Israel is Developing 'Ethnic Bomb' for Growing Biological Weapons Arsenal

Mark Weber

Israel is working on an "ethnically targeted" biological weapon that would kill or harm Arabs but not Jews, according to Israeli military and western intelligence sources cited in a front-page report in the London Sunday Times, November 15, 1998 ("Israel Planning 'Ethnic' Bomb as Saddam Caves In," by Uzi Mahnaimi and Marie Colvin).

In developing this "ethno-bomb," the British paper went on, Israeli scientists are trying to exploit medical advances by identifying distinctive genes carried by some Arabs, and then create a genetically modified bacterium or virus. The goal is to use the ability of viruses and certain bacteria to alter the DNA inside the host's living cells. The scientists are trying to engineer deadly microorganisms that attack only those bearing the distinctive genes.

The secret Israel program is based at the Institute for Biological Research in Nes Tsiona, a small town southeast of Tel Aviv, the main research facility for Israel's clandestine arsenal of chemical and biological weapons.

A scientist there said the task is very complicated because both Arabs and Jews are of Semitic origin. But he added: "They have, however, succeeded in pinpointing a particular characteristic in the genetic profile of certain Arab communities, particularly the Iraqi people." Diseases could be spread by spraying organisms into the air or putting them in water supplies.

Some experts have commented that while an ethnically targeted weapon is theoretically feasible, the practical aspects of creating one are enormous. All the same, a confidential Pentagon report warned last year that biological agents could be genetically engineered to produce new lethal weapons.

US Defense Secretary William Cohen revealed that he had received reports of countries working to create "certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic-specific." A senior western intelligence source confirmed that Israel is one of the countries Cohen had in mind, the Sunday Times report added.

Reliable Record

The Sunday Times report is all the more credible given the prestigious paper's past record of reliable reporting. In a detailed front-page report published on June 19, 1977, the Sunday Times first revealed to the world that Israeli authorities had been torturing Palestinian prisoners, that this torture was "widespread and systematic," and that it "appears to be sanctioned at some level as deliberate policy." At the time Israeli officials and Jewish-Zionist leaders in the United States protested the Sunday Times revelations, and denied the charge. Later, though, Israeli torture of prisoners was independently verified by Amnesty International, and others.

Another recent Sunday Times article revealed that Israeli jets have been equipped to carry chemical and biological weapons. "There is hardly a single known or unknown form of chemical or biological weapons ... which is not manufactured at the [Nes Tsiona] Institute," a biologist who is a former Israeli intelligence official told the newspaper. And the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot, citing a foreign report, has told readers that hundreds of bottles of deadly anthrax toxin are stored at the Institute.

The "ethnic bomb" claims have been given further credence in Foreign Report, an authoritative Jane's publication that closely monitors security and military matters. It cites unnamed South African sources as saying that Israeli scientists, in trying to develop an "ethnic bullet" against Arabs, have made use of similar biological studies conducted by South African scientists during the Apartheid era (and later revealed in testimony before that country's "Truth and Reconciliation Commission"). Foreign Report also says that Israelis have gained insights into the Arab genetic make-up by conducting research on "Jews of Arab origin, especially Iraqis."

The British Medical Association has become so concerned about the lethal potential of genetically-based biological weapons that it has opened an investigation. Dr. Vivienne Nathanson, who organized the research, said: "With an ethnically targeted weapon, you could even hit groups within a population. The history of warfare, in which many conflicts have an ethnic factor, shows how dangerous this could be."

A spokesman for Britain's biological defense establishment confirms that such weapons are theoretically possible. "We have reached a point now where there is an obvious need for an international convention to control biological weapons," he said.

The Anti-Defamation League lost no time denouncing the Sunday Times "ethnic bomb" report. Abraham Foxman, national director of the influential Jewish-Zionist organization, called it "irresponsible and dangerous." The ADL official went on: "This sensational story is reminiscent of the age-old anti-Semitic blood libel myth of Jews deviously targeting non-Jews with poison." Question: How does Foxman know that this report is not true? Do high-level Israeli officials routinely inform the ADL of the Zionist government's top-secret military programs?

A senior Israeli government official similarly rejected the Sunday Times report, saying "this is the kind of story that does not deserve denial." Such Israeli declarations are virtually worthless, however, considering that the Zionist state refuses officially to acknowledge that it has nuclear weapons, a fact that even authoritative American sources have confirmed.

'Human Guinea Pigs'

Victor Ostrovsky, a former case officer of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, recalled in his book The Other Side of Deception how he first learned of the Zionist state's secret weapons center:

It was Uri who enlightened me regarding the Nes Zionna [Tsiona] facility. It was, he said, an ABC warfare laboratory -- ABC standing for atomic, biological and chemical. It was where our top epidemiological scientists were developing various doomsday machines. Because we were so vulnerable and would not have a second chance should there be an all-out war in which this type of weapon would be needed, there was no room for error. The [captured] Palestinian infiltrators came in handy in this regard. As human guinea pigs, they could make sure the weapons the scientists were developing worked properly and could verify how fast they worked and make them even more efficient.

As most of the world recognizes, United States policy toward countries that develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons is sanctimonious and brazenly hypocritical.

Recently, for example, the US government sharply condemned India and Pakistan for testing nuclear weapons. Of course, the only country ever to have actually used nuclear weapons is the United States. In August 1945, American forces instantly killed tens of thousands of Japanese civilians with atomic bombs, first in Hiroshima and then in Nagasaki -- even though America's most competent military leaders held that there was no military need to use the horrific weapon. (See: "Was Hiroshima Necessary," in the May-June 1997 Journal, pp. 4-12).

To prevent the government of Iraq from developing "weapons of mass destruction" (to use the currently fashionable phrase), the United States regularly bombs the hapless Arab country, and enforces an economic embargo that (according to authoritative estimates) has already claimed the lives of more than 200,000 Iraqi children.

For decades, though, America's political and intellectual leaders -- reflecting their obsequious subservience to Jewish-Zionist interests -- condone Israel's growing arsenal of sophisticated nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

From The Journal of Historical Review, Nov. - Dec. 1998 (Vol. 17, No. 6), pages 24-25.