ELLSBERG, Daniel. Dr Daniel Ellsberg opposes Israeli nuclear terrorism

Dr Daniel Ellsberg is an outstanding Jewish American hero in the fight against US state terrorism and nuclear terrorist madness. He became famous with his courageous publication of the secret Pentagon papers (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg ) .

Dr Daniel Ellsberg, statement on Mordechai Vanunu and Israeli nuclear terrorism, 2005: " The fact that Israel has a large and growing nuclear arsenal – larger than Britain's – has been recognized by the rest of the world ever since Mordechai Vanunu revealed it conclusively 19 years ago. For demolishing his country's policy of concealment, denial, and "ambiguity" of its status as a nuclear weapons state, Vanunu served 18 years in prison, including an unprecedented period of 11 and a half years of solitary confinement in a six-by-nine-foot cell… This very month, both Israel and the U.S. are making open threats of armed attacks as early as this summer on Iran's nuclear weapons potential. For Israel to confirm openly Vanunu's revelations at this particular time – dramatically abandoning forty years of obfuscation – would attract unfavorable attention to the fact that such threats or attacks against Iran are aimed not at achieving a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East but at prolonging, indefinitely, Israel's monopoly of nuclear weapons in the region. That is an unstated aim for both the U.S. and Israel, but a less than compelling justification for war. This may be a reason – but not a legitimate one – for returning Mordechai Vanunu to silence in solitary. What the world needs of this prophet of the nuclear era is not his silence but his freedom to speak and travel, to inspire others to follow his example of truth-telling in their own countries, above all here in the United States." [1].

Dr Daniel Ellsberg on US, Israeli and other nuclear terrorism, 2008: “ nuclear weapons were used as a threat against a non-nuclear opponent during the Gulf War.

By the same token, contrary to the belief of most Americans that US nuclear weapons have never been used in the fifty years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, American Presidents have employed nuclear threats over a dozen times, generally in secret from the US public, in crises and limited wars in Indochina, East Asia, Berlin, Cuba and the Middle East. The Soviet Union, Israel, and Pakistan have used nuclear weapons in the same way.

In each of these cases, nuclear weapons were used in the exact sense in which a gun is used when it is pointed at someone’s head in a confrontation, whether or not the trigger is pulled. To get one’s way without having to pull the trigger is a major reason for acquiring the gun and, often, for brandishing it.” [2].

[1]. Daniel Ellsberg, “Free Mordechai Vanunu”, Anti-war.com, 23 March 2005: http://www.antiwar.com/news/?articleid=5306 .

[2]. Daniel Ellsberg, “Ending Nuclear terrorism: by America and others”, Chapter 8 of “At the nuclear precipice: catastrophe or trandofrmation?”, edited by Richard Falk and David Krieger, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008: http://www.amazon.com/At-Nuclear-Precipice-Catastrophe-Transformation/dp/023060904X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249542861&sr=1-1 ; Daniel Ellsberg web-site: http://www.ellsberg.net/archive/ending-nuclear-terrorism-by-america-and-others .