The Fertile Crescent - The Cradle of civilisation

Carter Discusses New Book on Israel and the Middle East The Forward, Jewish Weekly -New York Jennifer Siegel | Thu. Nov 16, 2006

http://www.forward.com/articles/carter-discusses-new-book-on-israel-and-the-middle/

President Jimmy Carter's new book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" (Simon & Schuster), hits the shelves this week. In an interview Wednesday with the Forward, the former president discussed the work and his views
on the Middle East.

Q: In your book, you often take care to mention that the Palestinians include both Muslims and Christians. Do you have particular concerns about the situation of the Christians in the territories?

A: There has been a tremendous exodus of the Christians from the West Bank and Gaza as a percentage and also in their totality, and this has been a disappointment to me to see that. One of my major commitments in public life for almost 30 years has been to bring peace to Israel, and with its existence accepted by all nations, and, of course, one major
step there was to evolve a peace treaty between Israel and its most formidable adversary, Egypt, and I think that this premise has been for Israel to exist within its own legal borders as defined by the United Nations resolutions, by the Oslo agreement, by the Camp David accords, and even by the quartet's recent road map, and to let the Palestinians, and the Syrians, and the Lebanese have their own territory.

Q: In your book, you argue that 'because of powerful political, economic, and religious forces in the United States, Israeli government decisions are rarely questioned or condemned.' Can you explain that more fully?

A: I've been all over the Holy Land, I'll call it, just for a kind of a shorthand description, since the 1970s - the last 30 or 40 years - from Lebanon down to the Sinai. And I've been up into the Golan Heights three times, and I've conducted three elections there - and I've seen the coverage given to Israel's activities in Europe and in Israel itself - a highly contentious debate over [Israel]. There is no such debate in the United States. There's not any debate in the Congress. There's not any debate in the White House, at least since George Bush Sr. and I were
there, and in the news media of the United States there is very rarely any editorial comment that would criticize some of the practices of Israel which I consider to be deplorable - and that is the persecution of the Palestinians, and the occupation and confiscation and the olonization of Palestinian land. So there's no open debate in this country if it
involves any criticism of the policies of the Israeli government, even though many people in Israel debate and condemn some of the policies of the right-wing governments under Sharon and Netanyahu and others.

Q: Lately there has been a lot of discussion about the role of the 'Israel lobby.' Can you say a little bit about how that impacted you as president? Has it changed over time?

A: Well, I think the Israel Lobby - so-called to use your phrase, that's not my phrase - is much stronger now and much more effective now than it was when I was in office. I felt, for instance, that we should sell
F-16 airplanes to Saudi Arabia so Saudis could defend themselves against threats from Iran, and Aipac and others were adamantly against it, but we finally prevailed. And I called within three months of when I went into office for a Palestinian homeland. And I worked for the Camp David accords, which called for Israel's political and military withdrawal from the occupied territories, and so forth, and I think that that kind of independence was also exhibited by George Bush Sr., who condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank and even withheld funds from Israel, which I
never did, by the way.... That's almost an impossibility now in the present political environment of America.

Q: In response to Republican claims that the Democratic Party is weakening in its support for Israel, Democratic leaders - most prominently Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean - have recently issued statements saying that you do not represent the Democratic Party on Israel. What is your response?

A: They are right. I don't speak for the Democratic Party. In fact, I don't think anybody speaks for the Democratic Party, including Howard Dean or Bill Clinton or Nancy Pelosi. The Democratic Party is an
umbrella under which multiple voices exist. I would just refer to my own record as a president - I was the one who negotiated a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, not a word of which has ever been violated,
and I worked throughout the entire four years to bring peace to Israel within its own borders. I don't have to explain my credentials in terms of bringing peace to Israel.

Q: Do you think that most Democrats agree with your views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

A: If you talk about members of the Congress, I would say no, because the Congress members are almost universally silent as far as any criticism of anything that the Israeli government does. But I think that's an anomaly among Democrats in the entire country, and, in fact, among Americans all over. I think there's a tremendous concern that Israel has refused to accept the premise that Israel can have peace if it's willing to define its borders along the official internationally recognized line - that is, the Green Line - modified, if necessary, and I think it would be
necessary, by good faith negotiations with the Palestinians on a swap basis. But Israel has not been willing to do that, and I think if Israel doesn't do it, I don't see any possibility that Israel will ever know peace, certainly not in my lifetime, if they insist on confiscation and occupation of Arab land.

