The Patriot Post® · Outing Israel's Nuke Program

No doubt by command of a president with the impulses of a passive-aggressive teenager, the Obama administration recently declassified a formerly top-secret Department of Defense document illuminating the details of Israel’s nuclear program.

The betrayal occurred early last month, when the release of the 1987 report, “Critical Technological Assessment in Israel and NATO Nations,” breached a longstanding mutual silence aimed at preventing a Middle East arms race. Released just prior to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s March 3 address to Congress, the 386-page report reveals critical details regarding how Israel advanced its military technology and its development of a nuclear infrastructure during the 1970s and 1980s.

The document reveals that the Jewish State’s nuclear infrastructure is “an almost exact parallel of the capability currently existing at [U.S.] National Laboratories,” and that Israeli research efforts “are equivalent to our Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and Oak Ridge National Laboratories.” It further revealed that, in some cases, Israel’s military prowess “is more advanced than in the U.S.”

Israeli news site Arutz Sheva, highlighting this story with an intensity that stands in stark contrast to an American mainstream media that ignored it, says Israel was singled out: “[W]hile the Pentagon saw fit to declassify sections on Israel’s sensitive nuclear program, it kept sections on Italy, France, West Germany and other NATO countries classified, with those sections blocked out in the document.”

The document release was an ostensible effort by the Obama administration to comply with a three-year-old Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by anti-Israel activist Grant F. Smith. His group, Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, in conjunction with anti-Israel groups If Americans Knew and the Council for the National Interest (CNI), holds an annual Israel-bashing conference in Washington, DC. During last year’s conference, San Francisco radio host Jeffrey Blankfort referred to our nation’s capital as “Israeli-occupied territory” and spoke of “AIPAC’s [The American Israel Public Affairs Committee] occupation of Congress.” Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) opined that “the pro-Israel lobby usually has a whole lot of money and those of us who act of conscious generally don’t. … [T]hey can buy and intimidate people.” And CNI Executive Director Philip Giraldi offered up an Israeli-based truther narrative with regard to 9/11: “The existence of a large scale Israeli spying effort at the time of 9/11 has been widely reported incorporating Israeli companies. … Five Israelis from one of the companies were observed celebrating against the backdrop of the Twin Towers going down.”

It’s useful to point out the same administration eager to get this information in the public domain is the one that has routinely stonewalled FOIA requests. The administration recently announced it would simply ditch regulations subjecting substantial portions of White House correspondence to FOIA requests, reversing a 30-year-old policy. And in a testament to the administration’s Orwellian instincts, the reversal was announced during “Sunshine Week,” the annual celebration of the Freedom of Information Act.

Yet when it comes to undermining Israel, the Most Transparent Administration in History™ is apparently up to the task.

A senior Israeli official who wished to remain anonymous offered the Times of Israel his take on Obama and company. “The White House is driven by three main motives,” he contended. “The first is revenge [for Netanyahu’s congressional speech]. The second is frustration: It’s no secret that they were involved in an attempt to bring down the Netanyahu government – something that we have clear knowledge of – and failed. The third [motive] is the administration’s attempt to divert attention from the negotiations with Iran to the Palestinian issue.”

The Times report also details Israel’s foray into hydrogen bomb-making – as in “developing the kind of codes … which detail fission and fusion processes on a microscopic and macroscopic level.”

Jewish Daily Forward blogger Michael Karpin puts that revelation in perspective, explaining, “It should be emphasized that in the history of the relations between the two countries there is no other published official American document that mentions in any way the Israelis’ development of hydrogen bombs.”

That’s because no other administration in American history has harbored as much animosity for Israel as this one. The New York Post’s Michael Goodwin exposes Obama’s despicable level of petulance, saying he is “paving the way for an Iranian nuke” and “hinting he’ll also let the other anti-Semites at Turtle Bay have their way.” Goodwin also notes why this is occurring: “Whatever form the punishment takes, it will aim to teach Bibi Netanyahu never again to upstage [Obama]. And to teach Israeli voters never again to elect somebody Obama doesn’t like.”

And if such petulance engenders a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, much as Saudi Arabia has already indicated?

So be it.

Furthermore, Americans should be clear that, despite protestations to the contrary, Obama’s contempt for Israel resonates within his party. It was Democrat delegates attending their 2012 National Convention who heartily booed the idea that Jerusalem should be the capital of the Jewish State. And it was Obama’s Chief of Staff Denis McDonough who told an adoring crowd of J Street leftists that Israel must end its occupation of the West Bank.

No doubt many in the White House are thrilled with the “outing” of Israel’s nuke program – courtesy of the same administration that will bend over backwards to keep any details of Iran’s efforts from being publicized, even after they reach a “historic” agreement. For those who believe such pie-in-the-sky diplomacy will be successful, it is worth remembering the equally “historic” Agreed Framework of 1994 that was trumpeted as a success in preventing North Korea from obtaining nukes.

Unfortunately, with the current gaggle of clueless Obama administration officials in charge, history gets to repeat itself – and Israel becomes target Numero Uno for an Islamofascist Iranian regime. For those aligned with Obama and his thoroughly twisted worldview, that’s known as a “twofer.”