StupidiNews Focus: Israeli Nukes Edition

Today's Guardian report is the second "this proves the existence of Israeli nukes" story I've seen now in less than three weeks.  The first one was all about the IAEA's meeting on June 7th and how Israel's nukes would be on the agenda.  It was a tacit admission, but not a direct one.  Today's story is absolutely an admission from Israeli defense minister Shimon Peres that Israel had nukes as early as in '75...and 35 years later, Peres is now Israel's President.

You'd better believe there are some frantic phone calls being made in Tehran, Tripoli, Riyadh, Dubai, and all around the Middle East this morning.

But the fact that Israel was trying to sell nukes to apartheid South Africa should really make Israel hang its head.  Who was South Africa going to use those nukes on?  Juan Cole has an idea:

The White South African government appears to have wanted to buy Israeli nuclear-tipped missiles for potential use against Black African neighbors such as Angola, Botswana, Zambia and (at certain points) Mozambique– countries against which the rogue regime often launched cross-border raids.

It is worth remembering what kind of pariah, racist and repressive regime Apartheid South Africa really was. Non-binding UN Security Council resolutions starting in the 1960s discouraged conventional arms sales to the regime, much less nuclear weapons! (The UN-imposed arms sale ban became mandatory on member states in 1977, shortly after the Israeli offer had been made).

The similarities in aparteid South Africa and "two-state" Gaza/West Bank are startling, are they not?  LG&M's Robert Farley sums it up:

“Correct payload” could conceivably mean something other than a nuclear warhead, but it’s fair to say that the inference is likely correct. It should also be emphasized that the sale would have required Prime Minister Rabin’s approval, although there’s little reason to think that Peres would have made the offer without Rabin’s knowledge. Let’s put it this way; if this sort of evidence emerged about a potential deal between North Korea, Syria, and Iran, the Israeli response could hardly be characterized as tepid.

How much play this will get inside the US is anyone's guess.  I expect Hillary Clinton to be asked about this report should she give any sort of presser today from China.