Former President Jimmy Carter confirmed that when he was president intelligence briefers advised him Israel possessed 150 nuclear weapons. Back when the United States was fighting for the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty AIPAC founder Isaiah Kenen and his associates worked hard to steer NPT attentions away from Israel. In his November 2, 1961 Near East Report, Kenen parroted the Israeli government’s line that the Dimona nuclear reactor was being built for peaceful purposes. Kenen utilized a tactic many US public relations professionals used when examining pretexts for the US invasion of Iraq, a well-place “expert” source:
“No bombs Possible. Meanwhile, many asked whether the Israel reactor could really produce sufficient plutonium, a nuclear weapon component, to construct a bomb. Science editor William L Laurence of the New York Times deflated these reports, on Dec. 25, when he wrote that ‘the plutonium produced in a small nuclear reactor of 24,000 thermal kilowatts is very minute indeed…and ‘completely useless for bomb material.’ The basic facts, if fully understood, would make it clear why only great industrial nations, particularly the United States and Soviet Russia, can be full-fledged members of the ‘atomic club.'”
Disclosures by Israeli whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu revealed that the reactor would ultimately be cooled and configured to operate at 120-150 megawatts, capable of producing enough enriched materials for up to 12 nuclear bombs per year. In March of 1968, the Mossad surreptitiously acquired 24 tons of uranium ore from West Germany, ostensibly bound for an Italian company, but illicitly diverted by sea to Israel. By 1969, Israel had quietly emerged as a full blown nuclear power. By 1979 the Israelis even tested a low yield nuclear artillery shell, which was detected by an American spy satellite despite the cloudy conditions. Not until 2008 would a former US president confirm for the first time that Israel had developed an arsenal of 150 nuclear weapons. Isaiah Kenen and the Israel lobby prevailed with a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. US and Israeli officials would neither confirm nor deny the existence of Israeli nukes. Kenen received over $38,000 from Israel to publish the Near East Report during this critical period. Jimmy Carter broke with self-censorship last month. Americans must now ask what other damaging policies have been institutionalized at great cost to American interests.