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Forum Post: Netanyahu implicated in nuclear smuggling from U.S. — big story in Israel

Posted 11 years ago on Aug. 7, 2012, 4:36 p.m. EST by frogmanofborneo (602) from New York, NY
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/07/netanyahu-implicated-in-nuclear-smuggling-from-u-s-big-story-in-israel.html 30Reddit3 Google The Israeli press is picking up Grant Smith's revelation from FBI documents that Benjamin Netanyahu was part of an Israeli smuggling ring that spirited nuclear triggers out of the U.S. in the 80s and 90s.

Arutz Sheva, the nationalist Israeli press:

Declassified FBI documents from a 1985-2002 investigation implicate Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in an initiative to illegally purchase United States nuclear technology for Israel’s nuclear program.

Netanyahu was allegedly helped by Arnon Milchan, a Hollywood producer with ties to Israeli prime ministers and U.S. presidents.

The original story was broken by Grant Smith at antiwar.com, "Netanyahu worked inside nuclear smuggling ring":

On June 27, 2012, the FBI partially declassified and released seven additional pages [.pdf] from a 1985–2002 investigation into how a network of front companies connected to the Israeli Ministry of Defense illegally smuggled nuclear triggers out of the U.S.* The newly released FBI files detail how Richard Kelly Smyth — who was convicted of running a U.S. front company — met with Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel during the smuggling operation. At that time, Netanyahu worked at the Israeli node of the smuggling network, Heli Trading Company. Netanyahu, who currently serves as Israel’s prime minister, recently issued a gag order that the smuggling network’s unindicted ringleader refrain from discussing “Project Pinto.”

The Hebrew paper Ma'ariv, in translation:

According to FBI documents released by the United States, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was involved in smuggling in the 70s from the U.S. components of Israeli nuclear program, and assisted by the businessman Arnon Milchan, who according to previous publications was a former Mossad agent.

The documents, declassified in part by the FBI after partial classification removed, describe the findings of the investigation has been performed between the years 1985 to 2002 on about how a network of front companies a U.S. security firm illegally smuggled equipment used for weapons seeds out of the U.S..

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23 Comments


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[-] 4 points by Nevada1 (5843) 11 years ago

Thank you frogman for post. Wondering what other A-bomb parts, they got from US.

[-] 3 points by NewEnergy (5) 11 years ago

Great and critical exposure frogman! Good job!

[-] 3 points by PeterKropotkin (1050) from Oakland, CA 11 years ago

The Israeli elite are actually starting to run against some ressistence from their population about the expansion and repression of the palestinians mainly because they are spending all of this money to expand into the west bank while regular Israeli's are suffering in poverty. Hopefully there willl be enough of a public outcry to stop the Isreali government from starting a war.

[-] 3 points by frogmanofborneo (602) from New York, NY 11 years ago

A majority still oppose international law being applied to all settlements and this is a problem. Also the settlers and their supporters are more organized and more deeply involved. That's why Isreli politics are what they are, and why for example Adelson's HaYom is the leading newspaper in Israel. (Also it's a freebie). It would be good if Adelson is found guilty of criminal violations here. He's in some trouble but he's very powerful. Imagine him in jail and HaYom out of business. The world would be a better place.

[-] 1 points by PeterKropotkin (1050) from Oakland, CA 11 years ago

Him going to jail would be impossible because he's a billionare. The rules only apply to the little people.

[-] 2 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 11 years ago

I wonder if Madoff felt that way? Ooops slight miscalculation there - if he did - Hey?

[-] 2 points by PeterKropotkin (1050) from Oakland, CA 11 years ago

Madoff went to jail because he stole from other rich people.

[-] 2 points by frogmanofborneo (602) from New York, NY 11 years ago

Madoff also was hunted down by a dedicated individual who was thwarted at every turn until the end by the system and its guardians.

http://www.valuewalk.com/2011/11/man-brought-madoff-identified-huge-fraud/

Of course Adelson is bmany times more powerful than Madoff. I'm sure the DOJ, the SEC, Macau cops and a certain judge in Nevada are all thinking about that.

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 11 years ago

Yes - Yes he did. One would think that TPTB let him off easy for his cheek.

