Israeli Atomics VI.

This is coolbert:

Yaacov!

11. In my previous blog entry, I mentioned the strange case of Mordechai Vanunu. Convicted and sentenced to a long and harsh term in prison by the Israelis for divulging classified information about the apparent Israeli nuclear program.

It is important to remember that Vanunu was a low level functionary, a nuclear technician, and not a mover and shaker within Israel itself.

Not that someone such as Vanunu could not know a lot.

Rather the contrary, quite often persons of the stature of Vanunu do seem to know a lot, and he did have access to the Dimona facility and was a worker there. Such persons can have a lot of information at their disposal.

12. This all leads to the most recent case of Israeli "nuclear disclosure". And it comes form a most unlikely source.

This is the case of Yitzhak Yaacov.

A retired General in the Israeli military, and retired since 1973. It seems that at the time of his retirement, Yaacov was a Brigadier General and head of all Israeli weapons R & D.

This image shows the aged Yaacov. The man having passed away just recently at eighty-seven years!

So this is a man operating at the highest levels of the Israeli military and government. A real mover and shaker, unlike Vanunu. If ANYONE would know about Israeli nuclear weapons development, it would be THIS MAN.

It seems that in 1999, Yaacov committed to manuscript form his memoirs of his [Yaacov's] military experience. This of course, was twenty six years after his retirement, quite a long time.

And evidently this came to the attention of the Israelis who took great umbrage at what they saw as a betrayal.

Yaacov at the time of writing his memoirs, was seventy five years old, living in NYC, and is an American citizen.

Nonetheless the Israelis saw this whole idea of memoirs as a clear and present danger and tricked Yaacov to returning to Israel. Tricked on false pretenses for the purpose of arresting him, which is what occurred.

"When Horev [Yechiel Horev, head of MALMAB, the security arm of the Israeli Ministry of Defense], discovered the book was in progress, he called Yaacov and warned him to stop. Yaacov refused, and when he came to Israel to attend a party held in his honor, he ended up in jail." [there is some confusion as to whether Yaacov was arrested upon arriving or departing from Israel].

Yaacov, an elderly man, and sick on top of it, was arrested and held in circumstances resembling what was done to Vanunu.

Held without bail, Yaacov seems to have some important friends still active within Israel, and they persuaded the Israeli government to relent on it's harsh treatment and allow Yaacov to be released pending trial.

"Given Yaacov’s service record and his contributions to Israel’s high-tech industry, however, the press has bashed Horev and the state attorney not only for how they treated 'Yatza,' but particularly for concealing his arrest. Even though defense officials used harsh words about a former colleague, they too disapproved of his arrest and believed he deserved more respectful treatment."

Well, the trial was concluded just a short time ago and Yaacov was found guilty of lesser charges than treason. As a matter of fact the trial ended one day after the release of Vanunu:

"Israeli General Escapes Nuclear Espionage Conviction"

"The day after Vanunu's May 13 court appearance, a retired Israeli brigadier general was acquitted on nuclear espionage charges. Yitzhak Yaacov, 76, has been held for over a year under house arrest at an Israeli hospital following his secretive arrest (see article from I Am Your Spy, Summer 2001). Yaacov was convicted on a lesser charge of giving classified information to an unauthorized person."

"The court ruled that despite ample warning not to, Yaacov had sent completed but unpublished manuscripts of his memoirs and a thinly veiled work of fiction to several people, including journalists. The books were characterized as vainly describing Yaacov's own involvement in the development of Israel's secret nuclear arsenal, complete with illicit details. Yaacov directed Israeli weapons development programs in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and faces a maximum 15 year sentence."

"Defense ministry officials initially painted Yaacov's actions as akin to Vanunu's alleged treason. The Tel Aviv district court criticized this stance, concluding Yaacov meant no harm to the state. But of course, neither did Mordechai Vanunu, whose act of conscience was intended to inform the public that Israel was building a secret nuclear arsenal."

"Who might humanity admire more, from the vantage of history: a powerful ex-military man who bragged about helping to create clandestine weapons of mass destruction; or the awakened worker who decided that, in a democracy, citizens have a right to know that their government is building such weapons?"

Keep in mind now that Yaacov was out of the loop for a period of twenty six years after his retirement!! He could not have had any access to developments since that time. What his memoirs [unpublished] would have dealt with would have been nuclear developments in the time prior to that.

What is even more amazing is that Yaacov was successfully tricked into returning to Israel for the sole purpose of arresting him.

And that Yaacov nonetheless fell for the ruse and did return.

It is almost as if this was a man going to the slaughter. This unquestionably is a man who would have been aware of what he was doing and the furor that his manuscript would cause. You would have thought Yaacov of all people would be the last man to fall for a trick of the Israeli Secret Services!!

NOT SO!!

Again, you have to wonder at the motivations of the Israeli in this matter?

This is now eighteen years since the revelations, as mild as they were, by Vanunu. And yet, even now, the Israeli will go after a man, even an insider, who dares to make revelations of events that really have to be really old hat by now. What is going on here?? The motivations to me seem most unclear.

"Horev believes it is his duty to preserve Amimut, the Hebrew word used to depict Israel’s policy of 'nuclear ambiguity' or 'opacity.'”

Amimut means that, although everyone knows what capabilities Israel has, it remains silent about them.

This policy has been the basis for a long-held understanding between Israel and the United States, by which Israel undertook not to declare itself a nuclear state, nor to test a nuclear device, and the United States promised to look the other way. The common thinking in the Israeli defense establishment is that any erosion in nuclear ambiguity might lead Israel to a collision course with its American ally."

Opacity with ambiguity!

coolbert.