President Kennedy gave Israel a strong warning about its nuclear reactor in 1963

[Douglas Caddy]

President Kennedy gave Israel a strong warning about its nuclear reactor in 1963

Kennedy, who was otherwise close to Israel, was furious with its ostensible nuclear weapons program.

By RON KAMPEAS/JTA   MAY 8, 2019 03:2

 

 

President Kennedy gave Israel a strong warning about its nuclear reactor - The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)

[James DiEugenio]

As i found out through the archival work of Malcolm Blunt, Kennedy gave this warning three times.

Twice to Ben Gurion. And after the second one, Ben Gurion resigned.

Once to Eshkol, who succeeded Ben Gurion.

There is a debate as to whether or not Ben Gurion resigned due to the second letter.  But I find it interesting he resigned the day after he got it.

The other issue was over the right to return for Palestinian refugees.  Kennedy was pushing the Joseph Johnson plan of the UN, which Ben Gurion had already rejected. Kennedy pushed it for months after that.

IMO, I think he was doing this not just for the Palestinians, but also to balance the relationship with Nasser.  Who he knew favored it as a way to a Palestinian homeland. Kennedy had gotten Nasser to put the Palestinian cause in the icebox for awhile, so the two could develop relations on other issues.

The thing about Kennedy is this: he explicitly told Nasser that he did not object to his efforts to form a Pan Arab union. Which is  not just a reversal of Foster Dulles;but its what the Israelis had nightmares about.

He and Nasser shared 91 letters overall.

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

As i found out through the archival work of Malcolm Blunt, Kennedy gave this warning three times.

Twice to Ben Gurion. And after the second one, Ben Gurion resigned.

Once to Eshkol, who succeeded Ben Gurion.

There is a debate as to whether or not Ben Gurion resigned due to the second letter.  But I find it interesting he resigned the day after he got it.

The other issue was over the right to return for Palestinian refugees.  Kennedy was pushing the Joseph Johnson plan of the UN, which Ben Gurion had already rejected. Kennedy pushed it for months after that.

IMO, I think he was doing this not just for the Palestinians, but also to balance the relationship with Nasser.  Who he knew favored it as a way to a Palestinian homeland. Kennedy had gotten Nasser to put the Palestinian cause in the icebox for awhile, so the two could develop relations on other issues.

The thing about Kennedy is this: he explicitly told Nasser that he did not object to his efforts to form a Pan Arab union. Which is  not just a reversal of Foster Dulles;but its what the Israelis had nightmares about.

He and Nasser shared 91 letters overall.

 

I am sure I read somewhere that Gadaffi believed JFK had been killed for his opposition to the Dimona reactor. I wonder if there was credible shared Arab intelligence at the time which elaborated on  that or if it was just Gadaffi’s ramblings. 

[Pamela Brown]

54 minutes ago, Chris Barnard said:

I am sure I read somewhere that Gadaffi believed JFK had been killed for his opposition to the Dimona reactor. I wonder if there was credible shared Arab intelligence at the time which elaborated on  that or if it was just Gadaffi’s ramblings. 

I doubt that Gadaffi is the only one.  This was part of the thesis of Michael Collins Piper's book Final Judgment. It is a logical assumption, based on JFK's balanced approach to Israel and Palestine, and his wish to keep control of what was happening at Dimona.  

https://www.amazon.com/Final-Judgment-Missing-Assassination-Conspiracy/dp/0974548405

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Pamela Brown said:

I doubt that Gadaffi is the only one.  This was part of the thesis of Michael Collins Piper's book Final Judgment. It is a logical assumption, based on JFK's balanced approach to Israel and Palestine, and his wish to keep control of what was happening at Dimona.  

https://www.amazon.com/Final-Judgment-Missing-Assassination-Conspiracy/dp/0974548405

Thanks Pamela. Seems like its a rare book to get hold of, it’s £77 used in my country. I’ll try to get hold of a copy. 

[James DiEugenio]

See, Gadaffi was a Nasser follower. He was trying to do the same things in Libya as Nasser did in Egypt. Get away from the Moslem fundamentalism and spend more on social programs.

One thing I learned in doing the research for my article is that Nasser had just a tremendous appeal throughout the Middle East.

So much so that the Saudis feared him as much as the Israelis.  Neither state wanted a Pan Arab Union, for different reasons of course. The Saudis did not want to give up sole claim to the monarchy or oil.  Israel feared a Pan Arab union would attack their country. 

In his excellent book Devil's Game, which I would recommend to anyone, Robert Dreyfuss wrote that Nasser represented the last great hope for an overall MIddle East settlement.  After doing that research, I agree with that. 

PS I do not buy the thesis of Piper's book.  

[Guest]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

See, Gadaffi was a Nasser follower. He was trying to do the same things in Libya as Nasser did in Egypt. Get away from the Moslem fundamentalism and spend more on social programs.

One thing I learned in doing the research for my article is that Nasser had just a tremendous appeal throughout the Middle East.

So much so that the Saudis feared him as much as the Israelis.  Neither state wanted a Pan Arab Union, for different reasons of course. The Saudis did not want to give up sole claim to the monarchy or oil.  Israel feared a Pan Arab union would attack their country. 

In his excellent book Devil's Game, which I would recommend to anyone, Robert Dreyfuss wrote that Nasser represented the last great hope for an overall MIddle East settlement.  After doing that research, I agree with that. 

PS I do not buy the thesis of Piper's book.  

I am 70 pages in now, I see he has a little nip at you early on. It's too early for me to comment on the book, other than he is laying on other peoples commentary to support his own view heavily, trying to shape the readers thoughts early on. I may have a different view after the book but, I doubt my view that the JFK assassination was about mostly money, with a number of upset factions deciding he had to go for financial reasons. I read Smedley Butler's very short book last week; "War is a racket" and it was very much to the point, spelling out how corrupt things are. It's actually worth a read for anyone who wants to succinctly make the argument and back it up with financial facts about the profits from war. 

