Israel/Biological weapons

Israel/Biological weapons  (Biological weapons)
Main gate to the Israel Institute for Biological Research
Among the most advanced in the world.

Israel's offensive biological warfare capabilities are among the most advanced in the world. It is assumed that the Israel Institute for Biological Research in Ness Ziona is at the centre of this program, also developing vaccines and antidotes for chemical and biological warfare. Israel is not a signatory to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC).

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Israeli program collaborated with the apartheid South Africa's BW-program, and it has good connections to (at least) British and US biological weapons research.

Biotech industry

The Israeli government has carried out a two-day exercise it says is aimed at boosting preparedness for any terrorist attack aimed at sparking an outbreak of a highly contagious disease. Israeli officials emphasize the biological weapons drill is routine but it comes amid rising tensions in the region, particularly from Iran. VOA's Scott Bobb reports from Afula, northern Israel.

Israel is a world leader in biotechnology , with a large pool of human talent and research facilities and more than 1,700 students a year graduating in the life sciences. Life sciences represent about 35% of civilian research activities, mainly at its seven universities (Ben-Gurion University, Haifa University, Tel Aviv University, The Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, The Weizmann Institute, Bar-Ilan University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem), four medical schools (Ben-Gurion University, The Technion, Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University) and two agricultural research institutes (the Volcani Institute and the Hebrew University's Faculty of Agriculture). Funds for life science research equal half of the total research funding in Israel. All of the country's major hospitals are involved in advanced biochemical research and some 60% of the country's scientific publications are in biology and related medical and agricultural fields. Over 1400 companies work in a diverse range of sectors.

In addition, Israel is well placed to make an impact in interdisciplinary technologies, thanks to the mathematics, physics and computer science training fostered by the universities and the country's specialized military units. Graduates from its Unit 8200 often start tech companies that become an informal part of the military apparatus.

The country can also draw on a huge pool of sayanim, overseas Jews who are willing to go to great lengths covertly help Israel, some who have high level positions in the medical system or pharma industry.

History

David Ben Gurion recruited experts in microbiology such as Ernst David Bergmann, Avraham Marcus Klingberg and the brothers Aharon and Ephraim Katachalsky, to form the Science Corps in the Haganah which later was named HEMED. Later a new branch within HEMED, devoted to biological weapons was formed and called HEMED BEIT. This branch is publically known as Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), and took Nes Ziona as its research center.

In May 1948 Zionist militias besieged the well-fortified Palestinian city of Acre, which could stand the siege for a long time. The city water supply came from a nearby village name Kabri through an aqueduct. To shorten the siege and to enter the city, the Zionist militias injected typhoid in the aqueduct. Many Palestinians and some 55 British soldiers, who were in the city, got infected.

They tried it again in Gaza against the Egyptian forces, but failed. The two Zionist infiltrators, who were sent on this mission, were captured by the Egyptians. The following cable was sent from the commander of the Egyptian Forces in Palestine to the General Headquarters in Cairo:

"15.20 hrs, 24 May [1948]. Our Intelligence forces captured two Jews, David Horeen and David Mizrahi, loitering around army positions. They were interrogated and confessed they had been sent by officer Moshe to poison the army [and the peoples'] water supply. They carried with them water bottles divided in the middle. The top part has potable water and the bottom part has a liquid contaminated with typhoid and dysentery, equipped with a rear opening from which the liquid can be released. They confessed they were members of the 20-strong team sent from Rehovot for the same purpose. Both have written their confession in Hebrew and signed it. We have taken the necessary medical precautions.”

In his book “War Diary” Ben Gurion confirmed the attack in an entry found on 27 th of May 1948 where he stated: “[Chief of Staff Yigal Yadin] picked up a cable from Gaza saying they captured Jews carrying malaria gems and gave instructions not to drink water.”

Ethnic bioweapons

According to a 1998 report in the Sunday Times, Israel is developing a biological weapon that would harm Arabs while leaving Jews unaffected. The report, citing Israeli military and western intelligence sources, says that scientists are trying to identify distinctive genes carried by Arabs to create a genetically modified bacterium or virus.

The "ethno-bomb" program is based at Israel's Nes Ziona research facility. Scientists are trying to use viruses and bacteria to alter DNA inside living cells and attack only those cells bearing Arabic genes.

A scientist there said the task was hugely complicated because both Arabs and Jews are of semitic origin. But he added: "They have, however, succeeded in pinpointing a particular characteristic in the genetic profile of certain Arab communities, particularly the Iraqi people." The disease could be spread by spraying the organisms into the air or putting them in water supplies. `

The Bijlmer disaster

Full article: Bijlmer disaster

On the 4th October of 1992 El Al Flight 1862 crashed into a high-rise apartment complex in Bijlmer, Amsterdam while on its way to Tel Aviv carrying 114 tons of freight, including components required for the manufacture of Sarin nerve gas. The crash was considered the worst air disaster in Dutch history killing at least 47 and destroying the health of 3000 Dutch residents.

After several years of deep investigation Karel Knip, the science editor in the Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad, published in November 1999 the most detailed and factual report about the workings of the Israel Institute for Biological Research.

