צה“ל חשף (בטעות?) את שדות האלה – בסיס הטילים הגרעיניים הסודי בחיל האוויר
Many (though not all) of Israel’s security secrets are of the worst-kept variety. An example, is the Israeli Air Force nuclear weapons base known variously as Sdot Ha’Elah or Sdot Micha. Readers of this blog would’ve read of the name and purpose of this base back in 2010 based on my publication of a censored report about the facility. You would’ve seen a map of the facility and its location if you’d read this post back in 2013. You would’ve also learned that the base is home for Israel’s new Arrow 3 anti-ballistic missile fleet charged with defending Israel from a missile attack.
Among other things, its command and control center was built to withstand a nuclear blast. Though that nuclear blast will not come from Iran, since it doesn’t have such a nuclear capability. This is the new portion of the base that was paid for by U.S. funds to the tune of over $25-million. Sdot Micha also houses Israel’s Jericho 3 ballistic missile inventory. These are the weapons that would be used to annihilate Iran should Benny Morris get his way and Israel attack it with nuclear weapons.
If you were an ordinary Israeli who only read the Israeli papers, you wouldn’t have even learned the name of the base until today, when it was exposed publicly for the first time in Haaretz. Even then, you still wouldn’t know that Sdot Micha was Israel’s nuclear base since that information was censored from the Haaretz report.
In a different post, a few years after that, a nosy reporter visiting the IDF military headquarters, the Kirya, noticed a list of senior officers and their coffee preferences. Among them, I noted, was then Col. Uri Oron. The list showed his command, the very same secret Sdot Micha. So readers here then learned his identity. In the meantime, Oron has been promoted to IAF intelligence chief. In his place they named a Col. Binyamin (first name) to succeed him. Since no reporter has snooped around the Kirya for a new coffee list, we don’t yet know his full name. If any readers can help, please be in touch. I think every Israeli has the right to know which officer has his finger on the nuclear trigger.
This information was published by the IDF (Hebrew) as part of its responsibility to release information the public has a right to know. However, the public didn’t have a right to know about the existence of Sdot Micha (mentioned on pg. 36). This was probably a result of a fashla involving chief military censor, Col. Ariella Ben Avraham. She must’ve been asleep at the wheel when this report was reviewed by her eagle-eyed censors. UPDATE: Col. Ben Avraham is back on the job. She’s now expunged Sdot Elah entirely from the IAF chain of command. Ironically, this report is produced to satisfy the requirement of an Israeli freedom of information statute. Unfortunately, information is often not free in the “Only Democracy in the Middle East.”
Consider tonight’s post part of my public service on behalf of Israelis who believe they have a right to know who has their fate in his hands. And if you support such transparency then support this blog with a donation either through Paypal or Network for Good (see sidebar). This work is painstaking and requires enormous discipline and dedication. No one else is doing precisely this in the public domain. It’s worth your support.
Very interesting stuff.
Israel – armed to the teeth with 200 nuclear warheads and a country that has refused to ever sign the NPT – preaching to the West about the dangers of a nuclear Iran (a long-time NPT signatory). Irony is something that is completely lost on Israelis.
It’s part of the colonial mindset; you have to be armed to the teeth, but anytime the natives do anything that seems even slightly hostile, the lead goes flying from the colonials’ guns. All of those nuclear bombs are there as a sort of suicide pact with the region in case border lines are crossed (even though Israel lacks fixed borders.) I am endlessly glad that journalists like Richard Silverstein exist, because at least we get a keyhole view of the reality that the Israeli government either denies or releases in small sanitized chunks.
There is a huge difference between not signing a treaty and signing it and flouting it. Iran has been repeatedly seen acting against the terms of the treaty. As such, Iran is in the wrong, not Israel.
@ Ed Fortis: Ed would have us believe he’s a nuclear expert. WHere did you get your degree, Ed? Where did you learn these questionable “facts” you expound. The truth, as affirmed by Donald Trump (today) and the IAEA is that Iran is honoring every element of the P5+1 agreement and that is also honorning its obligations under the NPT. Now, since you’re such an expert you should be able to produce evidence to support your claims. There are thousands of people in Washington who would love to prove that Iran violates NPT. Give it to them. Now. Let us know when you’ve proven the lies you maintain.
THis is not a soccer match. You don’t get to shout slogans & any-old nonsense you wish as if it was fact. Comment rules demand that opinions be supported with credible sources & evidence. Do that in future or you may find yourself on the wrong side of the law, as far as this blog is concerned.
