
No Longer a Secret: How Israel Destroyed Syria's Nuclear Reactor - myth_drannon
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-no-longer-a-secret-how-israel-destroyed-syria-s-nuclear-reactor-1.5914407
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shaqbert
In context, here is a great video from the Belfer center on nuclear bomb
making and what are the hard parts [0]. Getting the fission material is the
hard part, and in order to get plutonium nukes you need a enrichment plant,
i.e. a reactor that is not meant to produce energy but breed plutonium.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVhQOhxb1Mc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVhQOhxb1Mc)
(at min 47, he starts talking about the hard parts)

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stcredzero
_i.e. a reactor that is not meant to produce energy but breed plutonium._

The French demonstrate that it is perfectly practical to run reactors to both
produce energy and breed plutonium.

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shaqbert
Well yes in terms of Plutonium in general, but not the weapon grade P239 kind
of material that is very pure... For those you need a specific reactor
dedicated to one cause.

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olivermarks
One rogue state with undeclared nuclear weapons bombing another rogue state to
prevent them building undeclared nuclear weapons...all kept secret for 10
years...Israeli intelligence gathering has amazing penetration and
sophistication... [https://youtu.be/ca-C3voZwpM](https://youtu.be/ca-C3voZwpM)

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loufe
It's been public since at most 2012, nevertheless for a country of their size
-I agree- their intelligence organizations are incredibly impressive.

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thathappened
Google q anon posts but skip the dot com on mobile.

Seems as though something big related to integrated intelligence and
politicians about to happen.

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mullen
The New Yorker has a much better article that came out 6 years ago.

[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/09/17/the-silent-
str...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/09/17/the-silent-strike)

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pacofvf
I've read both, Haaretz's it's more in depth, It give us an insight of what
happened at Olmert's cabinet and his conversations with Nethanyu.

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MichaelMoser123
I don't know what to make of it: there seems to be a media campaign going with
the aim to make Olmert look good: he is back on the front pages - he got out
of jail recently and his memoirs are being published by Yediot Ahronot; Now go
figure what is for real and what is part of the media campaign.

Or that they want to block Barak and his recent attempts to get back into
politics. Interesting that the article paints Barak as a conspiracy minded
crackpot. (Maybe one has to be a conspiracy theorist in order to survive
office politics in Israel).

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octorian
I remember when this event was an active news story. At the time, it seemed
like you'd learn something new every time you refreshed the page, and get a
different ambiguous take on events depending on which news source you were
reading,

The only thing that was clear to me (in guarded vague language) was that
Israel had bombed something in Syria, and that it might have been nuclear-
related.

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gaius_baltar
The part that really got me is the one regarding the photos that Israeli
agents captured from Othman's laptop in Vienna. This looks like the surface of
a deeper story -- why was a top diplomatic agent carrying highly classified
information lacking basic training on data security? Or why did his staff let
him use an unsecured/unencrypted computer? Assuming he had no use for these
pictures in Vienna, why was he carrying them to a place where attacks from
foreign agents are expected? Why weren't top diplomatic agents and people
trusted with state secrets issued clean (and secured) laptops before traveling
abroad?

The way it was described precludes a Evil Maid Attack unless, of course, they
had previous access to the same laptop. A lot of very interesting questions
remain.

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justicezyx
So in some other context, such activities are labeled "terrorism", now this
becomes more neutral.

This title is actually fine.

But the other ones need to be more objective.

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smsm42
Terrorism is untargeted violence against civil population, with the aim to
instill fear and influence policy. Destruction of a military or military-
related object by a warring country is not terrorism, it is an act of war. In
war, objects that can have military significance - bridges, roads, factories,
warehouses, etc. - are routinely attacked. This has nothing to do with
terrorism. Note that Israel and Syria is in the state of war since 1948, when
Syria was one of the states that tried to destroy the nascent Jewish state.
Unlike some other Arab countries, Syria never made peace with Israel and never
really wanted to.

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lr4444lr
_Terrorism is untargeted violence against civil population, with the aim to
instill fear and influence policy_

... by non-state actors. When a recognized government does it, it's generally
called a war crime.

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arethuza
"it's generally called a war crime."

Or UK strategic bombing policy in WW2... the Nazis even called the allied
bombing "terror attacks".

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tatersolid
That’s quite a bit of historical revisionism.

The Germans bombed the hell out of civilians indiscriminately all over Europe,
including London and most other large cities in the UK years before the allies
bombed German cities.

Retaliation-in-kind during open war isn’t the same thing as terrorism.

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benja123
The Ynet article has a really interesting short video documentary in which
they interview many of the people involved in the decision making. Also no
paywall.

[https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5182507,00.html](https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5182507,00.html)

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brianbreslin
Is there any way to find this article not behind a paywall?

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phyller
For those down-voting this question, keep in mind the FAQs mention that
stories can be posted from paywall sites that have work arounds:

 _Are paywalls ok?_

"It's ok to post stories from sites with paywalls that have workarounds.

In comments, it's ok to ask how to read an article and to help other users do
so. But please don't post complaints about paywalls. Those are off topic."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

~~~
brianbreslin
This brings up the challenge that it is hard to ask a person to pay for a
subscription to a site to read one article. I know a million startups have
tried to tackle this, but none have done it right yet.

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CiPHPerCoder
The CSS popups on this page are annoying.