Knip discovered that at least 140 biological weapon scientists from the IIBR have strong links with Walter Reed Army Institute, the Uniformed Services University, the American Chemical and Biological Weapons Center in Edgewood and the University of Utah. He also discovered close cooperation between IIBR and the British-American biological weapons programme, as well as extensive collaboration on biological weapon research with Germany and the Netherlands, which explains the reason for the Dutch officials keeping silence over the crash.

Prisoners as guinea pigs

The Mossad whistleblower Victor Ostrovsky tells how prisoners were brought to black sites for experiments in the 1970s-1980s, never to come out alive:

It was Uri who enlightened me regarding the Nes Ziyyona facility. It was, he said, an ABC warfare laboratory — ABC standing for atomic, biological and chemical. It was where our top epidemiological scientists were developing various doomsday machines. Because we were so vulnerable and would not have a second chance should there be an all-out war in which this type of weapon would be needed, there was no room for error. The Palestinian infiltrators came in handy in this regard. As human guinea pigs, they could make sure the weapons the scientists were developing worked properly and could verify how fast they worked and make them even more efficient.

The "hospital in Baltimore" is presumably Johns Hopkins:

Years later I met Uri again. This time he was in the Mossad, a veteran katsa in the Al department, and I was a rookie. He had come back from an assignment in South Africa. I was then a temporary help desk man in the Dardasim department in liaison, helping him prepare for a large shipment of medication to South Africa to accompany several Israeli doctors who were headed for some humanitarian work in Soweto, a black township in Johannesburg. The doctors were to assist in treating patients at an outpatients clinic for the Baragwanath hospital ...The hospital and the clinic were supported by a hospital in Baltimore, which served as a cut-out for the Mossad.

"what is the Mossad doing giving humanitarian assistance to blacks in Soweto?" I remember asking him. There was no logic to it; no short term political gain (which was how the Mossad operated) or any visible monetary advantage. "Do you remember Nes Ziyyona?" His questions sent shivers up my spine. I nodded.

This is very much the same. We're testing both new infectious diseases and new medication that can't be tested on humans in Israel, for several of the Israeli medicine manufacturers. This will tell them whether they are on the right track, saving them millions in research.

Secretly sterilizing black immigrants

In 2013 Israel admitted that it had been secretly injecting immigrant Ethiopian Jews with birth control drugs to involuntarily sterilize them. The Independent reported:

The government had previously denied the practice but the Israeli Health Ministry’s director-general has now ordered gynecologists to stop administering the drugs. According a report in Haaretz, suspicions were first raised by an investigative journalist, Gal Gabbay, who interviewed more than 30 women from Ethiopia in an attempt to discover why birth rates in the community had fallen dramatically.

One of the Ethiopian women who was interviewed is quoted as saying: “They [medical staff] told us they are inoculations. We took it every three months. We said we didn’t want to.” It is alleged that some of the women were forced or coerced to take the drug while in transit camps in Ethiopia.

The drug in question is thought to be Depo-Provera, which is injected every three months and is considered to be a highly effective, long-lasting contraceptive.

Nearly 100,000 Ethiopian Jews have moved to Israel under the Law of Return since the 1980s, but their Jewishness has been questioned by some rabbis. Last year, the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who also holds the health portfolio, warned that illegal immigrants from Africa “threaten our existence as a Jewish and democratic state”.

Shmuel Shapira Twitter censorship

In 2022, Professor Shmuel Shapira, former Director General of the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) was censored by Twitter for criticizing mRNA vaccines.

Shapira was Director General, the most senior medical job in the country, between 2013 and 2021. He is also the founder and head of the Department of Military Medicine of the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine and IDF Medical Corps. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at Reichman University in Israel.

He started his Twitter account in January 2022, and was almost immediately censored by the corporation. Professor Shapira, who wrote he was "physically injured” after his third Pfizer vaccine, was forced by Twitter to remove a post which said: "Monkey pox cases were rare for years. During the last years a single case was documented in Israel. It is well established the mRNA vaccines affect the natural immune system. A monkey pox outbreak following massive covid vaccination: *Is not a coincidence." On July 28, 2022, Shapira wrote: “T warned me to remove the T connecting MP to C. Each day I understand better where we live and in which year."

Shapira has grown increasingly critical of the mRNA vaccines since he first denounced the Israeli Genesis Award for being delivered to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in January 2022.

On February 6, 2022, Shapira asked: "What grade would you give to a vaccine that people are vaccinated with three times and get sick twice (as of today)? Not to mention significant side effects[.]"

On May 13, 2022, Shapira said: "I received 3 vaccinations, I was physically injured in a very significant way as many others were injured[.] And in addition, my trust in the nature of the decisions and in the processes of making them has been severely eroded. No one asked and checked. I will fight with all my might so that truthful answers regarding all decisions and not just regarding the vaccine are given[.]"

Further reading

Israel's History Of Chemical Weapons Use

 

Related Document

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:Ephraim Katzir and Israeli CBW Program	article	9 December 2012	Richard Silverstein	Some useful insights into the history of Israeli chemical and biological weapons development and use.

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11 November 2021 Terje 
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