Israel’s Missile Mystery

Is Israel helping South Africa build a medium-range ballistic missile, possibly in exchange for access to a South African missile-testing site and supplies of enriched uranium for its own presumed, but never officially acknowledged, nuclear arsenal? NBC News, citing U.S. intelligence sources, says that is just what is happening. Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir has denounced the NBC report as “an utter lie.” But the Israeli Defense Ministry said in a statement only that it abides by a government decision of March, 1987, to sign no new defense contracts with South Africa. That would seem to leave open the question of whether cooperation on missile development might in fact be going on, based on agreements made before the ban on new contracts took effect.

The issue is important, and not only for the political inferences Shamir has been quick to draw. Shamir dismisses the leak of the allegations as nothing more than an effort to harm U.S.-Israeli relations, which at the moment, because of Washington’s impatience with Shamir’s stand on political talks with the Palestinians, are considerably cooler than usual. But there seems to be more to it all than that. South Africa did test the booster rocket for a ballistic missile in July, and some U.S. officials say that there were marked similarities between it and Israel’s own Jericho missile.

It is, of course, a big leap from that to a conclusion that secret missile and nuclear weapons cooperation is going on. But the question lingers. South Africa’s foreign minister will say only that he has no knowledge of the alleged cooperation, while the Israeli Defense Ministry declines to talk about any contracts signed prior to 1987. In both cases, these are something less than flat denials that cooperation in the two areas is continuing.

This is a serious matter for American policy-makers, both because of U.S support for the international arms embargo on South Africa and because of continuing concerns over possible nuclear proliferation. If there is credible evidence of a missile and nuclear link between Israel and South Africa, it’s time for the Bush Administration to reveal it officially, either through a public statement or in testimony before Congress.