Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 44, No. 49, Ed. 1 Thursday, December 6, 1990 Page: 3 of 32
thirty two pages : ill. ; page 16 x 12 in. Scanned from physical pages.View a full description of this newspaper.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
HANUKA ISSUE, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1990, TEXAS JEWISH POST
3 Feature
Menachem Begin And the Plan to Destroy
Saddam Hussein's Nuclear Reactor
By Jason Maoz
Good Fortune
Copyright 1990, Jewish
Telegraphic Agency, Inc.
Shortly after 5:30 p.m.
on June 7, 1981, Israel
saved the world from the
threat of nuclear black-
mail. In less than two
minutes’ time, 14 planes
of the Israeli air force laid
waste a nuclear reactor on
the outskirts of Baghdad,
and so deprived a mad-
man of his potential for
mass destruction. The
world was outraged.
Voices that had been
silent for years—as Iraq’s
brutal dictator Saddam
Hussein courted the feck-
less nations of the West in
his quest for nuclear
bombs—were suddenly
raised in a chorus of in-
dignation.
“We don’t think
(Israel’s) action serves the
cause of peace in the
area,” said French
Foreign Minister Claude
Cheysson, whose country
had supplied the ill-fated
reactor.
“Provocative, ill-timed
and internationally ille-
gal,” claimed Sen. Mark
Hatfield (R-Ore.).
“Armed attack in such
circumstances cannot be
justified; it represents a
grave breach of interna-
tional law,” scolded
British Prime Minister
Margaret Thatcher.
Said a New York Times
editorial, “Israel’s sneak
attack . . . was an act of
inexcusable and short-
sighted aggression.”
Time magazine infor-
med its readers that Israel
had “vastly compounded
the difficulties of procur-
■Saddam Hussein
ing a peaceful settlement
of the confrontations in
the Middle East.”
Someone unfamiliar
with the machinations of
international relations
would be forgiven for
wondering about all the
uproar. Wasn’t the act of
preventing a ruthless
tyrant from developing a
nuclear arsenal a good
thing? Hadn’t Hussein
earned his nickname of
the “Butcher of Bagh-
dad?” Wasn’t he, at the
very moment of the Israeli
attack, almost a year into
his bloody invasion of
Iran?
The answer, it should
be fairly obvious, lies with
the source of the attack on
the reactor: Israel. More
specifically, the Israel of
Menachem Begin.
For years after its
establishment, Israel had
the sympathy and support
of the West’s opinion-
making elites. The
democracies, stuck in a
seemingly no-win cold
war with the Soviet
Union, admired Israel’s
fighting spirit, while
Socialist governments and
parties in non-Communist
Europe felt a kinship with
Israel’s ruling Labor Par-
ty-
This widespread sup-
port reached its crest with
the 1967 Six-Day War.
The media in the United
States and Europe vir-
tually celebrated Israel’s
victory; huge demonstra-
tions were held in Israel’s
support; and everyone
from mayors to movie
stars jumped on the Israel
bandwagon.
Israel would soon learn,
however, that the media
giveth and the media
taketh away. The por-
trayal of Israel in the
media, so favorable in the
years leading up to the
Six-Day War, became in-
creasingly critical thereaf-
ter. To many journalists,
Israel was no longer the
underdog worthy of en-
lightened support, but
rather a military colossus
that refused to make
peace with the weaker
countries in the vicinity.
It was hardly sur-
prising, then, that by the
mid-1970s, the media’s
favorite descriptions of
Israel were “intransigent”
and “militaristic.”
The “plight of the
Palestinians” was “in,”
and Israel was definitely
■ Menachem Begin
“out.” Even the frequent
terrorist operations car-
ried out by the Palestine
Liberation Organization
and its offshoots did little
to win back media sup-
port for Israel; the atroci-
ties were invariably blam-
ed on Israel’s handling of
the “Palestinian prob-
lem.”
Despite the media’s an-
tagonistic treatment of
Israel, polls showed that
most Americans weren’t
swayed: a sizable majority
still favored Israel over its
Arab enemies.
And of course, Israel
enjoyed the near-
unanimous support of
American Jews and the
many influential Jewish
organizations.