Q: Have Democrats in Congress become less willing to criticize Israel since your administration?

A: I think when I was in office, there was a lot of flexibility among Democratic members of the House, and Senate. I had great help from strong Jewish senators, like Senator Jacob Javits, and from Hubert Humphrey,
who was a champion of Israel's, and so they all supported me as I went through the process of inducing Israel to withdraw from Egyptian land, that is the Sinai, and of accepting the commitment that Menachem Begin made and the Knesset approved, of Israel's withdrawing its political and military forces from the West Bank, and giving the Palestinians full autonomy, with the right to choose their own government. And so
all of that is in the Camp David agreement, which Democrats approved both publicly and privately.

Q: We've talked a lot about criticism of Israel, but you have described the country's existence as 'a moral principle.' How does your faith inform your commitment to the Jewish state?

A: You have to be careful of the so-called Christian evangelicals because the ones who are most vocal support the so-called "left behind" theories - which call for the final days to come, and the Armageddon, and the premise there, which I think is completely erroneous, by the way, is that in order for Christ to come again, to return, the entire Holy Land has to be swept clean of Muslims and others. But the ultimate stage, according to their beliefs, is that all Jews have to be killed or become Christians. But they do support Israel's occupation of the West Bank.... I think that's a completely stupid and ridiculous premise on which to base foreign policy or on which to base support for Israel. My support for Israel is proven and deeply ingrained in my own soul, but I don't think Israel will ever have peace unless they are willing, as I've said earlier, to live within their borders that are reconfirmed even recently with the international quartet's so-called road map, and that says that United Nations Resolution 242 must be implemented and Israel must withdraw from occupied territory.

Q: For people who don't have a Christian faith, or don't come from that religious background, why should they support Israel?

A: Because it's international law, and because it's been accepted almost unanimously by the whole world. As you know, the Arab League, in 2002, expressed their common belief that Israel should be recognized as a
permanent entity in the Middle East, to live in peace within its own borders - that is the Green Line, the 1967 borders - and I believe that that's the only avenue to peace.

Q: What should be our current approach to dealing with Iran?

A: I hope that the strong effort by the European countries, backed up at a distance by the United States, will be successful, and my hope is that China and Russia will join in with that effort and put both pressure on Iran and some enticements on Iran so that perhaps Russia could handle the treatment of nuclear fuels that is now being contemplated by Iran. So I
think this is a very important thing. My own belief is that in the future we should reach out and try to negotiate with both Syria and Iran, and get them involved in an overall peace effort in the Middle East and Gulf region.

Q: Some on the right have said that we need to keep all options on the table, including the use of force, and that we have to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. What do you say to that?

A: I think it would be an ill-advised sort of thing. You've seen the results of an unwarranted and unnecessary use of force. In Iraq it's turned into a terrible tragedy and a debacle, and of course, Iran
has a much more formidable military capability than Iraq ever did. So I don't think the United States military is at all prepared to make a move against Iran.

Top

Depleted and Enriched Uranium in Lebanon, a Scientific Approach to the Clarification of whether Uranium was used in the Israeli/Lebanon Conflict.

By Dr. Mohammed Ali Kobeissi*

 1-      The reporting of the use of Uranium by Israel and its denial by its officials

Since the declaration ( Daily Star, An-Nahar ) on August 20^th-06 by the author of this article on the presence of high level of nuclear radiation in one of the missiles craters in Khiam caused by the Israeli bombardments, the dispute about the origin and cause of such radiation is still taking place in the media.

