Sep 23 2013<\/i> – \u201cDoes Israel have chemical weapons too?\u201d is the question posed by the U.S. publication Foreign Policy, citing a newly uncovered CIA document from 1983 which alleged that Israel is likely to have developed such weapons.<\/p>\n
Written ten years after the 1973 war in which Egypt and Syria attacked Israel, the CIA document revealed in Foreign Policy alleged that \u201cIsrael undertook a programme of chemical warfare preparations in both offensive and protective areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
True or not, the report underpins Israel\u2019s doctrine to deter frontline Arab states from attacking it by tilting the balance of power in its favour, Prof. Shlomo Aronson, Israeli weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) scholar at the Hebrew University Jlem tells IPS.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince the Arab states started to produce chemical weapons, it would be quite natural that Israel has something similar. They have chemical weapons. We must have them as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSyria produced chemical weapons to balance the threat of Israeli nuclear weapons,\u201d Ziad Abu Zayyad, former head of the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East peace talks on Arms Control and Regional Security (1991-1996) tells IPS.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince the Arab states started to produce chemical weapons, it would be quite natural that Israel has something similar.”<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we cannot confirm whether the Israelis possess lethal chemical agents,\u201d the CIA report said, \u201cseveral indicators lead us to believe that they have available to them at least persistent and non-persistent nerve agents, a mustard agent, and several riot-control agents, marched with suitable delivery systems.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been known since the early 1970s that chemical tests are conducted at the secretive Israel Institute for Biological Research located in the town of Ness Ziona, 20 km south of Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n
The secret Intel file identified \u201ca probable chemical weapons nerve agent production facility and a storage facility at the Dimona Sensitive Storage area in the Negev desert,\u201d \u2013 that is, in the vicinity of the nuclear research centre where it\u2019s widely assumed that nuclear warheads have been manufactured.<\/p>\n
Whether Israel retains the alleged chemical stockpile is unknown.<\/p>\n
Officially, it neither confirms nor denies the existence of a chemical weapons programme \u2013 let alone of a nuclear weapons programme \u2013 and intentionally shrouds in ambiguity its suspected weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programme, only exhibiting chemical warfare protection drills and gas mask kits distribution centres.<\/p>\n
Aronson deciphers the Israeli WMD doctrine \u2013 \u201cnot to admit the existence of WMDs before peace prevails; not taking the Arab people hostage to the behaviour of their leaders; not committing publicly to any red line in the realm of unconventional weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israel signed the Chemical Weapons Convention (September 1993) which prohibits the production, stockpiling and use of such arms, but never ratified it.<\/p>\n
If implemented, the convention would endow chemical weapons inspectors with intrusive powers, notes Aronson. \u201cThe treaty could allow inspectors in Israel\u2019s facilities, including the nuclear facility.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abu Zayyad believes that after Syria, Israel should disarm from its chemical weapons.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere should be a linkage,\u201d he tells IPS. \u201cWe\u2019re aiming at a WMDs-free Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israel rejects any demand to link Syria\u2019s chemical disarmament with a ratification of the Convention that would lead to the dismantlement of the arsenal it reportedly has.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe big difference is Syria, not Israel, uses chemical weapons,\u201d Aronson points out. \u201cConventional Israel was never accepted. Unconventional Israel was, and is, accepted. Our very survival rests on unconventional weapons.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeace is the sole solution to Israel\u2019s security predicament,\u201d counters Abu Zayyad.<\/p>\n
Israel declines to answer queries by foreign journalists, opting instead for more discreet reactions in the local media.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the countries in the region don\u2019t recognise Israel\u2019s right to exist and blatantly call to annihilate it,\u201d a Foreign Ministry spokesperson was quoted in the liberal newspaper Haaretz.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this context, the chemical weapons threat against Israel and its civilian population is neither theoretical nor distant,\u201d the official said by way of rationale for not ratifying the Convention.<\/p>\n
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry flew to Jerusalem to brief Netanyahu about the U.S.-Russian framework agreement on terminating Syria\u2019s chemical weapons the day after it was a done deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we achieve that,\u201d Kerry declared, \u201cWe\u2019ll have set a marker for the standard of behaviour with respect to Iran and North Korea.\u201d
\n\u201cThe determination the international community shows regarding Syria will have a direct impact on the Syrian regime\u2019s patron Iran,\u201d Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said to Kerry. \u201cIf diplomacy has any chance to work, it must be coupled with a credible military threat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Netanyahu knows that the U.S., after having precisely adopted such a two-pronged approach on Syria, cannot afford not to back Israel publicly on Iran, even as Tehran is signalling readiness to compromise on its nuclear programme.<\/p>\n
And for the time being, demands for Israel to disarm from its alleged poison gas arsenal are bound to evaporate into thin air.<\/p>\n