Iran has NEVER actually developed or stored nuclear weapons. There is absolutely NO evidence to suggest that. If there was evidence, you can be 100% sure it would have been shown to the world by both Israel and its U.S. proxy.
However, there is AMPLE evidence to suggest that Israel developed nuclear weapons, and has been stockpiling them since the 1960’s. There has recently been a report that suggested that Israel considered using nukes on Egypt during the six day war.
So, please, stop the cheap hasbara. Everyone and their mother knows who the nuclear aggressor is in the Middle East, and it ain’t Iran.
Will you also expose United States military secrets? Make her a little less safe too?
@ Anya: Yes, I have. A man went to prison after divulging U.S. secrets to me. How dare you be so stupid as to ask such an inane question.
But on the contrary exposing secrets that have no business being secret strengthens a nation. It doesn’t endanger it. You’ve been brainwashed by the national security state–like one of the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
You and that ‘troubled man’, Shammai Leibovitz, didn’t divulge ‘United States military secrets’, you exposed that the United States spies in Israel; an old and open secret.
You’ve just exposed the military secrets of Israel, a democracy and America’s ally.
Who benefits from your expose? Only Iran and Hezbollah.
Have you no shame?
@ HasbarAnya: You don’t think the fact that the FBI was spying on the Israeli diplomats was a major U.S. national security secret? Are you daft? Do you think the story would’ve made the front page of the NYT if this was “an old and open secret???” You really have the chutzpah to contend that the Israelis knew the FBI was listening to their conversations? In fact, I know they didn’t. So again, this was a well-kept secret, contrary to your numbskull claim.
I didn’t expose any Israeli military secrets. The IDF exposed the secret, in public, on its own website. And Haaretz published it. And I published it. So go blame the IDF. And Col. Ben Avraham should’ve censored it before it got out & was asleep at the switch. Go blame them.
Iran & Hezbollah benefit from knowing something that every Israeli 12th grader (but you) knows? That Sdot Micha is a secret base?
You’re the one who’s shameful. And I’ve just about had it with your unbelievable chutzpah. The airline is calling you to board that Ben Gurion flight. Better get your ticket out & prepare to board. I can feel you’re not long for this blog.
Be honest Richard, you didn’t publish most of what Leibovitz gave you and even took down some of the original materials.
So yes, the fact the US spies on ALL its allies is an open secret. Specific incidents, or leaks, are interesting and worthy of NYT espacially when people end up in prison.
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@ Ariel Sharon: The only way you could make such a claim without being a poseur/liar, would be if you work for the FBI or if you work for Israeli intelligence & know what he gave me.
And if there were no secrets published then the feds needn’t have sent him to prison for 20 months. But they did, just for the hell of it…
Before he was exposed, I was careful about what I published in order to protect him. But my Truthout story reveals almost everything he told me. Except all the secrets the FBI revealed about you. Those I didn’t publish though I was sorely tempted.
If I was really bored & had a lot of time on my hands I”d remind you of every Israeli diplomatic secret I exposed. But I have better things to do with my time.
Let the word go forth from this continent to you & all yr hasbara friends that the subject is closed & anyone attempting to reopen it does so at their peril. You are done in this thread.
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Power user
The base was know till now as KANAF 2 and there are Wikipedia articles about it which date back 10 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sdot_Micha_Airbase
https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9B%D7%A0%D7%A3_2
The best article about the base is on Global Security website http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/sedot_mikha.htm
The name ELAH is most probably from EMEK HAELAH nearby where David and Goliath had their famous battle according to the bible.
@ Reporter Dan: I don’t know how old the Wikipedia articles are which you cite. But neither the English or Hebrew language articles reveal the full inventory of missiles featured at the base. It only mentions the Jericho battery and not the Arrow 3. I have linked to the Global Security article in a 2013 blog post here & featured a photo image of the new Arrow 3 portion of the base which is displayed with that article.
Every wikipedia page has the history of the article which you can see by pressing “View history”
There was also an article on Haaretz back in 2001 which mentioned the base. https://www.haaretz.co.il/misc/1.713828
It does seem to be very secretive. On a forum from 2003, a soldier claimed some people are being taken to the base in shipping containers so they can’t see where it is. https://rotter.name/nor/armi/6863.shtml
He’s right about the age of the Wikipedia article; it was begun by “Joshdboz” on the 8th of June 2006 (proof: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sdot_Micha_Airbase&dir=prev&action=history ) and has been fought over for eleven years, which explains why it’s still a stub article. Wikipedia articles on Israel or Palestine or the Israel/Palestine conflict suffered heavily from “editwarring” when Wikipedia was a hot place to work on (2002 to 2007) and it’s still going on.