"Chad Irby" wrote in message
om...
In article ,
"Kevin Brooks" wrote:

"Chad Irby" wrote in message
m...

Funny - I don't ever remember even hearing of a *rumor* that Israel
has
chemical weapons.

You are joking, right? They are a signatory of the Chemical Warfare
Convention, but they have never ratified it; they have refused to even
sign
the 1972 Bio Weapons Convention. Senior US military personnel testified
before Congress as early as 1974, claiming that the Israelis possessed
an
offensive chemical capability. They have been very tight lipped about
their
CBW programs, but they have also been tight lipped about their nuclear
capability as well. See:

www.bsos.umd.edu/pgsd/people/ staffpubs/Avner-CBWart.pdf

Okay, there's the rumor, but this is a pretty important quote *from*
that paper:

"For this reason, Israel¹s motivations in the CBW fields, defensive or
offensive, cannot be inferred merely from the existence of research
activities involving potential CBW agents. To do so would be an
unjustified leap. If additional relevant information is available
regarding weaponization or large-scale agent production, however, it
could alter the significance of the basic research."

Thy're surrounded by folks who have been spending huge amounts of money
on way to kill Israelis. They'd be stupid to not work on defensive tech.

Their early work on trying to replicate VX would point to other goals, as
would their being so tight-lipped about that 747's cargo that went down in
Amsterdam. And why would they have been so careful to classify the *trial*
of that research scientist who was found to be a Soviet agent? Because of
*defensive* development work? That stretches the imagination--the testimony
of the US military personnel just adds to the case.

Brooks


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