Israeli Deputy Minister all but calls NYT report of 6 Day War, ‘Fake News’

 

Israeli Deputy Minister Michael Oren, a historian and visiting professor at Harvard, Yale, and Georgetown universities, totally rejects a New York Times report claiming Israel was prepared to detonate a nuclear bomb in 1967 if it had felt war was lost, saying, “There is not even half a hint that supports” such a claim.

By Arutz Sheva Staff and JTA

 

Deputy Minister Michael Oren (Kulanu), a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, on Sunday rejected a report in the New York Timeswhich claimed that Israel was prepared to detonate a nuclear bomb in the Sinai to turn the tide of the 1967 Six Day War with its Arab neighbors if necessary.

The New York Times report was based on an interview by leading Israeli nuclear scholar Avner Cohen with retired IDF Brig.-Gen. Itzhak Yaakov, who allegedly oversaw the plan.

Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide by former Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren – Photo: IsraelandStuff/PP

 

Yaakov, who oversaw weapons development for the Israeli military, detailed the plan to Cohen in interviews in 1999 and 2000. He died in 2013 at the age of 87.

Oren, who wrote a comprehensive history of the Six Day War, said Sunday that thousands of declassified documents from the war do not support a plan to detonate a nuclear bomb in Egypt’s Sinai, reported JTA.

He noted that basing such a report on one source is unacceptable.

“I also interviewed Yitzhak Yaakov, and I was not convinced that the story holds water,” he was quoted as having told the Times of Israel. “They released tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of classified documents from the Six Day War, the government discussions of our defense establishment and foreign intelligence organizations, and there is not even half a hint that supports Avner Cohen’s version. If there was something there, we would find more evidence.”

Yaakov was arrested in 2001, at the age of 75, for discussing the country’s nuclear program with Yediot Aharonot reporter Ronen Bergman.

The doomsday article is not the only recent example of the New York Times biased reporting. The lead story on the London Ramadan terrorist attack does not identify the attackers by religion, and claims that the motive is “unknown,” even though it later quotes witnesses as saying that the “attackers” screamed out “I am doing this for Allah” or “This is for Allah” as they repeatedly stabbed their victims…..

And a front page article in the News of the Week in Review section is titled “Israel’s Everlasting Occupation.”

 

View original Arutz Sheva publication at:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/230548