SINAI NUCLEAR WAR

SIGNS OF SANAI NUCLEAR WAR
2500 BC

 

Dee Finney's blog

start date July 20, 2011

today's date September 24, 2012

page 315

TOPIC:  NUCLEAR WINTER

THIS IS A SCARY PROSPECT WHICH HAS HAPPENED ON EARTH IN ANCIENT TIMES.

TO BEGIN WITH, I JUST GOT A LINK TO THE PAPERS PUT OUT BY OUR GOVERNMENT'S NUCLEAR AGENCY

YOU MIGHT WANT TO READ THESE FIRST

Inspector General Reports: FY 2012 Index

This page includes links to files in non-HTML format. See Plugins, Viewers, and Other Tools for more information.

Report Title Date Number
Audit of NRC's 10 CFR Part 31 General Licensing Program 09/26/2012 OIG-12-A-21
Memorandum Report: Audit of NRC’s Oversight of the Agency’s Federally Funded Research and Development Center 09/26/2012 OIG-12-A-20
Audit of NRC’s Use of Orders 09/25/2012 OIG-12-A-19
Audit of NRC’s Contract Administration of the EPM Contract 09/17/2012 OIG-12-A-18
Evaluation Report – Information Security Risk Evaluation of Region II – Atlanta, GA 08/27/2012 OIG-12-A-17
Audit of NRC’s Inspections, Tests, Analyses, and Acceptance Criteria (ITAAC) Process 07/12/2012 OIG-12-A-16
Audit of NRC’s Oversight of Industrial Radiography 06/28/2012 OIG-12-A-15
Audit of NRC’s Issuance of General Licenses 06/28/2012 OIG-12-A-14
Audit of NRC's Management of Import/Export Authorizations 04/20/2012 OIG-12-A-13
Audit of NRC’s Protection of Safeguards Information (SGI) 04/16/2012 OIG-12-A-12
Audit of NRC’s FY 2011 Compliance With the Improper Payment Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010 (IPERA) 03/15/2012 OIG-12-A-11
Audit of NRC’s Management of the Baseline Security Inspection Program 03/08/2012 OIG-12-A-10
Audit of NRC's Use of Confirmatory Action Letters 02/10/2012 OIG-12-A-09
Independent Auditor's Report on the Condensed Financial Statements 02/01/2012 OIG-12-A-08
Memorandum Report: Audit of NRC's Implementation of the Federal Managers' Financial Integrity Act for Fiscal Year 2011 01/26/2012 OIG-12-A-07
Audit of NRC's Oversight of Decommissioned Uranium Recovery Sites and Sites Undergoing Decommissioning 12/13/2011 OIG-12-A-06
Independent Auditor's Report On The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Special-Purpose Financial Statements As Of September 30, 2011, And For The Year Then Ended 11/15/2011 OIG-12-A-05
Independent Evaluation of NRC’s Implementation of the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) for FY 2011 11/09/2011 OIG-12-A-04
Results of the Audit of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s Financial Statements for Fiscal Year 2011 11/09/2011 OIG-12-A-03
Independent Evaluation of NRC’s Contract Award Process 11/07/2011 OIG-12-A-02
Evaluation Report: Inspector General’s Assessment of the Most Serious Management and Performance Challenges Facing NRC 10/03/2011 OIG-12-A-01
Page Last Reviewed/Updated Thursday, September 27, 2012

 

Numerous evidence of Pre-Historic Nuclear War exists:

Columns of Smoke Rose as if from a Mighty Furnace

by Brad Steiger

Ancient Indian Epics

Ancient Indian Epics, especially the Mahabharata, document apparent pre-historic nuclear devastation and destruction, that is being verified by diverse scholars.

“Then the Lord rained down fire and tar

 from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah,

 and utterly destroyed them….” Genesis

 19:24.

My previous article in The Canadian , in

 which I reflected upon my book Worlds

 Before Our Own, provoked dozens of

 inquiries from readers. LINK Some stated

 that one of the cable channels -- some

 thought it was the History Channel;

 others, Discovery; still others, National Geographic -- had

presented “proof” that the “fused green glass” to be found in

 various areas had been created by meteoric air blasts rather than

prehistoric nuclear wars.

I remain open to many theories of Earth‘s prehistory. One of those

individuals prompted to write to me, who had the advantage of

 having actually read Worlds Before Our Own, stated that I present

 “in a clear and lucid style, information concerning anomalous

 archeological finds without the hyperbole usually associated with

 this type of material.”

While patches of “fused green glass” may in certain instances have

 been caused by air blasts from meteors, I wonder if such a natural

phenomenon could have created all twenty-eight fields of

 blackened and shattered stones that cover as many as 7000 miles

 each in western Arabia. The stones are densely grouped, as if they

 might be the remains of cities, sharp-edged, and burned black.

 Experts have decreed that they are not volcanic in origin, but

 appear to date from the period when Arabia was thought to be a

 lush and fruitful land that suddenly became scorched into an

 instant desert.

What we know today as the Sahara Desert was once a tropical

 region of heavy vegetation, abundant rainfall, and several large

rivers. Scientists have discovered areas of the desert in which soils

 which once knew the cultivated influence of plow and farmer are

 now covered by a thin layer of sand. Researchers have also found

 an enormous reservoir of water below the parched desert area.

 The source of such a large deposit of water could only have been

 the heavy rains from the period of time before a fiery devastation

 consumed the lush vegetation of the area.

