Israel News and Discussions

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AquaShield: Protecting Israel's Maritime Border - Israel News

 

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Israel Hayom | Women now serving in elite IDF artillery units

 

[cobra commando]

Once 'Best in the West', Israel's economy shows cracks

 

[nrupatunga]

Newly declassified documents reveal how U.S. agreed to Israel's nuclear program

The Obama administration this week declassified papers, after 45 years of top-secret status, documenting contacts between Jerusalem and Washington over American agreement to the existence of an Israeli nuclear option. The Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel (ISCAP), which is in charge of approving declassification, had for decades consistently refused to declassify these secrets of the Israeli nuclear program.

The documents outline how the American administration worked ahead of the meeting between President Richard Nixon and Prime Minister Golda Meir at the White House in September 1969, as officials came to terms with a three-part Israeli refusal – to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty; to agree to American inspection of the Dimona nuclear facility; and to condition delivery of fighter jets on Israel's agreement to give up nuclear weaponry in exchange for strategic ground-to-ground Jericho missiles "capable of reaching the Arab capitals" although "not all the Arab capitals."

The officials – cabinet secretaries and senior advisers who wrote the documents – withdrew step after step from an ambitious plan to block Israeli nuclearization, until they finally acceded, in internal correspondence – the content of the conversation between Nixon and Meir is still classified – to recognition of Israel as a threshold nuclear state.

In fact, according to the American documents, the Nixon administration defined a double threshold for Israel's move from a "technical option" to a "possessor" of nuclear weapons.

The first threshold was the possession of "the components of nuclear weapons that will explode," and making them a part of the Israel Defense Forces operational inventory.

The second threshold was public confirmation of suspicions internationally, and in Arab countries in particular, of the existence of nuclear weapons in Israel, by means of testing and "making public the fact of the possession of nuclear weapons."

Officials under Nixon proposed to him, on the eve of his conversation with Meir, to show restraint with regard to the Israeli nuclear program, and to abandon efforts to get Israel to cease acquiring 500-kilometer-range missiles with one-ton warheads developed in the Marcel Dassault factory in France, if it could reach an agreement with Israel on these points.

Origins of nuclear ambiguity

Israel's policy of nuclear ambiguity – which for the sake of deterrence does not categorically deny some nuclear ability but insists on using the term "option" – appears, according to the newly released documents, as an outcome of the Nixon-Meir understandings, no less than as an original Israeli maneuver.

The decision to release the documents was made in March, but was mentioned alongside the declassification of other materials less than a week ago in ISCAP, which is headed by a representative of the president and whose members are officials in the Department of State, Department of Defense and Department of Justice, as well as the intelligence administration and the National Archive, where the documents are stored.

The declassified material deals only with events in 1968 and 1969, the end of the terms of President Lyndon Johnson and Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, and the beginning of the Nixon-Meir era. However, it contains many contemporary lessons. Among these are the decisive nature of personal relations between a president like Obama and a prime minister like Benjamin Netanyahu; the relationship between the diplomatic process of "land for peace," American guarantees of Israeli security in peace time, supplies of weapons to Israel and Israel's nuclear status; and the ability of a country like Iran to move ahead gradually toward nuclear weapons and remain on the threshold of military nuclear weapons.

In the material declassified this week, one document was written by senior officials in the Nixon administration in a working group led by National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, exploring the nature of the Israeli nuclear weapons program known as "NSSM 40." The existence of the document and its heading were known, but the content had so far been kept secret.

The document was circulated to a select group, including Secretary of State William P. Rogers, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird and CIA director Richard Helms, and with the knowledge of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Earle Wheeler. In it, Nixon directed Kissinger to put together a panel of experts, headed by Assistant Secretary of State Joseph Sisco.

The experts were asked to submit their intelligence evaluations as to the extent of Israel's progress toward nuclear weapons and to present policy alternatives toward Israel under these circumstances, considering that the administration was bound to the pledge of the Johnson administration to provide Israel with 50 Phantom jets, the diplomatic process underway through Rogers, and the aspiration to achieve, within the year, global nonproliferation – all while, simultaneously, Israel was facing off against Egypt on the Suez Canal during the War of Attrition.

The most fascinating parts of the 107 pages discuss internal disagreements in the American administration over how to approach Israel – pressure or persuasion, as Sisco's assistant, Rodger Davies, put it in the draft of the Department of State document. Davies also formulated a scenario of dialogue and confrontation with Israel's ambassador to Washington, Yitzhak Rabin, the IDF chief of staff during the Six-Day War, who continued to sign his name using his military rank of Lieutenant General.

The documents are an intriguing illustration of organizational politics. Unexpectedly, the Department of State's approach was softer. It opposed threats and sanctions because of the fear of obstructing Rogers' diplomatic moves if Israel hardened its line. "If we choose to use the maximum option on the nuclear issue, we may not have the necessary leverage left for helping along the peace negotiations," Davies wrote.

The two branches of the Pentagon – the civilian branch headed by Laird, his deputy David Packard (a partner in the computer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard, who objected to a previous sale of a super-computer manufactured by Control Data to Israel, lest it be used for the nuclear program) and their policy advisers; and the military branch headed by Gen. Wheeler – were more belligerent. Laird fully accepted the recommendation of the deputy secretary of defense in the outgoing Johnson administration, Paul Warnke, to use supplying the Phantoms to leverage far-reaching concessions from Israel on the nuclear issue.

Packard's opposite number in the Department of State – Rogers' deputy, Elliot Richardson – was Packard's ideological ally in reservations regarding Israel. However, Sisco's appointment, rather than an official from the strategic section of the Department of State, which agreed with the Pentagon, steered the recommendations of the officials toward a softer stance on Israel.

