By ISABEL KERSHNER
Published: May 24, 2010
* Sign in to Recommend
* Twitter
* Sign In to E-Mail
* Print
*
Reprints
* ShareClose
o Linkedin
o Digg
o Facebook
o Mixx
o MySpace
o Yahoo! Buzz
o Permalink
o
JERUSALEM — The office of Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, strongly denied Monday that Mr. Peres, as Israel’s defense minister, offered to sell nuclear warheads to South Africa in 1975, as reported by The Guardian.
Dan Meridor, Israel’s deputy prime minister and minister of intelligence and atomic energy, told reporters on Monday that he had no particular knowledge of what went on in the 1970s, as he was “not in business” then, but that he believed Mr. Peres.
Yossi Beilin, a former leftist minister, also dismissed the newspaper article and the book on which it was based, “The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship With Apartheid South Africa,” by Sasha Polakow-Suransky.
“The article does not concretely say that Israel wanted to sell nuclear warheads. It is a conclusion,” Mr. Beilin told Israel Radio. “The book itself does not say this explicitly, and I think that the president’s denial puts an end to the subject.”
Israel has a longstanding policy of nuclear ambiguity, neither confirming nor denying that it has nuclear weapons, though it is widely believed to have developed a large arsenal.
The president’s denial was unequivocal, stating that “there exists no basis in reality for the claims” that “Israel negotiated with South Africa the exchange of nuclear weapons.” The Guardian article, the president’s office added, was “based on the selective interpretation of South African documents and not on concrete facts.”
The Guardian said its reporting was based on the “top secret” minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975. The documents, it said, were uncovered by Mr. Polakow-Suransky in research for the book, and showed that South Africa’s defense minister, P. W. Botha, had asked for nuclear-capable Jericho missiles with the “correct payload,” Mr. Polakow-Suransky said in an interview with Al Jazeera, and that Mr. Peres had responded by offering them “in three sizes.”
The “three sizes,” The Guardian stated, “are believed to refer to the conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons.” That, however, was not detailed in any of the documents shown, though Mr. Polakow-Suransky said the documents made clear that the South Africans had interest in Jericho missiles, “only if they carried a nuclear warhead.”
“Sure, there was some kind of cooperation, and there was talk about weapons,” said Ephraim Asculai, who worked at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission for over 40 years, and who retired in 2001. But to conclude that the “three sizes” necessarily referred to weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear warheads, was a long stretch, he said.
In an interview with the South African Press Association, Pik Botha, who served as South Africa’s foreign minister in the waning years of apartheid, also questioned the article’s claims. “I doubt it very much,” said Mr. Botha, who is not related to P. W. Botha. “I doubt whether such an offer was ever made. I think I would have known about it.”
Mr. Peres, an elder statesman, was responsible for establishing Israel’s nuclear program with help from France in the 1950s.
Israelis acknowledge that there was cooperation with South Africa — what Mr. Beilin, the former minister, called “an unholy alliance that Israel, in its isolation, forged with the apartheid regime.”
Shlomo Brom, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said it was well known that there had been cooperation between Israel and South Africa on ballistic missiles. “They paid, we developed them, then they bought,” said Mr. Brom, who served as defense attaché at Israel’s embassy in South Africa from 1988 to 1990. Mr. Brom said that Israel had also “probably” received uranium from South Africa.
But he said he had a hard time believing that Mr. Peres was trying to sell nuclear warheads to the South Africans in 1975.
Celia W. Dugger contributed reporting from Johannesburg.
A version of this article appeared in print on May 25, 2010, on page A12 of the New York edition.
* Sign In to E-Mail
* Print
* Reprints
Times Reader 2.0: Daily delivery of The Times - straight to your computer. Subscribe for just $4.62 a week.
Ads by Google what's this?
Cape Town Accommodation
Luxury Self Catering Apartments in Cape Town V&A Waterfront.
www.marinawaterfront.com
Palacio Domain SafedHotel
Elegant European Boutique Hotel For the World class Travelers
www.palaciodomain.com
Golfing Hotel South Africa
Luxury Golf Hotel, PGA Championship Golf Course. Book Your Stay Now.
ElementsGolfLodge.co.za/SAfrica
Related Searches
* Israel Get E-Mail Alerts
* Peres, Shimon Get E-Mail Alerts
* Nuclear Weapons Get E-Mail Alerts
* South Africa Get E-Mail Alerts
Advertise on NYTimes.com
MOST POPULAR
* E-Mailed
* Blogged
* Searched
* Viewed
1. Op-Ed Contributor: Many Faiths, One Truth
2. Labels Urged for Food That Can Choke
3. In the Garden: Growing Vegetables Upside Down
4. Migrating Thousands of Miles With Nary a Stop
5. Really?: Throat Exercises Can Relieve Sleep Apnea
6. Op-Ed Columnist : Two Theories of Change
7. Paul Krugman: The Old Enemies
8. Television: No Longer ‘Lost,’ but Still Searching
9. The Afterlife of Stieg Larsson
10. Remarkable Creatures: Tracking the Ancestry of Corn Back 9,000 Years
Go to Complete List »
1. Despite Obama's Moratorium, Drilling Projects Move Ahead
2. U.S. Is Said to Order Further Clandestine Military Action
3. The Principles of Rand Paul
4. BP Delays New Attempt to Stop Oil Leak
5. Inspector General Faults Minerals Management Service
6. The Old Enemies
7. U.S. Backs South Korea in Cutting Trade With the North
8. Deal Reached for Ending Law on Gays in Military
9. Officials Back to Gulf as Frustration on Spill Spreads
10. U.S. Crime Rates Fell in '09 Despite Sour Economy
Go to Complete List »
1. oil spill
2. lost
3. korea
4. modern love
5. may 2, 2010
6. china
7. education
8. immigration
9. facebook
10. obama
Go to Complete List »
1. U.S. Is Said to Expand Secret Actions in Mideast
2. Oil Hits Home, Spreading Arc of Frustration
3. Risk-Averse Investors Send Stocks Sliding on Debt Fears
4. Op-Ed Columnist : Two Theories of Change
5. Climate Fears Turn to Doubts Among Britons
6. North Korea Cuts All Ties With South as Tensions Rise
7. When Passengers Spit, Bus Drivers Take Months Off
8. Op-Ed Contributor: Many Faiths, One Truth
9. A B-Minus? The Shock! The Horror!
10. Roger Cohen: Toilets and Cellphones
Girls on the gridiron
Also in Video »
* A look inside The Times's newsroom
* Photo shoot with Tommy Hilfiger
nytimes.comVideo
Advertisements
Find your dream home with
The New York Times Real Estate
Follow The New York Times on Twitter
The new issue of T is here
See the news in the making. Watch TimesCast, a daily news video.
Ads by Google what's this?
Hotels in Israel
From budget hotels to 5* hotels Book online- enjoy our low prices !
Come2israel.com/Israel
Crucifixion of Jesus
Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? Discover the Facts From Scholars
www.y-Jesus.com/Crucifixion
Tourism Israel
Tourism in Israel In the Center of the Galilee
VillaProvence.co.il
