Report: Anti-Arab Bio Weapon?

(AP)  A senior aide to Israel's prime minister is rejecting a report that Israel is trying to create a biological weapon that would harm Arabs, but not Jews.

He says such stories only prove there is no limit to human gullibility -- or to the desire to sell newspapers.

Britain's Sunday Times carried the report, which said Israeli scientists are trying to identify genes carried only by Arabs. That's so the scientists can create a genetically modified bacterium or virus that would only attack people with those genes. The Times cited unidentified Israeli military and Western intelligence sources.

It says the idea of such research has provoked controversy in Israel because of parallels with genetic experiments performed by the Nazis during World War Two.



Copyright 1998 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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