There was also an internal debate in the American administration over the extent of Israel's progress toward a nuclear weapon. The Department of State, relying on the CIA, strongly doubted the evidence and described it as circumstantial in light of the inability to collect intelligence, including during the annual visits to the Dimona facility. As to conclusive evidence that Israel had manufactured a nuclear weapon, Davies wrote, "This final step is one we believe the Labor Alignment in Israel would like to avoid. The fierce determination to safeguard the Jewish people, however, makes it probable that Israel would desire to maintain the ultimate weapon at hand should its security again be seriously threatened."

The Department of Defense, based on its intelligence agency, was more decisive in its evaluation that Israel had already attained nuclear weapons, or would do so in a matter of months.

Rabin, with his military aura and experience in previous talks on arms supplies (Skyhawks and later Phantoms) with the Johnson administration, was the key man on the Israeli side in these discussions, according to the Americans. This, even though the decisions were made in Jerusalem by Meir, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, Foreign Minister Abba Eban and their colleagues, who were not always happy with Rabin's tendency to express his "private" stances first and only then obtain approval from Jerusalem.

The Johnson and Nixon administrations concluded that, in talks with Rabin, it had been stated in a manner both "explicit and implicit" that "Israel wants nuclear weapons, for two reasons: First, to deter the Arabs from striking Israel; and second, if deterrence fails and Israel were about to be overrun, to destroy the Arabs in a nuclear Armageddon."

The contradiction in this stance, according to the Americans, was that Israel "would need a nuclear force that is publicly known and, by and large, invulnerable, i.e., having a second-strike capability. Israel is now building such a force – the hardened silos of the Jericho missiles."

However, "it is not really possible to deter Arab leaders – and certainly not the fedayeen – when they themselves represent basically irrational forces. The theory of nuclear deterrence that applies between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. – a theory that requires a reasoned response to provocation, which in turn is made possible by essentially stable societies and governments – is far less applicable in the Near East."

Four years before the Yom Kippur War in October 1973 and the general scorn for Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the Nixon administration wrote that Israel "would never be able to rule out the possibility that some irrational Arab leader would be willing to sustain great losses if he believed he could inflict decisive damage on Israel."

Sisco and his advisers worried that a threat to cut off arms supplies "could build military and psychological pressures within Israel to move rapidly to the very sophisticated weaponry we are trying to avoid."

According to the documents, the Nixon administration believed that Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons would spur the Arab countries to acquire their own such weapons within 10 years, through private contracts with scientists and engineers in Europe. Moreover, "deeply rooted in the Arab psyche is the concept that a settlement will be possible only when there is some parity in strength with Israel. A 'kamikaze' strike at the Dimona facilities cannot be ruled out," the document states.

The Nixon advisers concluded that, all things considered, "we cannot force the Israelis to destroy design data and components, much less the technical knowledge in people's minds, nor the existing talent for rapid improvisation." Thus, Davies wrote in July, two months before the Nixon-Meir meeting, the lesser evil would be to agree for Israel to "retain its 'technical option'" to produce nuclear weapons.

"If the Israelis show a disposition to meet us on the nuclear issue but are adamant on the Jericho missiles, we can drop back to a position of insisting on non-deployment of missiles and an undertaking by the Israelis to keep any further production secret," Davies added.

The strategic consideration, mixed with political considerations, was persuasive. The draft of Meir's unconditional surrender – formulated in the Pentagon without her knowledge in her first month in office – was shelved, and the ambiguity option was born and lived in secret documents until the Obama administration made them public, for reasons (or unintentionally) of their own.

@SajeevJino @pmaitra

 

[SajeevJino]

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Things are suddenly Twisted when Iraq launch SCUD's into Israel

 

[cobra commando]

IAF shoots down Syrian fighter jet over Golan Heights

 

[anupamsurey]

Modi to meet Netanyahu; marks shift in Indian policy - The Hindu


During the meeting, the two Prime Ministers will speak about improving bilateral ties and a range of issues from cooperation in agriculture to cooperation on anti-terror technology

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday marking a distinct shift in India's position on the West Asian conflict. As The Hindu had reported a week ago, the meeting was kept under wraps till the last minute, but officials had been trying to schedule it for a few weeks.

According to sources, Mr. Netanyahu was unable to leave Tel Aviv until Sunday owing to the religious holidays of Rosh Hoshanah and Yom Kippur, and that had cast a doubt on the schedule of the meeting. Speaking to agency PTI after the announcement, an Israeli government official said "We attach immense importance to our ties with India and see this meeting as very important." On October 1st, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will also meet her Israeli counterpart Avigdor Lieberman.

During the meeting, the two Prime Ministers will speak about improving bilateral ties and bilateral trade at about $6 billion, on a range of issues from cooperation in agriculture to cooperation on anti-terror technology. Israel is one of a handful of countries that Mr. Modi visited as Chief Minister of Gujarat, and according to a senior BJP official, "the meeting will solidify the relations the BJPs leadership has always had right from our support for the recognition of Israel in 1992." Mr. Netanyahu has invited Mr. Modi to visit Israel soon, and if Mr. Modi goes he will be the first Indian Prime Minister to do so.

There are other factors that denote the shift in India's position. To begin with, the Prime Minister will be meeting Mr. Netanyahu, but has not met with Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas who was here in New York at the same time. In the past few years, India has taken a more nuanced position on the Palestinian-Israel conflict, away from its pro-Palestine stance of the past. While India voted against Israel at the UN Human Right Council this year during the recent conflict in Gaza where more than 2,200 people were killed, for example, the government refused to condemn Israel's actions in its statement.