[-] 1 points by TitusMoans (2451) from Boulder City, NV 11 years ago

Adelson is poised to buy an American president. Like you, I don't believe the laws for ordinary mortals apply to him or his ilk.

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 11 years ago

I wonder if Madoff felt that way? Ooops slight miscalculation there - if he did - Hey?

George Orwell's Last Words Were Kind Of Orwellian

[-] 1 points by TitusMoans (2451) from Boulder City, NV 11 years ago

Madoff's problem was that his fraud included a lot of wealthy people. If he had stuck with the small-time investors, he might have gotten away with it.

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 11 years ago

Probably would have been rewarded. Think TPTB let him off easy (?) or is 150 years in prison worse then death?

[-] 2 points by TitusMoans (2451) from Boulder City, NV 11 years ago

We'll see how much time he actually serves. Those Presidential pardons work wonders for convicted felons. Another term or two and old Bernie, if he's still alive, will seem a pathetic victim of circumstances--at least that's what the pardon will say.

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 11 years ago

If he gets out - do you think he may meet Hoffa?

[-] 1 points by TitusMoans (2451) from Boulder City, NV 11 years ago

Only if goes out in a cement overcoat, probably the same size as Jimmy's.

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 11 years ago

After losing all his glad rags He may like a new coat.

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 11 years ago

LOL

[Removed]

[-] 1 points by fiftyfourforty (1077) from New York, NY 11 years ago

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/07/the-crisis-of-jewish-identity.html

The crisis of Jewish identity by Philip Weiss on July 17, 2012 1188 26Facebook23Twitter0StumbleUpon21Reddit0 Google

Last Sunday, Stephen Walt gave a talk on the Israel lobby and Iran at the Church of the Messiah in the scientific community of Woods Hole, Mass., and as my parents have a house not a mile from the church, I walked over with my father. In the past, Walt and Mearsheimer's assertion that the Israel lobby was a necessary factor in the decision to invade Iraq used to upset people the most. "In Dark Times, Blame the Jews," the Forward wrote angrily, when the two professors published their paper in 2006. But today Iraq is ancient history, and in the packed church, as Walt spoke of the neocons pushing a war on Iran as they had on Iraq, people seemed to accept it. And many of them were Jews. Oh those crazy neocons was the feeling. We're against them.

No, the dirty secret now is the brutality of the Israeli occupation. Walt gave just a couple of minutes to this subject, and one of his questioners echoed the point by saying she had been in the West Bank recently, but I sensed from the room and my subsequent socializing that ethnic cleansing and the destruction of olive trees is a subject to be politely skirted. Walt was introduced by a fellow Harvard professor, Everett Mendelsohn, who said that he and Walt has worked on a Boston Study Group paper, "Israel and Palestine - Two States for Two Peoples: If Not Now, When?" And that bright imperative is the mood of the liberal Jewish community: It's time for the two state solution! With a nod to Rabbi Hillel's famous statement, "If not now, when?"

There is a profound denial inside my community of the horror of the occupation, and its irreversibility. In his talk, Walt said frankly that the nature of Israeli politics militated against there being any end to the occupation, and the nature of American values barred our condoning apartheid or ethnic cleansing-- but happily, that was the end of it. Oh and by the way, it turns out one of my relatives is having a bat mitzvah in Jerusalem later this year.

When I got back to New York I read yet another column by a Jewish liberal dithering about what to do about the occupation-- Leonard Fein in the Forward-- and it struck me that my people, the Jews, are looking at a huge crisis stemming from Israel's crisis, and we simply can't face it. For more than a generation now, Israel has supplied American Jews their identity. Israel's thereness, its modernness, its democracy, its army, its high-tech, its Jewishness-- these qualities have supplied us with our understanding of what it means to be Jewish. Israel answered the centuries-long European Jewish question-- how does modern society deal with our unique minority?-- with a freshly built ghetto in the Middle East. We could have our cake and eat it. We could become successful peers to nonJews in the U.S. and maintain our distinctness because we had the living breathing Jewish ghetto preserved with a strong Jewish majority behind the security fence (and in front of it too!).

