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Sunday 27 May 2012

A smear debunked

Thursday, 27th May 2010

I referred below (in an update) to Cif Watch’s remarkable forensic analysis of Monday’s Guardian front page splash by Chris McGreal, who purported to show that Israel had offered to sell nuclear weapons to South Africa. Now Cif Watch has published a second devastating analysis, which hammers yet more nails into the coffin of this disreputable piece of anti-journalism. Summarising his findings, the writer concludes of McGreal’s story:

1. The ‘offer of nuclear warheads’ is based on a (so far, undated) draft document in which the words giving rise to this inference of an offer are actually deleted to show that they are wrong. This is ignored.

2. In order to get the inference up and running, not only are the deleted words treated as not deleted, but some additional words are added.

3. This inferred ‘offer’ is then causally linked to a ‘secrecy agreement’ which is misrepresented as constituting a ‘military agreement’, an ‘agreement governing the military alliance’, a ‘broad-ranging agreement governing military ties’ and even the so-called Israel South Africa agreement (of which there is no proof of its existence other than the claims of Dieter Gerhardt, a former KGB spy who spied on Israel).

4. With a skip and a leap, or joining the dots as these conspiracy theorists like to put it, Israel offered nuclear weapons to South Africa pursuant to a military alliance between them.

I’d say this shoddy story was now shot to pieces, along with what remains of McGreal’s reputation.

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Raymond Douglas

May 27th, 2010 1:54pm

Typical Guardian "reporting". Never let the facts get in the way of a good old anti-Israel rant. shame on them !

Moll

May 27th, 2010 3:26pm

I'd say McGreal is not a wise man because he has not learned that

"Words are sacred. Words are the only containers he has in which to convey truth. If he uses words to deceive or mislead, he loses his ability to communicate AND he loses his credibility as a communicator."

Not a wise man.

O-Dog

May 27th, 2010 4:18pm

The article was a disgusting smear on Israel which has never had any dealings with apartheid South Africa and is a responsible nuclear power which would never attempt to profit from its technology with any other nation - racist or otherwise.

Disgusted Tunbridge Wells

May 27th, 2010 6:03pm

Press Complaints someone?

gareth

May 27th, 2010 7:29pm

This story sparked an outburst of Israel-bashing over here:
http://randombanter.net/index.php?topic=10831.0

Rip Van Winkle

May 27th, 2010 7:55pm

O'Dog @ 4:18pm

" ...is a responsible nuclear power ... ".

Which way, power generation or arsenal? Please clarify.

MOC

May 28th, 2010 9:32am

Did the South Africans not admit, when they dismantled their nuclear capability, that they purchased it from Israel?

Keep denying it. Everyone knows. You know. The World knows.

Terry in Oz

May 28th, 2010 12:44pm

Israel is supposed to have offered apartheid South Africa nukes?!!! HOW many years ago?!! What's wrong with the Guardian? Can't it find any more current myths, or tell some contemprary lies to push the fashionable Jew hate agenda of the left?

solemnman

May 29th, 2010 9:37am

The two countries with nukes which should be the focus of the world's attention on this issue, are ignored.I,long ago-on this site,put forward my concern that North Korea ,because of its impoverished state,its antipathy to the west,had every reason to sell the bomb and Iran had every reason ,and the oil money to boot, to buy one and no reason not to- or as Rafsanjani said, "it might take two".
Impovrished Pakistan did its best to make the ability to build a bomb common knowledge and who knows what else it might have got up to.

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Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is 'The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth and Power', published by Encounter.

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