Mr. Modi's speech at the UN also saw a departure from the past years, when the Indian speech regularly made references to the "Palestinian struggle" in the past. Even in 2013, after the Indian shift in public statements, the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had made a reference to the Palestinian claim on east Jerusalem as capital.

 

[cobra commando]

Sale of Israel Military Industries gets under way

 

[SajeevJino]

Missile boat crisis ends as Germany gives Israel €300m discount​

Germany has agreed to sell missile boats to Israel at a price hundreds of millions of euros below full value, reversing an earlier decision to withhold the discount due to the construction of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Territories.

A crisis between Israel and Germany over missile boats required to protect Israel's offshore gas fields has ended after Berlin agreed to slash €300 million (about $382 million) off the cost, officials on both sides said. They are expected to initial an agreement for the boats within weeks.

The talks between Israel and Germany to purchase three fast missile boats to protect the gas rigs off Israel's shore began a year ago. Haaretz reported that the deal was worth about €900 million.

Israel asked for a 30 percent reduction on the price, like it had received in previous deals on German submarines. The German discount, tantamount to a grant of hundreds of millions of euros, was part of Chancellor Angela Merkel's policy to bolster Israel's security.

In the beginning of May, about two weeks after the talks between Israel and the Palestinians stalled, German's national security adviser Christoph Heusgen told his Israeli counterpart Yossi Cohen that Israel would not receive the discount and would have to pay their full price.

Heusgen said that following the breakdown in the peace talks with the Palestinians and the harsh criticism in Germany of Israel's construction in the settlements, the Bundestag would not approve a grant of hundreds of millions of euros to subsidize the boats.

The German decision deepened the crisis that has been developing between the two states over the past five years, due to the tense relations between Merkel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The low-key talks were jumpstarted at the end of June when Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman visited Berlin and met German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. According to a senior Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem, Steinmeier told Lieberman "don't worry, it will be o.k.," and Lieberman left the meeting optimistic about the possibility of getting the missile boats deal back on track.

The talks continued intensively for three months after the meeting between a small group of senior officials on both sides - Lieberman and Steinmeier, Israeli ambassador to Germany Yaakov Hadas and Germany's ambassador to Israel Andreas Michaelis, national security advisor Yossi Cohen and his German counterpart Christoph Heusgen, as well as Finance Minister Yair Lapid and his counterpart Wolfgang Schäuble.

Israeli officials who asked to remain anonymous said there were several factors which led to the German decision to give Israel the grant despite the criticism over the failure in the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and the continued construction in the settlements.

One official said Lieberman deserves most of the credit, for forging close cooperation with Steinmeier, who pushed to advance the deal in Germany. "Lieberman dealt with the issue incessantly," the official said. "He played a very positive part and managed to enlist many German officials to advance the issue."

Another official said Finance Minister Yair Lapid's visit in Berlin for talks with German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble was extremely helpful in advancing the deal in its last stages.

Lapid also met Heusgen and told him he was trying to restrain Israel's money transfers to the settlements.

Another official said the Germans understood that the missile boats were a vital security necessity for Israel. Cohen, who held talks with Heusgen and other German officials, told them there was a real threat that Hezbollah would attack the gas rigs.

Moreover, the deal was worth hundreds of millions of euros for the German economy and for shipyards which employ thousands of workers. The initial German refusal to give the discount made Israel examine the possibility of purchasing the boats from South Korea. Eventually, the Germans understood they too have an interest in promoting the deal and in putting the discount back on the table.

What finally swung the deal was Merkel's personal commitment to Israel's security, a Foreign Ministry official said. "Though she has a lot of criticism, when it's come to Israeli security she puts it all aside," said the official. "This deal will strengthen Israel's strategic ties with Germany for the next 20 years," he said.

Middle East - Missile boat crisis ends as Germany gives Israel €300m discount - France 24

 

[SajeevJino]

Israeli Company Selected as the Security Coordinator of Rio 2016 Olympics​

ISDS Company was chosen to be the integrator of all security aspects of the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil, as part of a deal worth about 2.2 Billion dollars. "It will be a technology hotbed of Israeli security solutions", said Ron Shafran from ISDS

Unprecedented Israeli achievement: ISDS was selected to manage and coordinate the security of the Rio 2016 Olympics. It is the first time an Israeli company will serve in this capacity in an Olympic event. The deal value is estimated at 2.2. Billion dollars.

ISDS' operations regarding the Olympic Games will range from consulting to supplying systems. "The challenge is great", says Ron Shafran, Vice President of the company, to IsraelDefense. "As seen in the media around the world, the security in Brazil is a challenge but we are already with teams in Israel as well as in Brazil and Europe.

"All teams are working on preparing the sector, from constructing a security concept to constructing the technological systems to be installed in the facilities of the competitions and all the logistical facilities, located in Rio and in four other regions throughout Brazil.

"The games begin on August 5, 2016 and will continue until December 2016, that including the Special Olympics", added Ron Shafran.

According to Shafran, this is a rare opportunity to provide a platform for Israeli companies to take part in securing the games. "We very much want to take this platform and integrate Israeli and international technologies that address the specific issues – from intelligence to perimeter security, crowd control and so forth. It will be a technology hotbed of Israeli security solutions.

"We will emphasize on small companies with big solutions, in order to give them the platform to present their capabilities and serve as a showcase to the world, facing a very significant customer it is hard to enter to".

ISDS' company name appears on the official website of the Rio 2016 Olympics as one of the sponsors of the event, along with the names of multinational companies such as Symantec, EMC and more.

http://www.israeldefense.com/?CategoryID=483&ArticleID=3178

 

[SajeevJino]

US and Israel agree on multi-billion dollar fighter jet deal despite tensions​

The mounting tensions between Israel and the US did not dissuade the long-time allies from completing a multi-billion dollar deal for Israel to purchase its second squadron of the advanced F-35 stealth fighter jets.

