Israel 'has at least 150 nuclear weapons'
Pastor Dale Morgan
Israel 'has at least 150 nuclear weapons'*
BBC - Ex-US President Jimmy Carter has said Israel has at least 150-200
atomic weapons in its arsenal.
The Israelis have never confirmed they have nuclear weapons, but this
has been widely assumed since a scientist leaked details in the 1980s.
Mr Carter made his comments on Israel's weapons at a press conference at
the annual literary Hay Festival in Wales.
He also described Israeli treatment of Palestinians as "one of the
greatest human rights crimes on earth".
Mr Carter gave the figure for the Israeli nuclear arsenal in response to
a question on US policy on a possible nuclear-armed Iran, arguing that
any country newly armed with atomic weapons faced overwhelming odds.
"The US has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons; the Soviet Union (sic) has
about the same; Great Britain and France have several hundred, and
Israel has 150 or more," he said.
Dimona nuclear plant, southern Israel (file pic: 8 Sept 2002),
understood to be the source of plutonium for Israel's nuclear weapons
Israel's Dimona reactor is understood to provide plutonium for the
country's nuclear weapons
Nuclear power in the Middle East
Israeli PM dismisses nuclear row
Israel's nuclear programme
"We have a phalanx of enormous capabilities, not only of weaponry but
also of rockets to deliver every one of those missiles on a pinpoint
accuracy target."
Most experts estimate that Israel has between 100 and 200 nuclear
warheads, largely based on information leaked to the Sunday Times
newspaper in the 1980s by Mordechai Vanunu, a former worker at the
country's Dimona nuclear reactor.
The US, a key ally of Israel, has in general followed the country's
policy of "nuclear ambiguity", neither confirming or denying the
existence of its assumed arsenal.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert included Israel among a list
of nuclear states in comments in December 2006, a week after US Defence
Secretary Robert Gates used a similar form of words during a Senate hearing.
'Imprisonment'
During the press briefing, Mr Carter expressed his support for Israel as
a country, but criticised its domestic and foreign policy.
"One of the greatest human rights crimes on earth is the starvation and
imprisonment of 1.6m Palestinians," he said.
The former US president cited statistics which he said showed the
nutritional intake of some Palestinian children was below that of
children in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as saying the European position
on Israel could be best described as "supine".
Mr Carter, awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, brokered the 1979
Egypt-Israel peace treaty, the first between Israel and an Arab state.
In April he controversially held talks in the Syrian capital Damascus
with Khaled Meshaal, leader of the militant Palestinian movement Hamas.
The former US president's Carter Center was unavailable for further
comment.