Secret papers have recently been declassified that prove Israel offered to sell nuclear weapons to apartheid-era South Africa.  Three key points that make this story especially juicy:

1.  The Israeli who tried to broker the deal was none other than Shimon Peres, who at that time was the Israeli defense minister and is currently the president of the country.

2.  The pro-Israeli hawks in the United States as well as in Israel have argued that Iran should be sanctioned and even invaded for trying to develop nuclear weaponry.  When critics rightfully point out that this is a profound double standard as Israel already has nukes, the hawks reply by saying that Iran (unlike the “responsible” State of Israel) cannot be trusted and that it may sell the technology to other parties. And yet here we have Israel selling nukes to not just any country but what was at that time the pariah state of the world, apartheid-era South Africa.  Israel wasn’t just trying to sell nuclear weapons to Denmark or Sweden.  Rather, it was trying to deal these weapons to–in the words that we hear so often now–“the worst of the worst.”

3.  Perhaps the reason why Israel saw no problem in giving nuclear weapons to an apartheid state is because Israel itself is one.  Nelson Mandela, who led the fight against apartheid in South Africa, wrote of Israel:

The so-called “Palestinian autonomous areas” are bantustans. These are restricted entities within the power structure of the Israeli apartheid system…Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians, contrary to the rules of international law. It has, in particular, waged a war against a civilian population, in particular children.

According to the article below: “South Africa also provided much of the yellowcake uranium that Israel required to develop its weapons.” Said one apartheid state to another apartheid state: Rub my back and I’ll rub yours.

The Guardian reports:

Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state’s possession of nuclear weapons.

The “top secret” minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa‘s defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel’s defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them “in three sizes”. The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that “the very existence of this agreement” was to remain secret.

The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of “ambiguity” in neither confirming nor denying their existence.

The Israeli authorities tried to stop South Africa’s post-apartheid government declassifying the documents at Polakow-Suransky’s request and the revelations will be an embarrassment, particularly as this week’s nuclear non-proliferation talks in New York focus on the Middle East.

They will also undermine Israel’s attempts to suggest that, if it has nuclear weapons, it is a “responsible” power that would not misuse them, whereas countries such as Iran cannot be trusted.

A spokeswoman for Peres today said the report was baseless and there were “never any negotiations” between the two countries. She did not comment on the authenticity of the documents.

South African documents show that the apartheid-era military wanted the missiles as a deterrent and for potential strikes against neighbouring states.

The documents show both sides met on 31 March 1975. Polakow-Suransky writes in his book published in the US this week, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s secret alliance with apartheid South Africa. At the talks Israeli officials “formally offered to sell South Africa some of the nuclear-capable Jericho missiles in its arsenal”.

Among those attending the meeting was the South African military chief of staff, Lieutenant General RF Armstrong. He immediately drew up a memo in which he laid out the benefits of South Africa obtaining the Jericho missiles but only if they were fitted with nuclear weapons.

The memo, marked “top secret” and dated the same day as the meeting with the Israelis, has previously been revealed but its context was not fully understood because it was not known to be directly linked to the Israeli offer on the same day and that it was the basis for a direct request to Israel. In it, Armstrong writes: “In considering the merits of a weapon system such as the one being offered, certain assumptions have been made: a) That the missiles will be armed with nuclear warheads manufactured in RSA (Republic of South Africa) or acquired elsewhere.”

But South Africa was years from being able to build atomic weapons. A little more than two months later, on 4 June, Peres and Botha met in Zurich. By then the Jericho project had the codename Chalet.

The top secret minutes of the meeting record that: “Minister Botha expressed interest in a limited number of units of Chalet subject to the correct payload being available.” The document then records: “Minister Peres said the correct payload was available in three sizes. Minister Botha expressed his appreciation and said that he would ask for advice.” The “three sizes” are believed to refer to the conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons.

The use of a euphemism, the “correct payload”, reflects Israeli sensitivity over the nuclear issue and would not have been used had it been referring to conventional weapons. It can also only have meant nuclear warheads as Armstrong’s memorandum makes clear South Africa was interested in the Jericho missiles solely as a means of delivering nuclear weapons.

In addition, the only payload the South Africans would have needed to obtain from Israel was nuclear. The South Africans were capable of putting together other warheads.

Botha did not go ahead with the deal in part because of the cost. In addition, any deal would have to have had final approval by Israel’s prime minister and it is uncertain it would have been forthcoming.

South Africa eventually built its own nuclear bombs, albeit possibly with Israeli assistance. But the collaboration on military technology only grew over the following years. South Africa also provided much of the yellowcake uranium that Israel required to develop its weapons.

The documents confirm accounts by a former South African naval commander, Dieter Gerhardt – jailed in 1983 for spying for the Soviet Union. After his release with the collapse of apartheid, Gerhardt said there was an agreement between Israel and South Africa called Chalet which involved an offer by the Jewish state to arm eight Jericho missiles with “special warheads”. Gerhardt said these were atomic bombs. But until now there has been no documentary evidence of the offer.

Some weeks before Peres made his offer of nuclear warheads to Botha, the two defence ministers signed a covert agreement governing the military alliance known as Secment. It was so secret that it included a denial of its own existence: “It is hereby expressly agreed that the very existence of this agreement… shall be secret and shall not be disclosed by either party”.

The agreement also said that neither party could unilaterally renounce it.

The existence of Israel’s nuclear weapons programme was revealed by Mordechai Vanunu to the Sunday Times in 1986. He provided photographs taken inside the Dimona nuclear site and gave detailed descriptions of the processes involved in producing part of the nuclear material but provided no written documentation.

Documents seized by Iranian students from the US embassy in Tehran after the 1979 revolution revealed the Shah expressed an interest to Israel in developing nuclear arms. But the South African documents offer confirmation Israel was in a position to arm Jericho missiles with nuclear warheads.

How much news coverage do you think this will get? I’m guessing somewhere between virtually none and none.

And here’s another also from The Guardian:

And from BBC News:

Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu jailed

Mordechai Vanunu, the technician who revealed that Israel had nuclear weapons, has begun a three-month jail term for violating the terms of his release in 2004.

Mr Vanunu was convicted by an Israeli court in December 2009 and sentenced to six months’ community service.

He refused, saying he would be in danger of being assaulted by a member of the Israeli public.

The court then returned him to jail instead.

Mr Vanunu spent 18 years in jail for revealing the existence of the clandestine Israeli nuclear programme.

Before being led away he shouted “You didn’t get anything from me in 18 years; you won’t get anything in 3 months. Shame on you, Israel.”

He was arrested on suspicion that he met foreigners, violating conditions of his 2004 release from jail.

His lawyer said his arrest was because of his relationship with his Norwegian girlfriend, not for revealing secrets.

After his release from prison in 2004, the Israeli authorities banned Mr Vanunu from speaking to foreign media and travelling abroad.

In 2007, Mr Vanunu, a Jewish convert to Christianity, was sentenced to six months in prison for breaking the conditions of his parole.

Here’s Glenn Greenwald doing an awesome job talking about this double standard (although I’m sure he’d have a lot more to say now that this news of Israel dealing nukes came out):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEuxel6Fv-0[/youtube]