The agreement was made despite the ongoing diplomatic disputes between Washington and Jerusalem over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to expedite settlement construction and the uneasy relations between President Obama's administration and Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon.

The new squadron will consist of 19 warplanes and will cost between 2.5 to 3 billion dollars. The bill will be paid using the US foreign military assistance, while construction and delivery will be spread out over several years.

The advanced stealth fighter's US manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, is expected to gradually introduce the first squadron's jets into the Israeli arsenal starting in 2016 and complete delivery by 2018. The second squadron will be phased into the Israeli Air Force the following year, pending approval by an Israeli government panel.

The possibility of acquiring an additional flight squadron was raised several times in the past year, including comments made by defense establishment officials who voiced their belief in the need for three full F-35 squadrons.

Nevatim airbase in southern Israel has started installing the infrastructure necessary for the first squadron's arrival, while the first Israeli F-35 pilots will be selected next year.

IAF sources have publicly stated over the past two years that Israel's air superiority has been hurt by the advanced anti-aircraft systems purchased by Syria from Russia. Efforts were launched to sabotage and use counter-intelligence to protect the IDF's freedom to operate in Lebanon and Syria.

Meanwhile, the F-35s purchased were marketed as advanced stealth fighters capable of evading the majority of anti-aircraft systems held by enemy forces, providing Israel the possibility of operating in long-range targets.

Each F-35 carries a hefty price tag – some $100 million – which will be funded through the annual US military aid package to Israel. However, the various difficulties discovered during the jet's testing phase has led to its development budget rising $7.4 billion, some of which is expected to be passed on to future buyers.

The US embassy in Israel had no immediate comment and the Pentagon's F-35 program declined to comment.Lockheed said it would be inappropriate to comment since arms sales are handled on a government-to-government basis.

In July, Lorraine Martin, Lockheed's F-35 program manager, told reporters that $170 million of industry investment in cost reduction initiatives will cut the cost of each F-35 fighter jet to about $80 million, including the engine, by 2018.

Washington gives Israel some $3 billion in annual defense grants, most of which it spends on US products. Israeli companies, including Elbit Systems Ltd. and state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), contribute technologies to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.

US and Israel agree on multi-billion dollar fighter jet deal despite tension... - Israel News, Ynetnews

 

[cobra commando]

Israel Seeks Space, Cyber Cooperation with Japan

 

[Tamil Soldier]

Israel will soon be facing the music at the ICC. I doubt that the U.S. reinforcements they generally enjoy regarding diplomatic affairs can save them here, the Palestinian case on war crimes and crimes against humanity charges are far too substantial.

 

[cobra commando]

IDF vehicle attacked by anti-tank missile on Lebanon border; army reportedly returns fire - Arab-Israeli Conflict - Jerusalem Post

 

[ezsasa]

No US president can do anything that is detrimental to isreal's goals. At best Netanyahu may lose his job but nothing is going to happen beyond that.

 

[Zebra]

IMI – on course to privatisation | Defense Update:

IMI – on course to privatisation

Apr 2, 2015

The oldest military industry in Israel is up for sale – Israel Military Industries (IMI), the government owned company established in 1933 is undergoing privatization, which includes the sale of its business activity to a private investor.


Israel's Government Companies Authority (GCA), headed by Ori Yogev, is managing the bid offering. Through the process the GCA and MOD have determined the appropriate security authorizations granting potential bidders the permission to purchase a defense company in Israel. Based on valuation assessments, buyers are expected to pay $550-$700 million for IMI. GCA is expecting up to eight bidders to compete, four Israeli and four foreign groups from the USA.

Potential bidders will be pre-selected to be allowed to place bids. Several private investor groups have already indicated their interest in IMI, including Elbit Systems', Israel's leading privately owned and publicly traded defense company, and the Katzav Group which already owns several defense companies, one of them is IWI which was one of IMI's divisions sold to private investors. Katsav is likely to team with businessmen Eldad Avraham and Meir Shamir. A third group representing other investors has also come forward but the names of the investors has not been released.

Three US companies have also expressed interest in the process; but have yet to apply to participate in the process. All potential bidders will be subject to security clearance by the Director of Security of the Defense establishment ("Malmab"). The GCA will also look at their financial capabilities.


Customer Driven Focus

As part of the privatization process IMI will be split to three entities – IMI Systems will maintain all the company's operational assets, as well as a backlog worth $2.2 billion. Certain assets that cannot be transferred to private owners will be maintained at a newly established company that will remain under government ownership.

IMI is leaner today, following the retirement of 1,200 employees, some on early retirement, other became redundant as the company changed it's business focus from hardware manufacturing to system engineering. Supporting this trend, IMI recruited 300 new employees in the recent years, most of them engineers.

As part of this transformation IMI established a number of customer focused business groups, each lead by experienced service members from the Israel's Defense Forces and security agencies. Brig. General (ret) Eli Reiter is heading the new Precision Fires business unit, the Infantry Systems group is headed by Brig. General (ret) Alon Friedman and the HLS unit is headed by Nir Regev.


The Long Way to Privatisation

The privatization of IMI culminates a long preparation process carried out by the company, directed by Chairman Maj. Gen. (Ret) Udi Adam and President Avi Felder, both have navigated the privatization process in full coordination and full accord with the relevant government departments, including the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Defense, IMI Labor Union representatives and Israel's labor federation 'Histadrut'. The process was launched after approval by the Israeli government and Knesset (Israeli parliament) finance committee.