Then came Begin.
By 1977, Israel had
been governed by the
Labor alignment for 29
years. A series of corrup-
tion scandals involving
Labor officials convinced
a significant number of
Israelis that a change was
needed. The scandals only
served to highlight a
growing discontent
among the electorate; the
country seemed adrift and
Labor had run out of an-
swers.
Even so, the election of
Menachem Begin on May
17, 1977, set off shock-
waves, in Israel as well as
the world.
The quintessential out-
sider in Israeli politics sin-
ce his days as head of the
underground Irgun in the
1940s, Begin was a man
reviled by the Labor-
dominated Israeli media.
Aside from his right-wing
politics, his very dress and
demeanor set him apart
from the first generation
of Israeli leaders.
The reaction of the
American media to Beg-
in’s ascension was one of
disbelief, followed by
unremitting hostility. The
media in Western Europe
were, if anything, even
more critical than their
American counterparts.
Not even the peace treaty
signed by Israel and Egypt
in 1979 bought better
press for Begin, who was
portrayed as the “intran-
sigent” (the word again)
stumbling block to Anwar
Sadat’s noble quest for
peace.
While the world media
were preoccupied with
Begin, one of Israel’s an-
tagonists was busy as-
sembling a nuclear bomb
factory. Iraq’s first in-
volvement with nuclear
technology goes back to
1959, when the Soviet
Union, looking to expand
its influence in the region,
agreed to provide Bagh-
dad a reactor, enriched
uranium and the neces-
sary scientists and
engineers.
After numerous de-
lays—the Iraqis accused
the Soviets of dragging
their feet—the Russian re-
actor went operational in
1968. And while the
Soviets upgraded the reac-
tor’s output in 1971 from
two to five megawatts,
they refused to supply any
material that could be
used to manufacture nu-
clear bombs.
By the early 1970s, Iraq
was under the control of a
veteran of political in-
trigue named Saddam
Hussein. Officially second
in command to General
Ahmed Hassan-al Bakr,
Hussein was, in reality if
not title, firmly in charge.
Described by those who
knew him as “power-hun-
gry to the point of in-
sanity,” Hussein
destroyed all political op-
position, raising the tac-
tics of torture to an art
form. His professed goal
was to take up the mantle
of the late Egyptian dicta-
tor Gamal Abdel Nasser
as “leader of the Arab
world.”
Possession of nuclear
weapons was central to
Hussein’s dream, but sin-
ce the Soviets had, to their
credit, turned Iraq down
on that score for several
years, the search was on
for a country willing to
deal. Fortunately for Hus-
sein, his rap sheet of tor-
ture, bloodshed and
megalomania meant
nothing to the French in
their desire to make a new
friend, particularly one
flowing with oil.
The years 1974 and
1975 saw a flurry of diplo-
matic activity and cere-
monial visits between
French and Iraqi officials.
In 1974, France’s foreign
minister, Michel Jobert,
went to Baghdad and
pledged any assistance
Iraq might need to build
up its technological infra-
structure. “I am happy,”
said Jobert at the conclu-
sion of his visit, “that
your great country will
now have the means to re-
store its past glory.”
Not long after that,
France agreed to build an
Osirak reactor for the
Iraqis—for “research”
purposes only, both
countries claimed.
“Research” was, of
course, not in the plans of
Hussein, who went about
the business of procuring
a “hot cell,” a piece of
equipment that, in the
words of Newsweek
magazine, “could enable
Iraq to develop weapons-
grade plutonium.”
The government of
Italy was more than hap-
py to sell Hussein his
badly needed “hot cell,”
and only the blind or the
French could not see what
Iraq had in mind.
Meanwhile, Israel had
been keeping a wary eye
on Iraq’s nuclear ambi-
tions, and when
Menachem Begin took of-
fice in the spring of ’77,
he stepped up behind-the-
scenes diplomatic efforts
to prevent the Iraqis from
becoming a nuclear
threat.
The United States was
■ President Jimmy Carter
see BEGIN page 14
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Wisch, J. A. & Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 44, No. 49, Ed. 1 Thursday, December 6, 1990, newspaper, December 6, 1990; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth754102/m1/3/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .