Israel 'has 150 nuclear weapons'

By Deletedforeverhaha
in Real World News

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Deletedforeverhaha

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Ex-US President Jimmy Carter has said Israel has at least 150 atomic weapons in its arsenal.

The Israelis have never confirmed they have nuclear weapons, but this has been widely assumed since a scientist leaked details in the 1980s.

Mr Carter made his comments on Israel's weapons at a press conference at the annual literary Hay Festival in Wales.

He also described Israeli treatment of Palestinians as "one of the greatest human rights crimes on earth".

Mr Carter gave the figure for the Israeli nuclear arsenal in response to a question on US policy on a possible nuclear-armed Iran, arguing that any country newly armed with atomic weapons faced overwhelming odds.

"The US has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons; the Soviet Union (sic) has about the same; Great Britain and France have several hundred, and Israel has 150 or more," he said.

Israel's Dimona reactor is understood to provide plutonium for the country's nuclear weapons

"We have a phalanx of enormous capabilities, not only of weaponry but also of rockets to deliver every one of those missiles on a pinpoint accuracy target."

Most experts estimate that Israel has between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads, largely based on information leaked to the Sunday Times newspaper in the 1980s by Mordechai Vanunu, a former worker at the country's Dimona nuclear reactor.

The US, a key ally of Israel, has in general followed the country's policy of "nuclear ambiguity", neither confirming or denying the existence of its assumed arsenal.

However, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert included Israel among a list of nuclear states in comments in December 2006, a week after US Defence Secretary Robert Gates used a similar form of words during a Senate hearing.

Former Israeli military intelligence chief Aharon Zeevi-Farkash told Reuters news agency he considered Mr Carter's comments "irresponsible".

"The problem is that there are those who can use these statements when it comes to discussing the international effort to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons," he said.

'Imprisonment'

During the press briefing, Mr Carter expressed his support for Israel as a country, but criticised its domestic and foreign policy.

"One of the greatest human rights crimes on earth is the starvation and imprisonment of 1.6m Palestinians," he said.

The former US president cited statistics which he said showed the nutritional intake of some Palestinian children was below that of children in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as saying the European position on Israel could be best described as "supine".

Mr Carter, awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, brokered the 1979 Egypt-Israel peace treaty, the first between Israel and an Arab state.

In April he controversially held talks in the Syrian capital Damascus with Khaled Meshaal, leader of the militant Palestinian movement Hamas.

The former US president's Carter Center was unavailable for further comment.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7420573.stm

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Grand Master

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"The US has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons; the Soviet Union (sic) has about the same; Great Britain and France have several hundred, and Israel has 150 or more," he said.

This has been known since the 1980's. Jimmy Carter must have not taken his Arracept.

Grand Master

guru

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So anyone you disagree with is a fruitcake? Yeah, ok. :rolleyes:

There are real violations going on in places in Burma. where the Military Junta prevented medical and food aid when 100,000 died from hurricane. not to mention Tibet,China... thats just in my neighborhood. Then you got Darfur, African conflicts, Zimbabwe....,, Terrorists.

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Deletedforeverhaha

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Then why would you ever need anywhere near to 12,000? Isn't that just a completely stupid and pointless waste of money?

The bigger you are or the more you have allows you to have more power. It's a competition of who has the biggest "?". See "Cold War".

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asoldier

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12,000 nukes have other purposes. You've got to recognize threats that are not domestic to the planet as well. For instance, a massive asteroid or other celestial body that could intercept Earth and collide.... but then again there's always the impending threat of alien invasion, commie bastards!

Grand Master

Mr. Gibs

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"The US has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons; the Soviet Union (sic) has about the same;

I don't think Carter knows that the Soviet Union broke up years ago...

And plus who the hell gives a crap if Israel has nukes or not, now if Hezbollah or Iran had nukes it would be a totally different think. Sorry, but I just don't see Israel lauching a nuke anytime. The nuke is nothing more than a deterrent. And pretty much everyone knows that.

Also, that wikipedia chart is wrong. China doesn't have to tell people about the number of nukes it has. They had well over 400 back in like 2002...

It is also quite wrong about america:

It maintains a current arsenal of around 9,960 intact warheads, of which 5,735 are considered active or operational

That's also from Wikipedia. Article "Nuclear Weapons and the United States"

Edited by / -Razorfold
Grand Master

+Gary7 Subscriber²

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I don't think Carter knows that the Soviet Union broke up years ago...

And plus who the hell gives a crap if Israel has nukes or not, now if Hezbollah or Iran had nukes it would be a totally different think. Sorry, but I just don't see Israel lauching a nuke anytime. The nuke is nothing more than a deterrent. And pretty much everyone knows that.

They know it and we know it. If Iran had a nuke, that nut job would probably use it. I don't think Carter knows the time of day. ;)

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