On December 7^th-06, The Daily Star has reported again on the presence of Uranium in a soil sample obtained from the Khiam town bomb crater caused by Israeli air force bombardments     The report was taken from an interview given by the British expert, Dr. Chris Busby to the Environment and Development magazine in its December-06 issue.  In a detailed article written by Robert Fisk in the Independent (UK,October 28-06), followed by a long report in the As-Safir paper( Lebanon, October30-06), all stating that enriched Uranium has been found in the Khiam crater. Both, The Independent and AS-Safir, have relied on results in a report obtained from Dr. Chris Busby and his co-worker Dai Williams. In a conference arranged in Linz ( Austria) on the Use of Dirty Weapons by Israel on Lebanon, where I took part in the Lectures of that Conference, a copy of that report was also submitted to me on October 26-06 by Williams.  Such report at that time has created an atmosphere of anxiety among the Lebanese citizens and confusions among the scientific community.

This situation has created also panic in the social and health stream in Lebanon. In several of these reporting and on Web sites, the dispute on whether the soil of Khiam crater contains enriched Uranium or depleted Uranium (DU) is still taking place and yet no definite conclusion is established, while it is well known that in the modern wars depleted uranium has been used. The Lebanese Council for Scientific Research  and  UNEP are still declaring that no DU has been found in their investigation on samples taken from places of the war actions. 

           In this article I would like to clarify this affaire, based on the study of the British team  as well as on my investigations and measurements on about 11  craters soil samples that I have recently carried out in two reputable Laboratories in Europe.

2- Historic Background

a-) In the War Zone in South Lebanon    

              The 33 days war waged on Lebanon by Israel starting on July 12th-06, has left a large part of the Lebanese infrastructure in a complete destruction. Weapons of highly powerful explosives were used with a tremendous efficiency, so that homes, high rise buildings and  high way bridges have been flattened to the ground. Road communications between the cities in south Lebanon and elsewhere in the country were cut using weapons such as bunker busters. Hundreds of thousands of civilians of the population were forced to leave the south to other safe community places in the country. Children suffered the most and many were killed and some were burned in indiscriminate attacks.

During the first 20 days of the war, I remained in my residential area in South Lebanon witnessing the Israeli war planes throwing missiles on towns, including schools, markets, moving cars and fleeing civilians and massacres have been committed by the Israelis. The craters caused by these missiles ranged from small size of depth of 4 meters to about 10 meters and larger in some cases. I do not know why the fear did not penetrate into the senses of my existence. May be the barbarism committed by the Israelis toward life creates a much higher values in man's consciousness , where during that war the roots of freedom develops into transcendental noble values, where Death becomes a small instant of time to arrive to a nirvana state of celestial values. 

b-) South  Beirut under Attacks

           On August 2-06, I moved to a residential place on a hill, overlooking the southern city of Beirut. During my staying there I saw how that part of the city was rained by the Israeli missiles causing huge clouds of dusts mixed with flames of fires.    

Being a nuclear physicist and expert in nuclear radiation measurements, these phenomena brought to my mind the possible use by the Israelis of missiles and bombes equipped with Depleted Uranium ( DU) as was the case in the two Gulf wars on Irak.

Directly after the cessation of the bombardment on August 14th-06, and knowing the effect of the use of DU on the health of the population, I went to South Beirut to explore and see at the first hand the destruction there. The whole section looked like Berlin during World War II as was presented as a comparison by the media: flattened high rise buildings were sandwiched to the ground, black dust, suspected to be Uranium Oxides, covered the remaining of concretes, and bad smells originated from dead human bodies buried under the ruins and from the weapons chemicals.

3-Radiation Activities  in the Craters of the Khiam  Town

        On August 20^th and after I returned to my residence in the south, I received a telephone call from the town of Khiam stating the detection of strong radiations in one of the missiles craters in a residential area of the town and asking for my help. Using a very sensitive Geiger-Muller counter(GM), I went down to the bottom of the crater. The counter registered 850 nSV/h (850 nSV per hour) at the deep point. This dose was about 14 times more than the measured dose value of 50 nSV/h I have obtained at the surface area in the surroundings of that crater. This event was reported in the Lebanese press in the next day (Daily Star, Al-Akhbar, An-Nahar).

