WASHINGTON, DC -- Should the United States bomb Israel's top-secret
chemical, biological plant south of Tel Aviv?
The Times of London has reported (Sep. 25) the existence of a
"shadowy biological institute situated in the growing suburban
community of Nes Ziona . . . believed by many foreign diplomats to be
one of the most advanced germ warfare institutions in the Middle
East."
Today, the Associated Press reported that an "Israeli cargo jet that
crashed in Amsterdam six years ago was carrying chemicals used to
produce the deadly sarin nerve gas." According to reports Wednesday
in a Dutch newspaper, the respected national daily NRC Handelsblad, the
El Al plane was carrying 50 gallons of the chemical dimethyl
methylphosphonate from "an American company in Pennsylvania and was
headed for the Israel Institute for Biological Research in Ness Ziona
near Tel Aviv." Hundreds of residents in the neighborhood
surrounding the crash site are suffering health problems say Dutch
newspapers.
Last year, on September 25, Israeli agents in Jordan attempted to
assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Meshal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu himself directed the effort, and a chemical or biological
agent was used in the attempt to poison Meshal.
"Israel has repeatedly accused Arab and Islamic countries
hostile to it of manufacturing such weapons on a large scale," said
the Times (Sep. 25), "but has never admitted possessing biological
or chemical weapons, just as it has never owned up to a nuclear
capability, although it is an open secret that the country has at least
200 nuclear warheads."
At the urging of Israel's friends in Washington, on August 20 this
year, the U.S. launched cruise missiles at the Al Shifa pharmaceuticals
factory in Sudan. Described by senior national security advisers as a
secret chemical weapons factory, plant designer Henry R. Jobe from the
U.S., British technical manager Tom Carnaffin, who supervised
construction from 1992-96, and Jordanian engineer Mohammed Abul Waheed,
who supervised plant production in 1997, have all testified that it
would have been impossible for this plant to have produced chemical
weapons. "State Department and C.I.A. officials argue,"
reported The New York Times (Sep 21), "that the government cannot
justify its actions."
Should the U.S. bomb Israel's top-secret chemical, biological plant?
If you want to get re-elected in the U.S., don't even think about it.
Israel isn't the Sudan.
["ISRAELI assault aircraft have been equipped to carry chemical and
biological weapons manufactured . . . at the Institute for Biological
Research in a suburb of Nes Ziona 12 miles southeast of Tel Aviv." -
Uzi Mahnaimi, "Israeli jets equipped for chemical warfare," The
Sunday Times, October 4, 1998]