According to the Privatization Resolution approved by the government, IMI will be privatized in a single block except for one classified unit, which includes interests and infrastructures, which will remain with the State of Israel and will be managed by a government owned corporation "Tomer-Systems". In addition, the resolution states that in the commencement of 2022 IMI will operate from its site in Ramat Beka, in the Negev, and will vacate lands from areas from which it presently operates in the central districts of the country.

The examination process of the GCA and the Director of Security of the Defense establishment ("Malmab") will look at the financial capabilities and appropriate security authorizations to purchase a defense company.

Within the framework screening participants, the State of Israel's representatives will consider and take into account the applicant's standing in an entirety of criteria, among them:
"¢Economic strength and economic and administrative ability to purchase and hold the State of Israel's shares in a defense company, and to operate it as an ongoing concern;
"¢Honesty and integrity of the applicant and of its interested parties;
"¢The lack of conflict of interests between the applicant's business affairs and those of the State of Israel or the company's or the purchase of its stocks;

While the process is restricted to Israeli citizens and locally registered corporations, the indirect participation of foreign individuals or corporations will be permitted as stockholders, holding up to 90% in an Israeli corporation bidding on IMI.

New engines to driving future growth

"As of the beginning of 2016, IMI is set to operate as a leading defense company with a private ownership." IMI's Chairman Gen. (Ret.) Udi Adam said. "IMI Systems will continue to operate as a business oriented defense company, with a private ownership which will focus on the core business areas of operation, in which it has a technological leading edge adapted to a dynamic and changing market."

Those core business have recently been sharpened to include three main 'growth engines', including precision fires, combat mobility and protection (armor and survivability). In some of these areas IMI has already established a prominent position as a prime contractor and system integrator. According to company officials, over 80 percent of IMI's current portfolio and sales are products developed in the past five years, including rockets, precision weapons and protection systems.

"IMI as a private company will continue to lead the core business activities in which it focuses on and the development and manufacturing of combat advanced solutions. In the past few years the company has geared up to its privatization by implementing essential means and practices, among them the adjustment of combat systems and the widening of target markets, as groundwork to IMI's becoming a company operating under business parameters in a competitive market." Adam added.

Vital State Interest

As a major arms manufacturer and a sole supplier of a number of ammunition types for the IDF, the Israeli government expressed its interest in IMI under the "Vital State Interest Order", which requires the company to maintain its manufacturing base for certain assets. This demand also requires IMI to continue operating as an Israeli company and maintain its business and management in country. This requirement will also maintain its employees' security classification levels. In addition, within the framework of the privatization, it puts limitations on the holding, purchasing and gaining of control of the company.

 

[rockey 71]

http://www.theatlant...-states/380237/



Israel's Worst-Kept Secret
Is the silence over Israeli nukes doing more harm than good?


Israel has a substantial arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Former CIA Director Robert Gates said so during his 2006 Senate confirmation hearings for secretary of defense, when he noted—while serving as a university president—that Iran is surrounded by "powers with nuclear weapons," including "the Israelis to the west." Former President Jimmy Carter said so in 2008 and again this year, in interviews and speeches in which he pegged the number of Israel's nuclear warheads at 150 to around 300.

But due to a quirk of federal secrecy rules, such remarks generally cannot be made even now by those who work for the U.S. government and hold active security clearances. In fact, U.S. officials, even those on Capitol Hill, are routinely admonished not to mention the existence of an Israeli nuclear arsenal and occasionally punished when they do so.

The policy of never publicly confirming what a scholar once called one of the world's "worst-kept secrets" dates from a political deal between the United States and Israel in the late 1960s. Its consequence has been to help Israel maintain a distinctive military posture in the Middle East while avoiding the scrutiny—and occasional disapprobation—applied to the world's eight acknowledged nuclear powers.

But the U.S. policy of shielding the Israeli program has recently provoked new controversy, partly because of allegations that it played a role in the censure of a well-known national-laboratory arms researcher in July, after he published an article in which he acknowledged that Israel has nuclear arms. Some scholars and experts are also complaining that the government's lack of candor is complicating its high-profile campaign to block the development of nuclear arms in Iran, as well as U.S.-led planning for a potential treaty prohibiting nuclear arms anywhere in the region.
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The Point of No Return

The U.S. silence is largely unwavering, however. "We would never say flatly that Israel has nuclear weapons," explained a former senior State Department official who dealt with nuclear issues during the Bush administration. "We would have to couch it in other language, we would have to say 'we assume' or 'we presume that Israel has nuclear weapons,' or 'it's reported' that they have them," the former official said, requesting that his name not be used due to the political sensitivity surrounding the topic.

President Barack Obama made clear that this four-decade-old U.S. policy would persist at his first White House press conference in 2009, when journalist Helen Thomas asked if he knew of any nations in the Middle East with nuclear arms. "With respect to nuclear weapons, you know, I don't want to speculate," Obama said, as though Israel's established status as a nuclear-weapons state was only a matter of rumor and conjecture.

So wary is Paul Pillar, a former U.S. national-intelligence officer for the Middle East, of making any direct, public reference to Israel's nuclear arsenal that when he wrote an article this month in The National Interest, entitled "Israel's Widely Suspected Unmentionables," he referred to warheads as "kumquats" throughout his manuscript.

Even Congress has been coy on the subject. When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee published a 2008 report titled "Chain Reaction: Avoiding a Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East," it included chapters on Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey—but not Israel. The 61-page report relegated Israel's nuclear arms to a footnote that suggested that Israel's arsenal was a "perception."

"This report does not take a position on the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons," the report said. "Although Israel has not officially acknowledged it possesses nuclear weapons, a widespread consensus exists in the region and among experts in the United States that Israel possesses a number of nuclear weapons. For Israel's neighbors, this perception is more important than reality."

