Buzzlife Message Board - Middle East's coming Chernobyl

Before you think I am about to write is far-fetched, remember that we, as a planet, release the same amount of radioactivity into the atmosphere as Chernobyl, every 5.5 years. The IAEA, whose charter was originally created to safe-guard nuclear facilities throughout the planet has been reduced to being a political watchdog, rather than an environmental protector and facilitator. Of course, Israel is not obligated by any international safe guard measures at all since it never signed the NPT and does not allow inspections of its nuclear bases.

Below, you will find information that describe Israel's Dimona nuclear facility, where Israel stores ~250 Hydrogen and Nuclear warheads. The reactor is more than 40 years old and has been leaking radioactive materials into the environment for years. Dimona is Israel's third largest city and is near many other Middle Eastern and European countries. Israel's own government has been providing anti-radiation tablets to persons living in the city in order to try and protect them against the increasing radiation.

Many researchers at the nuclear facility have died of cancer because safe guards are not in place and international inspections have never been performed. In addition to the physical weaknesses of the Dimona nuclear facility, it is not clear whether nuclear waste from the facility has been disposed of according to international protocols.

The obvious solution is to shut down the reactor and sign on to UN nuclear safe guards as other countries Middle Eastern countries have. It is important that the international community act immediately to safe-guard Israel's nuclear facilities and prevent this catastrophe.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimona#...uclear_Reactor

An Israeli nuclear installation is located about ten kilometers to the south of Dimona, the Negev Nuclear Research Center. Its construction commenced in 1958, with French assistance. The official reason given by the Israeli and French governments was to build a nuclear reactor to power a "desalination plant", in order to "green the Negev". The purpose of Dimona is widely assumed to be the manufacturing of nuclear weapons, and the majority of defence experts have concluded that it does in fact do that. However, the Israeli government refuses to confirm or deny this publicly, a policy it refers to as "ambiguity".

The Dimona reactor went on-line some time between 1962 and 1964, and with the plutonium produced there, perhaps together with some enriched uranium acquired through mysterious means (see Plumbat Operation), the Israel Defence Forces most probably had their first nuclear weapons ready before the Six-Day War. Although the Israeli government has always claimed it has been used for peaceful purposes, the United States overflew the site with U-2 aircraft to sample the air for radioactive by-products.

When the United States intelligence community discovered the purpose of Dimona in the early 1960s, it demanded that Israel agree to international inspections. Israel agreed, but on a condition that US, rather than IAEA, inspectors were used, and that Israel would receive advance notice of all inspections.

Some claim that because Israel knew the schedule of the inspectors' visits, it was able to hide the alleged purpose of the site (manufacturing of nuclear weapons) from the inspectors, by installing temporary false walls and other devices before each inspection. The inspectors eventually informed the U.S. government that their inspections were useless, due to Israeli restrictions on what areas of the facility they could inspect. In 1969, the United States terminated the inspections.

In 1986, Mordechai Vanunu, a former technican at Dimona, revealed to the media some evidence of Israel's nuclear program. Israeli agents kidnapped him from Italy, drugged him and transported him to Israel, and an Israeli court then tried him in secret on charges of treason and espionage, and sentenced him to eighteen years imprisonment. At the time of Vanunu's arrest, The Times reported that Israel had material for approximately 20 hydrogen bombs and 200 fission bombs. Israel acquired submarine-launched nuclear missiles by late 2003.

In the Spring of 2004, Vanunu was released from prison, but denied a passport. He was re-arrested in November 2004 and released within days.

Dimona's reactor was defended by batteries of Patriot missiles in anticipation of strikes from Iraq in 2002–3.

Recently safety concerns about this 40-year-old reactor have been reported, and in 2004 as a preventive measure Israeli authorities distributed iodine anti-radiation tablets to thousands of residents living nearby. [1]

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Tehran: 23:58 , 2005/02/27

Tehran Times Opinion Column, Feb. 28, By Hassan Hanizadeh
Dimona, potential eco-catastrophe
TEHRAN, Feb. 27 (MNA) -- Experts have warned that dangerous radioactive substances are leaking from the reactors of Israel’s Dimona Nuclear Power Plant in the Negev Desert and that the Middle East could be on the verge of a humanitarian and ecological catastrophe equal to or greater than the one caused by the explosion of the Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine in 1986.

According to Jane’s Intelligence Review, Dimona has exceeded its 30-year lifespan by 12 years and the nuclear power plant’s concrete walls have deep cracks due to earthquakes in the Negev Desert and the Dead Sea region.

The plant’s radioactive material is toxic for all living creatures and the radioactive particles will be suspended in the air for 30 years.

Construction operations at Dimona started in 1953, when David Ben-Gurion was the Israeli prime minister, with the help of France and the United States. The power plant came on stream in December 1963.

Israel built the nuclear power plant to produce nuclear weapons. Dimona and five other Israel plants have produced over 250 nuclear warheads so far.

Despite its insufficient safety procedures and the dangers of leaking plutonium and uranium, Dimona has produced over 1,400 tons of highly-enriched uranium over the past 40 years.

This is enough to produce over 400 nuclear bombs, which, if detonated, could set off a nuclear winter incident that would cause widespread death and destruction all over the world.

The Middle East in particular is seriously threatened by Israeli power plants’ nuclear waste.

Israel produces 32 tons of atomic waste per year, most of which is buried in the Negev Desert in the vicinity of the Egyptian border. This has caused a rise in cancer among the inhabitants of the Negev Desert and the nomadic Bedouins of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

In addition, Israel’s Channel 2 television has reported that dozens of Dimona staff members have died of cancer. Their families have filed a complaint with the Israeli Supreme Court, but the Zionist regime has declared their complaints illegal in order to avoid paying financial compensation.

Arab states presented a plan to the United Nations in 2003, calling for the International Atomic Energy Agency to supervise Dimona, but the United States has strongly opposed the plan.

Now something must be done since Dimona’s nuclear reactor is vulnerable to meltdown.

Experts have predicted that if there were a meltdown or explosion at Dimona at least three million people would be killed in occupied Palestine and other neighboring states such as Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon and about 17 million would be affected by the radioactive fallout.

Middle Eastern countries should establish a joint organization with specialized committees to inform regional nations about the dangers of a nuclear accident at Dimona and to formulate strategies to prevent such a catastrophe.

Otherwise, the world could experience another Chernobyl event in the near future, which would affect the next several generations in regional countries.

KK/MS/HG

End

MNA