Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 45, No. 1, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 3, 1991 Page: 6 of 24
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IN OUR45TH YEAR!
Israel saved the world by bombing reactor
By JASON MAOZ
NEW YORK (JTA) — Shortly
after 5:30 p.m. on June 7, 1981,
Israel saved the world from the
threat of nuclear blackmail. 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 madman 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 feckless nations of
the West in his quest for nu-
clear bombs — were suddenly
raised in a chorus of indigna-
tion.
“We don’t think (Israel’s) ac-
tion 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 illegal,” claimed
Sen. Mark Hatfield, R-Ore.
“Armed attack in such circum-
stances cannot be justified; it
represents a grave breach of
international law,” scolded for-
mer British Prime Minister Mar-
garet Thatcher.
Said a New York Times edito-
rial, “Israel’s sneak attack . . .
was an act of inexcusable and
short-sighted aggression.”
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 develop-
ing a nuclear arsenal a good
thing? Hadn’t Hussein earned
his nickname of the “Butcher of
Baghdad?" 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 Is-
rael. More specifically, the Is-
rael of Menachem Begin.
For years after its establish-
ment, Israel had the sympathy
and support of the West’s opin-
ion-making elites. The democ-
racies, stuck in a seemingly no-
win cold war with the Soviet
Union, admired Israel’s fight-
ing spirit, whixe Socialist gov-
ernments and parties in non-
Communist Europe felt a kin-
ship with Israel’s ruling Labor
Party.
This widespread support
reached its crest with the 1967
Six- Day War. The media in the
United States and Europe vir-
tually celebrated Israel’s victory,
huge demonstrations were held
in Israel’s support; and every-
one 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
portrayal of Israel in the media,
so favorable in the years lead-
ing up to the Six-Day War,
became increasingly critical
thereafter. To many journalists,
Israel was no longer the under-
dog worthy of enlightened sup-
port, but rather a military
colossus that refused to make
peace with the weaker countries
in the vicinity.
The “plight of the
Palestinians” was
“in,” and Israel was definitely
“out.” Even the frequent
terrorist operations carried out
by the Palestine T .iberation Or-
ganization and its offshoots did
little to win back media support
for Israel; the atrocities were
to their credit, turned Iraq down
on that score for several years,
the search was on for a country
willing to deal. Fortunately for
Hussein, his rap sheet of tor-
ture, bloodshed and megaloma-
nia 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 diplomatic activity
and ceremonial visits between
French and Iraqi officials.
Not long after that,. France
agreed to build an Osirak reac-
tor for the Iraqis — for “re-
search” purposes only, both
countries claimed.
invariably blamed on Israel’s
handling of the “Palestinian
problem.”
Despite the media’s antago-
nistic treatment of Israel, polls
showed that most Americans
weren’t swayed: a sizable ma-
jority 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.
The reaction of the American
media to Begin’s ascension was
one of disbelief, followed by
unremitting hostility. The me-
dia in Western Europe were, if
anything, even more critical than
their American counterparts.
While the world media were
preoccupied with. Begin, one of
Israel’s antagonists was busy
assembling a nuclear bomb
factory. Iraq’s first involvement
with nuclear technology goes
back to 1959, when the Soviet
Union, looking to expand its
influence in the region, agreed
to provide Baghdad a reactor,
enriched uranium and the nec-
essary scientists and engineers.
After numerous delays — the
Iraqis accused the Soviets of
dragging their feet — the Rus-
sian reactor went operational
in 1968. And while the Soviets
upgraded the reactor’s output
in 1971 from two to five mega-
watts, they refused to supply
any material that could be used
to manufacture nuclear bombs.
By the early 1970s, Iraq was
under the control of a veteran of
political intrigue named Saddam
Hussein.
Described by those who knew
him as “power-hungry to the
point of insanity,” Hussein de-
stroyed all political opposition,
raising the tactics of torture to
an art form. His professed goal
was to take up the mantle of
the late Egyptian dictator Gamal
Abdel Nasser as “leader of the
Arab world.”
Possession of nuclear weap-
ons was central to Hussein’s
dream, but since the Soviets had,
“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 happy 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 ambitions, and when
Menachem Begin took office in
the spring of’77, he stepped up
behind-the-scenes diplomatic
efforts to prevent the Iraqis from
^ecoming a nuclear threat.
As Israel’s diplomacy foun-
dered, pressures of a different
sort were brought to bear against
Iraq’s nuclear program. In April
Begin received the message he
was waiting for: the operation
was a total success and the
Israeli planes were on their way
home.
In Israel, news of the raid
created an atmosphere of cele-
bration not unlike the euphoria
felt after the 1976 hostage res-
cue at Uganda’s Entebbe air-
port. As expected, the Labor
opposition was highly critical,
but that criticism was toned
down somewhat as Prime Min-
ister Shimon Peres and his col-
leagues recognized how out-of-
step they were with the typical
Israeli voter.
The United States reacted
much the way Begin thought it
would. The Reagan administra-
tion voted to condemn Israel in
the United Nations, and four
F-16s scheduled for shipment
1979, just days before the French
were scheduled to ship the nearly
completed reactor to Iraq, sabo-
teurs infiltrated a warehouse
near the port of Toulon and
attempted to blow up the reac-
tor’s core. The damage, however,
was relatively minimal.