While former White House or cabinet-level officers—such as Gates—have gotten away with more candor, the bureaucracy does not take honesty by junior officials lightly. James Doyle, a veteran nuclear analyst at Los Alamos National Laboratory who was recently censured, evidently left himself open to punishment by straying minutely from U.S. policy in a February 2013 articlepublished by the British journal Survival.

"Nuclear weapons did not deter Egypt and Syria from attacking Israel in 1973, Argentina from attacking British territory in the 1982 Falklands War or Iraq from attacking Israel during the 1991 Gulf War," Doyle said in a bitingly critical appraisal of Western nuclear policy, which angered his superiors at the nuclear-weapons lab as well as a Republican staff member of the House Armed Services Committee.

Even though three secrecy specialists at the lab concluded the article contained no secrets, more senior officials overruled them and cited an unspecified breach as justification for censuring Doyle and declaring the article classified, after its publication. They docked his pay, searched his home computer, and, eventually,fired him this summer. The lab has said his firing—as opposed to the censure and search—was not related to the article's content, but Doyle and his lawyer have said they are convinced it was pure punishment for his skepticism about the tenets of nuclear deterrence.

Neither Doyle nor his colleagues revealed if the sentence in his article about Israel's arsenal was the one that provoked officials to nitpick about a security violation, but several independent experts have surmised it was.

Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, said the clues lie in the Energy Department's citation—in a document summarizing the facts behind Doyle's unsuccessful appeal of his ill treatment—of a classification bulletin numbered "WPN-136."
Paul Pillar was so wary of writing about Israel's warheads directly that he referred to them as "kumquats" instead.

The full, correct title of that bulletin, according to an Energy Department circular, is "WNP-136, Foreign Nuclear Capabilities." The classification bulletin itself is not public. But Aftergood said Doyle's only reference to a sensitive foreign nuclear program was his mention of Israel's, making it highly probable this was the cudgel the lab used against him. "I'm certain that that's what it is," Aftergood said in an interview.

The circumstances surrounding Doyle's censure are among several cases now being examined by Department of Energy (DOE) Inspector General Gregory Friedman, as part of a broader examination of inconsistent classification practices within the department and the national laboratories, several officials said.

Doyle's reference to the existence of Israel's nuclear arsenal reflects the consensus intelligence judgment within DOE nuclear weapons-related laboratories, former officials say. But some said they find it so hard to avoid any public reference to the weapons that classification officers periodically hold special briefings about skirting the issue.

"It was one of those things that was not obvious," a former laboratory official said, asking not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the topic. "Especially when there's so much about it in the open domain."

Israel's nuclear-weapons program began in the 1950s, and the country is widely believed to have assembled its first three weapons during the crisis leading to the Six-Day War in 1967, according to the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit group in Washington that tracks nuclear-weapons developments.

For decades, however, Israel itself has wrapped its nuclear program in a policy it calls amimut, meaning opacity or ambiguity. By hinting at but not confirming that it has these weapons, Israel has sought to deter its enemies from a major attack without provoking a concerted effort by others to develop a matching arsenal.

Israeli-American historian Avner Cohen has written that U.S. adherence to this policy evidently grew out of a September 1969 meeting between President Richard Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. No transcript of the meeting has surfaced, but Cohen said it is clear the two leaders struck a deal: Israel would not test its nuclear weapons or announce it possessed them, while the United States wouldn't press Israel to give them up or to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and would halt its annual inspections of Dimona, the site of Israel's Negev Nuclear Research Center.

As an outgrowth of the deal, Washington, moreover, would adopt Israel's secret as its own, eventually acquiescing to a public formulation of Israeli policy that was initially strenuously opposed by top U.S. officials.
4b526400d.jpgGolda Meir, Richard Nixon, and Henry Kissinger in 1973, four years after an earlier meeting that may have established the policy of mutual silence regarding Israel's nuclear armaments. (Wikimedia)

"Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East," the boilerplate Israeli account has long stated. "Israel supports a Middle East free of all weapons of mass destruction following the attainment of peace." When Nixon's aides sought assurances that this pledge meant Israel would not actually build any bombs, Israeli officials said the word "introduce" would have a different meaning: It meant the country would not publicly test bombs or admit to possessing them, leaving ample room for its unacknowledged arsenal.

"While we might ideally like to halt actual Israeli possession," then-National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger wrote in a July 1969 memo to Nixon that summarized Washington's enduring policy, "what we really want at a minimum may be just to keep Israeli possession from becoming an established international fact."

Even when Mordechai Vanunu, a technician at Dimona, provided the first detailed, public account of the program in 1986 and released photos he had snapped there of nuclear-weapons components, both countries refused to shift gears. After being snatched from Italy, Vanunu was imprisoned by Israel for 18 years, mostly in solitary confinement, and subsequently forbidden to travel abroad or deal substantively with foreign journalists. In an email exchange with the Center for Public Integrity, Vanunu indicated that he still faces restrictions but did not elaborate. "You can write me again when I am free, out of Israel," he said.

The avoidance of candor has sometimes extended to private government channels. A former U.S. intelligence official said he recalled being flabbergasted in the 1990s by the absence of any mention of Israel in a classified document purporting to describe all foreign nuclear-weapons programs. He said he complained to colleagues at the time that "we've really got a problem if we can't acknowledge the truth even in classified documents," and finally won a grudging but spare mention of the country's weaponry.

Gary Samore, who was President Obama's top advisor on nuclear nonproliferation from 2009 to 2013, said the United States has long preferred that Israel hold to its policy of amimut, out of concern that other Middle Eastern nations would feel threatened by Israel's coming out of the nuclear closet.

