Biden and Bennett Renew Agreement on Israel’s Secret Nuclear Weapons Program

• criminals and crime fighters
  The Israeli nuclear bomb is both an open and an official state secret. The Israeli media keep a low profile. Nationals who break the silence are imprisoned for years and harassed before the eyes of the world – like the researcher Mordechai Vanunu. He was kidnapped by the Mossad in 1986 and imprisoned in Israel for 18 years after publishing details about the Israeli nuclear reactor in England.

• Biden and Bennett Renew Agreement on Israel’s Secret Nuclear Weapons Program
  by Dave DeCamp, https://news.antiwar.com/
  President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett renewed a decades-old agreement on Israel’s secret nuclear weapons program during their meeting in Washington last week, Axios reported on Wednesday.
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  It is believed that Israel first produced nuclear weapons in the late 1960s, and current estimates put Israel’s arsenal somewhere between 90 and 300 warheads. Every US president since Nixon has agreed not to press Israel to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty. In return, Israel agrees not to declare its nuclear arsenal and operates the program covertly.
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  The ambiguity allows the US to give Israel aid, which is technically illegal due to the existence of Israel’s nuclear arsenal. Under foreign assistance laws, the US cannot provide aid to nuclear-armed states that refuse to sign the NPT.
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  The irony of the arrangement is that Israel constantly accuses Iran of operating a secret nuclear weapons program. And one of the main Israeli talking points is that if Iran ever acquires a nuclear bomb, it would trigger a regional arms race.
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  Israel is not just waging a propaganda war against Iran. The accusations come along with covert attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities and brazen assassinations of nuclear scientists. The US entertains the Israeli narrative, and pressure from Israel is what led to the Trump administration withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA. Iran remains under heavy US sanctions, and this economic warfare is justified by the idea that Tehran is racing to develop a bomb when that is not the case.
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  The JCPOA puts strict limits on Iran’s nuclear program. But instead of favoring a US return to the deal, Israel is doing everything to sabotage negotiations. One reason the Israelis say they are against the JCPOA is that it has an expiration date. But that ignores the fact that after the JCPOA, Iran would still be bound by the NPT.

• Israel Has 80-90 Nukes, SIPRI Report Says, as Tel Aviv Continues to Accuse Iran of Nuclear Obsession
  by https://www.rt.com/
  Israel, which routinely accuses Iran of trying to obtain nuclear weapons and pledges to use force to stop Tehran, maintains its own undeclared nuclear arsenal estimated at 80 to 90, according to the latest report by SIPRI.
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  There are nine nations in the world that currently have nuclear weapons, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) says in its newly released yearbook on the state of armaments and international security. The world nuclear stockpile went from 14,465 at the beginning of last year to about 13,865 this year, the report estimates, as the US and Russia were delivering on their promises under the New START Treaty signed in 2010.
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  Israel, which maintains a policy of neither confirming nor denying the possession of nuclear weapons, has between 80 and 90 warheads in its stockpile, the same as the year before, the institute said.
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  It comes as tensions between Iran on one side, and the US and regional ally Israel on the other, continue to mount. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s unsinkable prime minister, has for years waged a campaign accusing the Iranians of having unwavering nuclear ambitions, regardless of the evidence, or lack thereof.
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“Iran doesn’t frighten me and I don’t think it should frighten the American people. They don’t have a bomb. They haven’t made a decision to build one. They don’t have the means to deliver one. And the Israelis have 300 atomic bombs! I mean who presents the existential threat to whom?” – Pat Buchanan (7:58 onwards)

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