Don’t Bomb Iran

Nuclear history

1949 Israeli Defence Force Science Corps begins surveying the
Negev desert seeking uranium reserves.

1952 Israeli Atomic Energy Commission is created. Its chairman,
Ernst David Bergmann, advocates an Israeli bomb to ensure “that we
shall never again be led as lambs to the slaughter”.

1953 Process for extracting the uranium found in the Negev.

1957 France agrees to provide Israel with a research reactor at
Dimona.

1958 US first becomes aware of Dimona after the facility is spotted
by U-2 spy planes.

1967 Six Day War.

1968 CIA concludes Israel has started production of nuclear
weapons.

1973 Egypt and Syria attack Israeli forces in Sinai and Golan
Heights on the Jewish fast in Yom Kippur War.

1986 Mordechai Vanunu a Dimona technician, is abducted by
Mossad agents in London and sentenced to 18 years in jail for
providing information about Dimona, including pictures, to a British
newspaper.

1999 US Department of Energy document ranks Israel sixth among
countries with nuclear weapons, ahead of India and North Korea.

2000 Knesset debates Israel™s nuclear weapons programme for first
time.

from the original article in the Scotsman newspaper November  3 2002