"For the Israelis to acknowledge and declare it, that would be seen as provocative," he said. "It could spur some of the Arab states and Iran to produce weapons. So we like calculated ambiguity." But when asked point-blank if the fact that Israel has nuclear weapons is classified, Samore—who is now at Harvard University—answered: "It doesn't sound very classified to me—that Israel has nuclear weapons?"

The U.S. government's official silence was broken only by accident, when, in 1979, the CIA released a four-page summary of an intelligence memorandum titled "Prospects for Further Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons" in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental group.

"We believe that Israel already has produced nuclear weapons," the 1974 report said, citing Israel's stockpiling of large quantities of uranium, its uranium-enrichment program, and its investment in a costly missile system capable of delivering nuclear warheads. Release of the report triggered a spate of headlines. "CIA said in 1974 Israel had A-Bombs," a New York Times headline declared. "Israel a Nuclear Club Member Since 1974, CIA Study Indicates," announcedThe Washington Star.

For decades, Israel itself has wrapped its nuclear program in a policy it calls amimut, meaning opacity or ambiguity.

But it stemmed from a goof.

John Despres, who was the CIA's national-intelligence officer for nuclear proliferation at the time, said he was in charge of censoring or "redacting" the secret material from the report prior to its release. But portions he wanted withheld were released, he said in an interview, while sections that were supposed to be released were withheld.

"This was a sort of classic case of a bureaucratic screw-up," said Despres, now retired. "People misinterpreted my instructions." He said that as far as he knows, no one was disciplined for the mix-up. Moreover, in 2008, when the National Security Archive obtained a copy of the document under the Freedom of Information Act, that judgment remained unexcised.

But Washington's refusal to confirm the obvious in any other way has produced some weird trips down the rabbit hole for those seeking official data about the Israeli arsenal. Bryan Siebert, who was the most senior career executive in charge of guarding DOE's nuclear-weapons secrets from 1992 to 2002, said he recalls seeing a two-cubic-foot stack at one point of CIA, FBI, Justice, and Energy department documents about Israel's nuclear program.

John Fitzpatrick, who since 2011 has served as director of the federal Information Security Oversight Office, confirmed that "aspects" of Israel's nuclear status are considered secret by the United States. "We know this from classifying authorities at agencies who handle that material," said Fitzpatrick, who declined to provide more details.

Kerry Brodie, director of communications for the Israeli embassy in Washington, similarly said no one there would discuss the subject of the country's nuclear status. "Unfortunately, we do not have any comment we can share at this point," she wrote in an email. A former speaker of the Israeli Knesset, Avraham Burg, was less discrete during a December 2013 conference in Haifa, where he said "Israel has nuclear and chemical weapons" and called the policy of ambiguity "outdated and childish."

Through a spokesman, Robert Gates declined to discuss the issue. But a growing number of U.S. experts agree with Burg.

Pillar, for example, wrote in his article this month that the 45-year-old U.S. policy of shielding Israel's program is seen around the world "as not just a double standard but living a lie. Whatever the United States says about nuclear weapons will always be taken with a grain of salt or with some measure of disdain as long as the United States says nothing about kumquats."

Victor Gilinsky, a physicist and former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission who has written about the history of the Israeli program, complained in a recent book that "the pretense of ignorance about Israeli bombs does not wash anymore. "¦ The evident double standard undermines efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons worldwide."

J. William Leonard, who ran a government-wide declassification effort as President George W. Bush's director of the Information Security Oversight Office from 2002 to 2008, commented that "in some regards, it undermines the integrity of the classification system when you're using classification to officially protect a known secret. It can get exceedingly awkward, obviously."

Aftergood said the secrecy surrounding Israel's nuclear weapons is "obsolete and fraying around the edges. "¦ It takes an effort to preserve the fiction that this is a secret," he said. Meanwhile, he added, it can still be abused as an instrument for punishing federal employees such as Doyle for unrelated or politically inspired reasons. "Managers have broad discretion to overlook or forgive a particular infraction," Aftergood said. "The problem is that discretion can be abused. And some employees get punished severely while others do not."

Dana H. Allin, the editor of Doyle's article in Survival magazine, said in a recentcommentary published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London that "anyone with a passing knowledge of international affairs knows about these weapons." He called the government's claim that the article contained secrets "ludicrous" and said Doyle's ordeal at the hands of the classification authorities was nothing short of Kafkaesque.

 

[cobra commando]

IDF rules that tanks are still no place for a woman

The Israel Defense Forces has decided that women soldiers cannot operate tanks, following physiological tests it conducted. The army undertook extensive staff work in an effort to determine what other military positions can be opened up to women. Women can now perform 92 percent of all army roles. Over the past year, they have been admitted to training courses for the elite Moran artillery corps, as well as the unit that operates small drones that support tactical forces in the field. The Ground Forces Command also sought to ascertain whether women could operate tanks or D-9 bulldozers, among other tasks. The results of the examination, first published Sunday on the Ynet website, led military officials to conclude that women will not be allowed to operate tanks, because the physiological requirements of such positions as tank drivers and loaders exceed most women’s capabilities. In an article in the most recent edition of the IDF magazine Ma’arachot, former Medical Corps officer Prof. Yoram Epstein – a former commander of the military physiology unit – and Lt. Col. Prof. Yuval Heled – commander of the Institute for Combat Medicine Research – said they believe women can be integrated into the fighting forces, but only in keeping with their physical limitations.
“The attempt to train female soldiers for combat on the front line beyond their physiological limitations, simply in the name of equality, is liable to end with a large number of injured soldiers just to find the one soldier who can withstand the load required,” they wrote.