Fourteen months later, the
head of Iraq’s nuclear program
was killed in his Paris hotel
room. Israeli agents were widely
believed to be responsible for
both acts.
The sabotage and assassina-
tion notwithstanding, work
continued as planned on the
Osirak reactor. By the autumn
of 1980, Begin saw no alterna-
tive to direct Israeli military
action. The only question remain-
ing was when the raid would
take place.
In the early afternoon hours
of Sunday, June 7 — the eve of
Shavuot — Israeli pilots went
through one last rehearsal, and
just after 4 p.m., the planes took
off from an air base in the south
of Israel. The flying armada
consisted of eight F-16s, each
carrying two 2,000-pound bombs,
and six F-15s forming a protec-
tive umbrella.
Begin survived the firestorm
of criticism from the world and
his Labor opposition and won
re-election. His defense of his
action was blunt and emotional.
‘The Iraqis were preparing
atomic bombs to drop on the
children of Israel,”
he told rep- ^
resentatives of the world media
several days after the attack.
Back in 1981, the Soviet Union
characterized the destruction of
the Iraqi reactor as “an act of
gangsterism”; nine years later,
the Soviet chief of staff called
Israel’s action understandable.
And not a few commentators
have made the point that if not
for Israel, American troops in
Saudi Arabia would now be fac-
ing Hussein’s nuclear missiles.
Unfortunately, any recount of
Israel’s attack on Iraq’s nuclear
reactor cannot end on an alto-
gether happy note, for Israel or
Begin. Israel remained isolated
from the community of nations
throughout the 1980s, a state of
affairs dramatically evidenced
by recent events in Jerusalem.
As for Begin, he left office in
1983 a broken man, haunted by
the death of his wife and the
high number of casualt>es suf-
fered by Israel in the 1982 inva-
sion of Lebanon.
Nevertheless, the stoiy of
Israel’s destruction of Hussein’s
nuclear reactor is, more than
anything else, the stoiy of Be-
gin’s moral and political cour-
age. For history shall forever
show that when the choice came
down to saving Jewish lives or
escaping worldwide condemna-
tion, Menachem Begin rained
fire from the skies of Baghdad
— without apology.
Jason Moaz is a reporter for
Good Fortune magazine, where
this article first appeared.
6 Burl Auspilz
6 Isaac Goldstein
6 Lynn Minsky
6 Vicki Michelle
6 Louis Robinson
6 Karen Nathan
6 June Solomon
6 Esther Riseman
6 Carol Gilbert
6 Jerry Ray Roth
6 Bill Robbins
6 W.W. Barr, Jr.
6 Jody Chapman
6 Gene Stern
6 Yael Kahalnick
6 Steve Kutler
7 Aaron Shnider
7 Donny Dubin
7 Dr. Nathan Liplon
7 Flora Brothman
7 Mark F. Solomon
7 Beverly Laves
7 Carol Alexhowitz
7 Jan Lieberman
7 Barry Raskin
7 Martin Gillin
7 Mark Becker
7 Mrs. Archie R. Miller
7 Mrs. D.P. Rockmaker
7 Michael Klein
7 James Skor
7 Mrs. Frayne Bovis
7 Rosalyn Gardsbane
7 Anita Posen
7 Barbara Weintraub
7 Mara Weisman
8 Michael J. Brothman
8 Ronald J. Wunlch
8 Jell Borovay
8 Irving Wallerstein
8 Mrs. Henry Weiss
8 Mrs. Max Schur
8 Edward Joseph
8 Harold Schackman
8 Assal Rutenberg
8 Debbie Miller
8 Hillary Robbins
8 Seth Liebman
V Barry Woll'son
9 Laurie Margulies
9 Scott Aaron
9 Dr. Jack Blum
9 Ben Miller
9 Barbara Genecov
9 Jane Todres
9 Corey Todres
9 Edwin Staub
9 Mrs. Albert Hirsch
9 Hazel Hoffman
9 Richard Benjamin
9 Mrs. Reuben Friedman
9 David Bruce Sturman
9 Julie Dubin
9 Jennifer Davidson
9 Igor Korchurovskaya
9 Andrea Weinstein
9 Bradley Kentor
9 Ryan Pelsinger
9 Andrew Schachter
0 Matthew Bank
0 Rose Saginaw
0 Lisa Halperin
0 Joel Hadley
1 Beatrice Rosenzweig
1 Steven Loviu
1 Elizabeth Mayoff
1 Aaron Englander
0 Helen C. Eisenkraft
0 Glenn M. Cole
0 Marilyn Kee
0 Karen Weintraub
0 Mrs. Irving Schwartz.
0 Helen Alexander
0 Mickey Feldman
0 Irving Ginsberg, Waco
0 Robert Corbin
0 Lil Fishkind
0 Susan Stahl
0 Michele Engle
0 Robert Frank
0 Sharon Saltzman
Melissa Fetter
Yvonne Furman
Dr. Phillip Rosen
Nicole Lipton
Steven Levitt
Nancy Blend
Terrs Eberstein
Marilyn Fastow
Mrs. Richard Manger
Terri Green
Jeffrey Newman
Donna Rosenberg
Terry Murov
Larry Steinberg
Sheila Carol Merlin
Alan Londan
see BIRTHDAYS page 8
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Wisch, J. A. & Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 45, No. 1, Ed. 1 Thursday, January 3, 1991, newspaper, January 3, 1991; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth834816/m1/6/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; .