[George Govus]

Great call, Chris. Major General Smedley Butler, "the fighting Quaker," was "present at the creation" of the American Empire.

[Guest]

48 minutes ago, George Govus said:

Great call, Chris. Major General Smedley Butler, "the fighting Quaker," was "present at the creation" of the American Empire.

Cheers, George. At the time of writing he was the most decorated US Marine in history, there was nobody more credible or more of a hero for the American public to listen to. It was published two years after the "Business Plot" or "White House Putsch" and three years before WW2. The 35 page book really has stood the test of time. 

[Dennis Berube]

5 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

PS I do not buy the thesis of Piper's book. 

I highly doubt it will ever be possible to know who the first person to suggest killing JFK was and what they represented, but it seems likely that many in Israel viewed having nuclear capability as critical for survival as their later efforts appear to demonstrate. With Angleton being the liaison with Mossad (if memory serves), it would hardly be a shock if there was Israeli influence. LBJs response to the Liberty attack does nothing to quiet JFK concerns either.
Beyond that, I do not recall any solid evidence that Piper presented (read it many years ago now) which indicated it was an Israeli job top to bottom, and most of the modern evidence tends to point to Dulles and a coterie around him, imo. It kind of reminds me of Stinnets book on Pearl Harbor, motive is only 1 piece of evidence and not conclusive by itself. 
 

If I am remembering correctly, Piper makes a big deal out of figures like Sturgis, Ruby and the mob having Israeli ties and generally being more involved than they seem to have been. He also intimated that a group who financed Garrison was somehow trying to protect Israeli interests I believe. I do not remember thinking that there was much in it.

[James DiEugenio]

The part about  Ruby is actually silly.

In fact, the more I think about the book the more it kind of distracted from what Kennedy was really trying for in the Middle East.

It was really a virtuoso balancing act, reminds me of those guys on the Ed Sullivan Show with saucers on top of spinning poles.

The nation that did the most to counter Kennedy was Saudi Arabia, especially after Prince Talal defected to Egypt and said he was for a Pan Arab union.

So the Saudis took advantage of the Yemen war--in which a Nasserite republican group overthrew the monarchy--in order to drive a wedge between Kennedy and Nasser.

Edited December 28, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[James DiEugenio]

This is what the Saudis feared:

 

[James DiEugenio]

The British backed the Muslim Brotherhood first, and then the Saudis did. Nasser went to war with them, expelled them, executed some of the leaders and imprisoned the rest.  They had tried to assassinate him.

But the Muslim Brotherhood was useful to the petroleum rich monarchies:  in order to keep the status quo intact, that is oil and monarchy.  And to think that Trump covered for MBS in his murder of Jamal Khashoggi. He actually talked about this with Woodward for his book.

Anyway, this is what appealed to Kennedy about Nasser. That someone like him could moderate what JFK called the tendency toward feudalism and fanaticism in the Arab world.

What the Neocons have done in the Middle East today is play to the extremes.  They got rid of the secularist Gaddafi and are trying to get rid of the secularist Assad. Meanwhile, they play pattycake with Likud and Benjy N.  and ignore the Palestinian problem.

In the talk I gave at Lancer, I said the assassination of Rabin was a real turning point for Israel. For many so much so that it resembles the murder of JFK.  In fact, JFK Jr. had the mother of the accused assassin write a very long story for his magazine.  Which he personally edited and cooperated with the mom's lawyer in the writing.  I think we can all read between the lines of that one.

[Guest]

42 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

The British backed the Muslim Brotherhood first, and then the Saudis did. Nasser went to war with them, expelled them, executed some of the leaders and imprisoned the rest.  They had tried to assassinate him.

But the Muslim Brotherhood was useful to the petroleum rich monarchies:  in order to keep the status quo intact, that is oil and monarchy.  And to think that Trump covered for MBS in his murder of Jamal Khashoggi. He actually talked about this with Woodward for his book.

Anyway, this is what appealed to Kennedy about Nasser. That someone like him could moderate what JFK called the tendency toward feudalism and fanaticism in the Arab world.

What the Neocons have done in the Middle East today is play to the extremes.  They got rid of the secularist Gaddafi and are trying to get rid of the secularist Assad. Meanwhile, they play pattycake with Likud and Benjy N.  and ignore the Palestinian problem.

In the talk I gave at Lancer, I said the assassination of Rabin was a real turning point for Israel. For many so much so that it resembles the murder of JFK.  In fact, JFK Jr. had the mother of the accused assassin write a very long story for his magazine.  Which he personally edited and cooperated with the mom's lawyer in the writing.  I think we can all read between the lines of that one.

It’s a heck of a lot easier to exploit and manipulate divided nations, than it is united ones. It’s another variant of ‘divide & rule’. The British empire way was to invade and rule, the US way has been much more subversive with it’s legitimate looking international organisations, regime changes and clever media campaigns. 

[Pamela Brown]

On 12/27/2020 at 11:51 PM, Chris Barnard said:

Thanks Pamela. Seems like its a rare book to get hold of, it’s £77 used in my country. I’ll try to get hold of a copy. 

It is an insightful book, imo. My autographed copy is falling apart and full of highlighting. I would suggest trying to get a copy to read through WorldCat before buying it, because of its price. 

https://www.worldcat.org/title/final-judgment-the-missing-link-in-the-jfk-assassination-conspiracy/oclc/1045631516&referer=brief_results

 Its flaw to me, however, is its main thesis that everything points back to Mossad in the assassination of JFK, and that just isn't realistic. 

Just the same, plenty of food for thought...