Lies, Fox News and Israeli Nukes
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Speaking at a news conference in Wales this past Sunday, Jimmy Carter publicly acknowledged that Israel is in possession of at least 150 nuclear weapons. Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade was quick to try and lay the blame for outing the Israelis at Carter’s feet, saying "No one has ever talked about it, very few people are privileged to know about it, and almost no one speaks about it …"
The only problem with Brian Kilmeade’s assertion that Carter is to blame for outing Israel’s nuclear weapons stockpile is that it’s patently false. Jimmy Carter has only confirmed what Ehud Olmert, Prime Minister of Israel, admitted to a year and a half ago during and interview with Germany’s Sat. 1 channel.
Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert, was yesterday trying to fend off accusations of ineptitude and calls for his resignation after he accidentally acknowledged for the first time that Israel had nuclear weapons.
After decades in which Israel has stuck to a doctrine of nuclear ambiguity, Mr Olmert let slip during an interview in Germany that Israel did indeed have weapons of mass destruction.
What is so upsetting about Carter saying what everyone already knows and that Israel’s PM has already admitted? Why would the US and Israeli governments work so hard to deny that Israel is a nuclear power?
Simple.
US law forbids providing funding to countries that proliferate weapons of mass destruction. In order to skirt the law and provide military aid to Israel, the US and Israeli governments must maintain the lie that Israel does not possess nuclear weapons. Now that the lie can no longer be maintained, US aid to Israel is on very shaky ground. Either the US will have to stop providing aid to Israel or it will have to change the law to legalize foreign aid to a proliferator of WMD, becoming an admitted hypocrite in the process.
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