Secret apartheid-era documents show that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to South Africa in the mid-1970s, a British newspaper reported.
The papers provide the first documentary evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons, the Guardian reported May 24.
The documents were discovered by American scholar Sasha Polakow-Suransky while researching the book “The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa,” which was published by Pantheon this week.
The documents include minutes of meetings between senior officials of Israel and South Africa, and allegedly show that then-South African Defense Minister P.W. Botha asked then-Israeli Defense Minister Shimon Peres for warheads. Peres, now president of Israel, reportedly told Botha that “the correct payload was available in three sizes.” The “three sizes” are believed to refer to conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons, the Guardian said.
Botha reportedly did not purchase the weapons, in part because they were too expensive. South Africa eventually built its own nuclear bombs — possibly with Israeli assistance, according to the newspaper.
Israel pressured the current South African government not to declassify the documents, the Guardian reported.
Peres immediately denied the claims. “Unfortunately, the Guardian elected to write its piece based on the selective interpretation of South African documents and not on concrete facts,” Peres’ office said in a statement.” — jta