US – which just abandoned its Arab ally in Yemen to Iran.

    Obama thinks revealing the truth will weaken Israel. It will have exactly the opposite effect.

  9. Repost:

    1) the US withholds vital infos towards an ally on a matter of life and death,

    2) the said ally has then to spy on others (Iran) to discover what the US is hiding from them

    3) the US comes across the fact that the said ally knows more than the US decided it should know by spying on them

    4) the WH uses its mouthpieces in the press to falsely accuse Israel of spying on the US (as if they needed that!) and revealing secrets to Congress.

    5) the Pentagon releases a report where ONLY Israel is exposed (not a word on France, Italy etc)

    6) this may be interpreted as:

    a) an effort to draw false moral equivalence between Iran and Israel (“Israel has nukes so Iran should have too”)

    b) an attempt to legitimize the above-mentioned false accusations (“You did it, so take that!”)

    c) an attempt to force Israel to accept inspections on its nuclear program (not a chance in Hell) or else…

  10. No idea whats all about. We will not introduce nuclear weapons first… Trust me… Right. Anyway since 1987 things changed.
    I doubt that is the latest spying records that the US holds. If truly damaging disclosures happen that could be very costly to the parties involved.