4- The Chasing   after the Depleted Uranium ( DU)

          At that day, I took samples from that crater and other craters in the town and outside it. To make sure that I have collected the right samples I called Dr. Doug Rokke, a former US Army Major and a Lecturer at Jackson Vill University and who is an expert on missiles containing DU, describing to him the appearance of the craters soils and asking him for advice on the collection of the  appropriate  soil samples to be taken for the investigation. I took the advice of this noble man and extended my samples collection to other towns in the south such as Froun, Ghandouria, Teery, Bint-Jbeil and Ainata, and including dust samples from South  Beirut buildings, in order to measure radiation emanated from these samples using Gamma and Alpha Spectroscopy. During the samples collections I have also measured by GM radiation in the other craters from which the samples were obtained using the same counter. These measured doses were about 5 times as the surface dose and not as high as the one I have measured in the very first crater in Khiam. During the process of samples collections, Mr. Dai Williams, who is a co-worker of Dr. Busby on DU,  was present in Lebanon at that time, has asked if he can accompany me to collect few samples to take back to his country England. One of the samples he took, was from the Khiam crater which showed relatively high level of radiations as I mentioned above and which still under dispute.      

5- Motivation of the task for Uranium measurements

        Having detected such high level of radiations and knowing the effect of such radiation on the health of the Lebanese people and the toxicity of the radio active Uranium, Depleted or enriched, I was prompted to take the initiative, as independent researcher, in collaboration  with Green Line Organization in Lebanon, to set up a project to carry out measurements on soil samples that I have taken from craters of various areas in the country and specially the one from Khiam crater, which showed the high activity mentioned above. Then I went to Europe to execute such project in two and highly reputable Laboratories.

I would like to emphasize here that no collaboration between me and the British team of Dr. Chris Busby took place regarding the measurements of samples or interpretations of data. My task of investigation was to be independent of any governmental influence or any other institutions.

6-Methodologies

Several methodologies are used to measure depleted Uranium and we mention only two concerning this article:

a)-The Gamma Spectroscopy Method

  This method was used in our measurements, where in the gamma spectra, peaks activities of Uranium isotopes U-238 and U-235 are usually compared to get a value for these isotopes ratio. The value of this ratio depends on the enrichment or depletion of Uranium. For natural Uranium this ratio has a value of 21.7, which corresponds to an enrichment of 0.71% by the U-235 isotope. Any increase in the ratio factor is an indication of the presence of depleted uranium. The opposite is true, where the decrease in this factor is an indication of enrichment in the Uranium content. The validity of any interpretations of such values of the ratio depends on the margin of the uncertainty in the error of measurements. 

        In general, the errors of the measurements result from uncertainties of the detector efficiency in combination with the sample geometry and the low samples activities. The total error of the isotopes ratios in our measurements can be estimated as about 15%. Thus it must be clear that all these factors play an important role in the interpretations of data and the confidence in their values. In our measurements on the disputed Khiam sample gave a ratio value of 26  between the activities of the two isotopes U-238 and U-235. This ratio corresponds to a percentage enrichment of 0.60 % as compared to the natural enrichment of 0.71%. This former value of enrichment is in contradiction with value obtained by Busby's result of enriched uranium as will be discussed below.

b)- The Mass Spectroscopy Method Used by Busby and Dai Williams at Harwell Laboratory

In this method the ratio of the masses of the isotopes U-238 and U235 is used to determine depleted or enriched Uranium content in the collected samples.

For natural Uranium this ratio is 138 which correspond to an enrichment of 0.72%. Lower values than 138 indicate enrichment above 0.72% and higher values indicate depleted Uranium content.

For the Khiam sample, the published results of the measurement obtained from Harwell Laboratory for Chris Busby and his co-worker Dai Williams, who have evaluated and interpreted  them, showed mass ratio of 108, corresponding to an enriched Uranium of 0.91%,which is higher than the natural enrichment of 0.72% . ( See bellow) .

   Discussion of the results obtained by the author and the Team of Chris Busby

 a)- Results obtained by M.A.Kobeissi and co-workers.