All that is now at risk. Anyone with any sense knows that the occupation threatens Israel's future. Even the Times of Israel worries that Israel will become a "failed state," something the left used to warn about. And with that goes American Jewish identity. How will we stay Jewish if Israel and Palestine become another mixed society in the Middle East?

As Walt himself has written, Peter Beinart is most alive to this crisis. He sees the Jewish leadership's unconditional support for Greater Israel as the bulwark of Jewish identity and realizes this can't work. He wants to repackage American Jewish identity so that his grandchildren will be Jewish-- with segregation. Separate schools, religious instruction. A new way of ghettoizing our identity. Walt has questioned that prescription in his review of Beinart. Many on our site, myself included, have also done so.

Why is it that anti-Zionists like myself can be so blithe about this threat to Jewish identity? I think because our identity constructions were more universalist: from a young age we went outside the Jewish community for sources of spiritual and social and political inspiration. So we don't feel at all threatened by a crisis for religious nationalism. No, we are thrilled by it-- because religious nationalism goes against our values. We have hastened that crisis.

But this is a post about empathy. My father's getting old, I can see the looming crisis in Jewish identity. What will Jewish mean if there is no Jewish state? How will Jews insure a Jewish future without this bulwark? (Jack Ross and Yonah Fredman have both sounded this theme on this site). I work for this website because I believe the destruction of Palestinian human rights and the corruption of American political values are more important issues than Jewish continuity, I will not put religious community over my progressive principles.

Nonetheless, I recognize the fears and the loss. I grew up going to that Cape Cod community every summer. Those smart Jews helped form me, I'm proud of their achievement. My heart goes out to them now. They're scientists, and yet they are blinding themselves to the facts. Because they know-- this is the end of something.

[-] 1 points by kaiserw (211) 11 years ago

Bibi is one bad dude. That's for sure. Hopefully the Israelis will be able to pry their government out of the hands of the psychopaths as well. WWIII is not an attractive thought.

[-] 2 points by fiftyfourforty (1077) from New York, NY 11 years ago

http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2012/02/29-israel-poll-telhami

On Wednesday, February 29, Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland and nonresident senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, released the 2012 Israeli Public Opinion Survey. The poll surveyed 500 people living in Israel in February 2012, assessing opinions on Iran and U.S. politics. The findings below reflect responses among all Israeli citizens; the attached PDF also shows responses among Israeli Jews only.

Get audio and video of the launch event »

Key Findings:

Iran

A plurality of Israelis (42%) would support a military strike by Israel against Iran's nuclear facilities only if Israel gains American support for the strike. An additional 34% of Israelis would not support such a strike at all, while 19% say Israel should strike even without the support of the U.S.

51% of Israelis think a military strike against Iran would delay Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons, while 11% think it would accelerate Iran's nuclear program and 19% say it would have no effect at all.

Despite America's recommendation that Israel not strike Iran, a full two-thirds of Israelis believe the U.S. government would support Israel in some manner if such a strike were to occur — 27% say that the U.S. would join the war on Israel's behalf, while an additional 39% believe that the U.S. would support Israel diplomatically, but not provide military assistance.

Israelis are divided on the likely duration of any armed conflict with Iran. 18% of Israelis say that such a conflict would only last days, 19% say that it would be a matter of weeks, 29% say that the conflict would last for months and 22% say that the conflict would last for years.

Israelis are evenly divided on whether a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities would strengthen or weaken the government in Tehran. 44% say that the Iranian government would be strengthened, while 45% say that it would be weakened.

By a wide majority (68%), Israelis say that Hezbollah would join Iran in retaliation if a military strike were to occur. U.S. Politics

In hypothetical match-ups against Barack Obama, Mitt Romney is the preferred Republican candidate among Israeli citizens, garnering 29% support. Newt Gingrich is the next-highest at 25%, followed by Ron Paul (21%) and Rick Santorum (18%). In the match-ups, Barack Obama ties Mitt Romney and outperforms all other Republican candidates.

[-] 2 points by kaiserw (211) 11 years ago

That sucks... Hopefully we'll know well enough to stay away from that mess. If Israel wants a war, we better stay the hell out of it, and cut off their funding and free weapons while we're at it. Then again, maybe fairies will save us...