Report: Israel fitting nuclear missiles on German-built subs

In this May 5, 2008 file picture a Dolphin-class Israeli submarine and missile ships sail down the coast during a military demonstration in Tel Aviv. Dolphin-class submarines are capable of carrying nuclear-tipped missiles.

/ AP Photo/TARA TODRAS-WHITEHILL

(CBS News) Israel is arming submarines ordered from a German shipbuilder with nuclear weapons, the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported Monday.

According to the magazine's Spiegel's investigative report, submarines built by the shipyard HDW in the northern German city of Kiel are being outfitted by Israel with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.

Three submarines have been delivered to Israel, with three more under contract for delivery by 2017, and the purchase of more being considered.

Despite official government statements in the past disavowing knowledge of Israel's deployment of nuclear weapons on the submarines, former high-ranking officials from Germany's Defense Ministry have told the magazine that they had always assumed Israel would outfit the submarines with nuclear defense capabilities.

Israel Deploys Nuclear Weapons on German-Built Submarines (Der Spiegel: English)

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Der Spiegel that Germans should be "proud" that through these defense measures they have helped ensure the preservation of the state of Israel "for many years."

Israeli does not comment officially on its nuclear military program.

The German government had helped underwrite the sale of the first three submarines delivered - subsidizing half the cost of one and the entire cost of two others.

Berlin is financing one-third of the cost of the sixth submarine, or about 135 million euros ($168 million). Chancellor Angela Merkel has placed conditions on delivery, however, including that Tel Aviv allow the completion of a Gaza Strip sewage treatment plant (partly financed with German funds) and end the expansion of settlements. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has met none of the terms.

Steffen Seibert, a spokesperson for Merkel, told Der Spiegel that all submarines had been delivered unarmed, and that the government "will not speculate on subsequent arming."

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told Agence France-Presse, "I can confirm that we have German submarines. It's no secret. As for the rest, I am not in a position to talk about their capacity."

[pedmel]

Isn't it ironic that the Nazis of the 21st Century are buying and upgrading weapons from the Nazis of the 20th Century? Israel WILL get this country and this world into the next world war.

[JonRyberg]

Israel will once more say they cannot comment on nuclear weapons eventhough the world agrees that their arsenal is somewhere between 200 and 400 warheads. Germany has already claimed that though they make sure the submarines can deliver nuclear armed weapons, they have no guilt in any subsequent nuclear attacks because they did not give them the nuclear weapons (Pontius Pilate Moment). The US will claim that Israel has the right to self defense, which of course says nothing (another PPM). The EU will say that the Middle East should be a nuclear free zone to insure peace, but do nothing to actually force Israel to sign the NPT or allow inspections of its nuclear program (a virtual PPM). Israel will attack Iran because they feel they have the right to attack and weaken every other country in the Middle East. They manufactured some of the evidence that carried us into the last Gulf War and now are doing it again. It is sad that we have allowed ourselves to become such dupes.

[DovBenMen]

What evidence did Israel "manufacture" "that carried us into the last Gulf War"?

[DovBenMen]

Peter Collier, author of a new biography of Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ronald Reagan's Ambassador to the United Nations (the first female to hold that post), writes:

'Seeing the hatred of Israel in her first days at the UN, she told her colleague Richard Schifter with a stricken look on her face, "I think the Holocaust is possible again. I didn't think so before I came to the UN, but I think so now."

She brought this feeling to president Reagan who agreed with her that the US had to stand against "the obsessive vilification of Israel." Along with preventing the spread of Marxism-Leninism in Central America and driving a stake through the heart of the Soviet Union, this became Kirkpatrick's chief objective during her time at the UN.

Charging that diplomacy regarding the "Arab-Israeli conflict" at the world body "has nothing to do with peace, but is quite simply a continuation of war against Israel by other means," she said that the UN, as a result, had become a place where "moral outrage was distributed like violence in a protection racket." '

[JonRyberg]

Vetoing every resolution that even criticizes Israel has helped things? Israel has continued to refuse to stop the settlement building or actually carry out peace agreements once made. Yitzakh Rabin was ready to but a settler extremist assasinated him. Now thse same settler extremists control the government and after 40 years of no peace and the Israeli government blaming the Palestinians for every lapse, the Israeli people no longer believe in the peace process. We have set the stage for Israel to keep and ethnically cleanse the West Bank and will do nothing about it because of peoplelike you and Jeane Kirkpatrick. I hope you like the fascist regime you built and the consequences of your actions.

[DovBenMen]

Jon: Israel does not have White Supremacist organizations, like exist in the United States and attract readership, apparently including you (http://whitereference.blogspot.com/2011/09/israel-law-center-launches-witch-hunt.html). Except that Jews do not see themselves as a race, only some non-Jews (and members of the United Nations) do. Jewish bloodlines include White Russians, from Rostov, no less.

[slownewsday3]

Israel takes our money with one hand, and flips us the bird with the other.

Cut off this evil welfare state. They deserve no support from us.

[prolifezzz7]

Shalom... all IS well... for now. The United states backing Isreal seems like a good idea, considering we're still spending billions on peace and the fight centralized there.
CHRIST be hailed, bow now or then.

[JonRyberg]

Silly Neocon. They do not believe in Christ as anything but another rabbi and burn the copies of the New Testament you send them. All they want is your money and UN vote.

[DovBenMen]

To: slownewsday3 and fedup12
The Germans are paying to finance the Dolphins, etc., not the USA. Since you complain elsewhere about the control Israel's friend exert of US politicians, do you think the same nefarious thoughts about German politicians?

Besides, if you cut off all USA funding for Israel, who will built the really hard parts of your next Stuxnet-like weapon? Heck, if the USA is as all-mighty as you seem to think, why to they keep on relying on Israeli engineers for the really advanced stuff? Wonder what those engineers would work on if the USA wasn't such a good customer.

[slownewsday3]

do you think the same nefarious thoughts about German politicians?

----

Nope. Germany isn't doing its best to make America hated the world over, as Israel is.

[JonRyberg]

Israel controls Germany by Holocaust guilt and has since the end of WWII.

[slownewsday3]

by DovBenMen

.... no less an organization such as the United Nations what has been so openly hostile over so many years.

----

Hostile? Over human-rights violations like Israel's? That's not hostility - that's facing facts.

[fedup12]

I wonder if Israel will ever let the UN inspect its illegal nuclear facilities.

Or NUKULUAR.

[DovBenMen]

If she has any, neither are they illegal nor is she compelled to allow anyone access, no less an organization such as the United Nations what has been so openly hostile over so many years. The USA doesn't allow Russia to inspect its nuclear facilities and she is far more obligated than Israel is or might be.

[slownewsday3]

fedup - it really IS amazing that the criminal government of Israel won't let in the IAEA inspectors.

What are they hiding???