Almost all the samples we have investigated and measured their ratio factor in Europe showed normal behavior of natural Uranium content except the one taken from the Khiam crater under dispute. The sample of this crater showed a much higher content of Uranium and its decay products than those obtained from other samples we have investigated and obtained from other locations in the South. This activity of that sample is in line also with the high counting I have measured earlier in that crater with Geiger Muller detector.  As we mentioned above the ratio factor of this sample was 26 as compared with 21.7 for natural Uranium. This might indicate that the soil of that crater is contaminated with depleted Uranium. This factor corresponds to an enrichment of 0.60% as compared with the value of 0.71% of natural Uranium and compared with 0.91% stated by Busby..

b)-Results obtained by Busby and Williams

 Some of the samples taken by Dai Williams were reported as normal but again for the Khiam sample, the published results of the measurements obtained from Harwell Laboratory for Chris Busby and co-worker Dai Williams, who have evaluated and interpreted them, showed mass ratio of 108 as compared to 138 for natural uranium. This value of 108 corresponds to an enriched Uranium of 0.91%, which is higher than the natural enrichment of 0.72% . This value contradicts strongly our result of 0.60 % enrichment, which indicates the presence of depleted Uranium. The percentage error stated in Busby's report was given as 20%.

 Conclusion:

Based on the above we conclude that in our measurements the percentage enrichment ranges as: 0.48 < 0.60 < 0.70 indicating depleted uranium content in the disputed Khiam crater.

On the other hand, in Busby's results, the percentage  enrichment ranges as: 0.73 < 0.91 < 1.1 which indicates enriched uranium.

      The results obtained from both methodologies show definite contradiction. I believe the cause lies in the following factors:

1-     Instrumental and procedural. In order to obtain believable results high precision instrumentation and procedures must be followed. The results from both methodologies are subject to errors uncertainties which can put doubt on any obtained values with such margin of errors.

2-     The choice of appropriate samples collection is very crucial in this case. I have found for example that enrichment in one sample A taken from the disputed Khiam crater was 0.72%, a normal natural enrichment, while the enrichment obtained from sample B taken from the same crater as A but from an opposite location within the crater, was 0.60%, which indicates possible content of DU. This shows inhomogeneous distribution of radio active elements in the crater soil.

3-     The more important cause of the discrepancy in the results given above is the question of how much is the amount of Uranium delivered by the missile explosion to the location soil of the crater. Since this amount will determine the activity of the samples as well as the quantity of the DU mass. Such amount will play a crucial roll in the precision of the measurements, since for small contaminating amount, it will be very difficult to measure small activity and mass of Uranium in such increases without a large margin in uncertainty in the achieved values of the measurements of enrichment or depletion. This depends also on the methodologies used in this case  

I believe that more investigations on the appropriate soil samples in our possession are necessary to obtain a definite answer to whether Depleted Uranium or Enriched Uranium has been used by the Israelis. The results given above are not conclusive enough to give a final answer to this affair. In a future task, we will use a more precise different methodology to obtain a decisive answer to the uranium problem in Lebanon.

Based on the above results and the immoral behavior of Israel in its wars and attacks on Lebanon, one can not exclude the use of missiles equipped with DU by  Israel.

 ________________________________________________________________

 Morality and Duty of Institutions

Few thoughts should be given related to the moral duty of the press and the scientific communities in Lebanon and abroad regarding the use of Uranium by  Israel in its wars on that country.

In the last few decades and so, several wars have been conducted against humanity, where dirty weapons, such as depleted uranium, have been used. The effect of such crime on the health and social life of the people, who were subject to such attacks, was catastrophic in countries like Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. The case in Lebanon is still pending for further studies and investigation. Thus it is the moral duty of the press and the media to enlighten the public in a scientific approach about the health effect of the use of Uranium on the population of Lebanon. The press and other media must adder to the principles of creating awareness among the population about the danger of nuclear radiation be it artificial or natural radiation.

• University Professor of Physics and Researcher,

email : makobeissi@yahoo.com

** Detailed information on data and results can be obtained from Green Line Organization in Lebanon or from the author. The author would like to thank the Green Line Organization in Lebanon and the Society of the Austro-Arab Relations for the financial  support of the projec

[ Back ] [ Home ] [ Up ] [ Next ]