Read more:
IDF rules that tanks are still no place for a woman

 

[rockey 71]

IDF rules that tanks are still no place for a woman

The Israel Defense Forces has decided that women soldiers cannot operate tanks, following physiological tests it conducted. The army undertook extensive staff work in an effort to determine what other military positions can be opened up to women. Women can now perform 92 percent of all army roles. Over the past year, they have been admitted to training courses for the elite Moran artillery corps, as well as the unit that operates small drones that support tactical forces in the field. The Ground Forces Command also sought to ascertain whether women could operate tanks or D-9 bulldozers, among other tasks. The results of the examination, first published Sunday on the Ynet website, led military officials to conclude that women will not be allowed to operate tanks, because the physiological requirements of such positions as tank drivers and loaders exceed most women’s capabilities. In an article in the most recent edition of the IDF magazine Ma’arachot, former Medical Corps officer Prof. Yoram Epstein – a former commander of the military physiology unit – and Lt. Col. Prof. Yuval Heled – commander of the Institute for Combat Medicine Research – said they believe women can be integrated into the fighting forces, but only in keeping with their physical limitations.
“The attempt to train female soldiers for combat on the front line beyond their physiological limitations, simply in the name of equality, is liable to end with a large number of injured soldiers just to find the one soldier who can withstand the load required,” they wrote.


Read more:
IDF rules that tanks are still no place for a woman

Loads of reports of promiscuity among IDF females. This could be a compelling reason not to put women in the close space inside a tank. There would be too much distractions for the male crew. I guess they could have exclusive female crew in there.

 

[Vikram314]

Netanyahu tries to bring judiciary under control.

Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu advances judicial changes despite uproar

TEL AVIV, Israel: Israel’s government on Monday was pressing ahead with a contentious plan to overhaul the country’s legal system, despite an unprecedented uproar that has included mass protests, warnings from military and business leaders and calls for restraint by the United States.

Thousands of demonstrators were expected to gather outside the parliament, or Knesset, for a second straight week to rally against the plan as lawmakers prepared to hold an initial vote.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies, a collection of ultra-religious and ultranationalist lawmakers, say the plan is meant to fix a system that has given the courts and government legal advisers too much say in how legislation is crafted and decisions are made. Critics say it will upend the country’s system of checks and balances and concentrate power in the hands of the prime minister. They also say that Netanyahu, who is on trial for a series of corruption charges, has a conflict of interest.

The standoff has plunged Israel into one of its greatest domestic crises, sharpening a divide between Israelis over the character of their state and the values they believe should guide it.

Monday’s vote on part of the legislation is just the first of three readings required for parliamentary approval. While that process is expected to take months, the vote is a sign of the coalition’s determination to barrel ahead and seen by many as an act of bad faith.

Israel’s figurehead president has urged the government to freeze the legislation and seek a compromise with the opposition. Leaders in the booming tech sector have warned that weakening the judiciary could drive away investors. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been protesting in Tel Aviv and other cities each week.
Last week, some 100,000 people demonstrated outside the Knesset as a committee granted initial approval to the plan. It was the largest protest in the city in years.

The overhaul has prompted otherwise stoic former security chiefs to speak out, and even warn of civil war. In a sign of the rising emotions, a group of army veterans in their 60s and 70s stole a decommissioned tank from a war memorial site and draped it with Israel’s declaration of independence before being stopped by police.
The plan has even sparked rare warnings from the US, Israel’s chief international ally.
US Ambassador Tom Nides told a podcast over the weekend that Israel should “pump the brakes” on the legislation and seek a consensus on reform that would protect Israel’s democratic institutions.

His comments drew angry responses from Netanyahu allies, telling Nides to stay out of Israel’s internal affairs.

Speaking to his Cabinet on Sunday, Netanyahu dismissed suggestions that Israel’s democracy was under threat. “Israel was and will remain a strong and vibrant democracy,” he said.

While Israel has long boasted of its democratic credentials, critics say that claim is tainted by the country’s West Bank occupation and the treatment of its own Palestinian minority.

Israel’s Palestinian citizens — a minority that has the most to lose by the legal overhaul — have largely sat out the protests, in part because of discrimination they suffer at home and because of Israel’s 55-year military occupation over their Palestinian brethren in the West Bank. Jewish settlers in the West Bank can vote in Israeli elections and are generally protected by Israeli laws, while Palestinians in the same territory are subject to military rule and cannot vote.
Monday’s parliamentary votes seek to grant the government more power over who becomes a judge. Today, a selection committee is made up of politicians, judges and lawyers — a system that proponents say promotes consensus.
The new system would give coalition lawmakers control over the appointments. Critics fear that judges will be appointed based on their loyalty to the government or prime minister.

“This is dramatic,” said Yaniv Roznai, co-director of the Rubinstein Center for Constitutional Challenges at Reichman University north of Tel Aviv. “If you take control of the court, then it’s all over. You can make any change you want.”

A second change would bar the Supreme Court from overturning what are known as “basic laws,” pieces of legislation that stand in for a constitution, which Israel does not have. Critics say that legislators will be able to dub any law a basic law, removing judicial oversight over controversial legislation.

Also planned are proposals that would give parliament the power to overturn Supreme Court rulings and control the appointment of government legal advisers. The advisers currently are professional civil servants, and critics say the new system would politicize government ministries.
Critics also fear the overhaul will grant Netanyahu an escape route from his legal woes. Netanyahu denies wrongdoing and says he is the victim of a biased judicial system on a witch hunt against him.
Israel’s attorney general has barred Netanyahu from any involvement in the overhaul, saying his legal troubles create a conflict of interest. Instead, his justice minister, a close confidant, is leading the charge. On Sunday, Netanyahu called the restrictions on him “patently ridiculous.”
Recent polls show that most Israelis, including many Netanyahu supporters, support halting the legislation and moving forward through consensus.