Israel’s expensive and secretive nuclear weapons industry

The nuclear threat to Israel’s economy One wonders if, under the nose of Israeli society, there hasn’t sprung up another predatory monster of wasteful spending, inflated salaries and sky-high pensions. Haaretz, By Uri Misgav | Jun. 9, 2014 Defense Ministry director general Dan Harel recently revealed that the 2014 outlay for “special means” is 4.5 billion shekels ($1.3 billion) and that it’s expected to grow next year by 600 million shekels. Haaretz Editor-in-Chief Aluf Benn, writing in this newspaper on June 3, derived from this information that in closed rooms, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows how to be decisive. But the emphasis shouldn’t be on the prime minister’s decision-making abilities, but on the closed rooms. Given these scary numbers, one suspects that the heavy veil of secrecy Israel imposes on its nuclear capabilities has nothing to do with security, but simply enables an absurd budget free-for-all.

Israel has never officially admitted that it has a nuclear military option, which has choked off any effort to conduct a debate about it. How can one discuss something without information……… The real debate, the one that should occupy every responsible and concerned citizen, is the debate on quantity-cost-benefit. The right question to ask is not necessarily whether Israel needs an atom bomb, but how many bombs it needs……..

what need are we referring to? Under what scenario did Israel’s nuclear planners think 70 or 80 bombs wouldn’t be enough? And why over the years did it produce so many bombs, even as it was observing the dynamics (crazy as they were) of the Cold War being conducted by the two world powers? Even if we assume there’s a need to disperse means among several geographic locations and for the simultaneous arming of several planes and submarines to allow for the famous “second strike” option, where does one draw the line? For how many first or second strikes does a small country have to prepare?

…….. It’s akin to a man taking out 80 life insurance policies. It looks like an illogical decision. There are apparently people who made a lot of money out of this.

We’re not just talking about the possibility of a historic economic blunder. There’s a problem right now. Based on publications here and abroad, if 10 years ago, Israel had stopped making new bombs, then is it possible that storage, upkeep and maintaining readiness would cost 4.5 billion shekels a year? And if production has indeed stopped, then why is a budget increase of 13 percent slated for next year? One wonders if, under the nose of Israeli society, under the wings of the director of security of the defense establishment and out of fear of the Holy of Holies, there hasn’t sprung up another predatory monster of wasteful spending, inflated salaries and sky-high pensions. http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.597629

June 11, 2014 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, weapons and war

No comments yet.

nuclear-news

The News That Matters about the Nuclear Industry Fukushima Chernobyl Mayak Three Mile Island Atomic Testing Radiation Isotope