On December 25, 2007, it was confirmed by a French scientist that

 excavations at the area of Khamis Bani Sa’ad in Tehema district of

 Hodeidah province have yielded over a thousand rare

 archaeological pieces dating back to 300,000 B.C.E. Before a

 dramatic climate change, the inhabitants at that time had been

 fishermen and had domesticated a number of animals no longer to

 be found in the region, including a species of horse currently

 found only in Middle Asia.

The Red Chinese have conducted atomic tests near Lob Nor Lake in

 the Gobi Desert, which have left large patches of the area covered

with vitreous sand. But the Gobi has a number of other areas of

glassy sand which have been known for thousands of years.

Albion W. Hart, one of the first engineers to graduate from

 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was assigned a project in

the interior of Africa. While he and his men were traveling to an

almost inaccessible region, they had first to cross a great expanse

of desert. At the time, he was puzzled and quite unable to explain

a large area of greenish glass which covered the sands as far as he

could see.

"Later on during his life," wrote Margarethe Casson in Rocks and

Minerals (No. 396, 1972), "he passed by the White Sands area

after the first atomic explosion there, and he recognized the same

type of silica fusion which he had seen fifty years earlier in the

African desert."

In 1947, in the Euphrates valley of southern Iraq, where certain

traditions place the Garden of Eden and where the ancient

 inhabitants of Sumer encountered the man-god Ea, exploratory

digging unearthed a layer of fused, green glass. Archaeologists

could not restrain themselves from noting the resemblance that

the several-thousand-year-old fused glass bore to the desert floor

at White Sands, New Mexico, after the first nuclear blasts in

modem times had melted sand and rock.

In the United States, the Mohave Desert has large circular or

polygonal areas that are coated with a hard substance very much

like opaque glass.

While exploring Death Valley in 1850, William Walker claimed to

have come upon the ruins of an ancient city. An end of the large

building within the rubble had had its stones melted and vitrified.

Walker went on to state that the entire region between the Gila

and St. John rivers was spotted with ruins. In each of the ancient

settlements he had found evidence that they had been burned out

by fire intense enough to have liquefied rock. Paving blocks and

stone houses had been split with huge cracks, as if seared by some

gigantic cleaver of fire.

Perhaps even more than the large areas of fused green glass, I am

intrigued by the evidence of vitrified cities and forts, such as those

discovered by Walker.

There are ancient hill forts and towers in Scotland, Ireland, and

England in which the stoneworks have become calcined because of

the great heat that had been applied. There is no way that

lightning could have caused such effects.

Other hill forts from the Lofoten Islands off northern Norway to the

Canary Islands off northwest Africa have become “fused forts.”

Erich A. von Fange comments that the “piled boulders of their

circular walls have been turned to glass… by some intense heat.”

Catal Huyukin in north-central Turkey, thought to be one of the

oldest cities in the world, appears, according to archaeological

evidence, to have been fully civilized and then, suddenly, to have

died out. Archaeologists were astonished to find thick layers of

burned brick at one of the levels, called VIa. The blocks had been

fused together by such intense heat that the effects had penetrated

to a depth more than a meter below the level of the floors, where

it carbonized the earth, the skeletal remains of the dead, and the

burial gifts that had been interred with them. All bacterial decay

had been halted by the tremendous heat.

When a large ziggurat in Babylonia was excavated, it presented the

appearance of having been struck by a terrible fire that had split it

down to its foundation. In other parts of the ruins, large sections of

brickwork had been scorched into a vitrified state. Several masses

of brickwork had been rendered into a completely molten state.

Even large boulders found near the ruins had been vitrified.


The royal buildings at the north Syrian site known as Alalakh or

Atchana had been so completely burned that the very core of the

thick walls were filled with bright red, crumbling mud-bricks. The

mud and lime wall plaster had been vitrified, and basalt wall slabs

had, in some areas, actually melted.

Between India's Ganges River and the Rajmahal Hills are scorched

ruins which contain large masses of stone that have been fused

and hollowed. Certain travelers who have ventured to the heart of

the Indian forests have reported ruins of cities in which the walls

have become huge slabs of crystal, due to some intense heat.

The ruins of the Seven Cities, located near the equator in the

Province of Piaui, Brazil, appear to be the scene of a monstrous

chaos. Since no geological explanation has yet been construed to

fit the evidence before the archaeologists, certain of those who

have investigated the site have said that the manner in which the

stones have been dried out, destroyed, and melted provokes

images of Sodom and Gomorrah.

French researchers discovered the evidence of prehistoric

spontaneous nuclear reaction at the Oklo mine, Pierrelatte, in

Gabon, Africa. Scientists found that the ore of this mine contained

abnormally low proportions of U235 such as found only in depleted

uranium fuel taken from atomic reactors. According to those who

examined the mine, the ore also contained four rare elements in

forms similar to those found in depleted uranium.

Although the modern world did not experience atomic power until

the 1940s, there is an astonishing amount of evidence that nuclear

effects may have occurred in prehistoric times leaving behind sand

melted into glass in certain desert areas, hill forts with vitrified

portions of stone walls, of the remains of ancient cities that had

been destroyed by what appeared to have been extreme heat-far

beyond that which could have been scorched by the torches of

primitive armies. In each instance, the trained and experienced

archaeologists who encountered such anomalous finds have

stressed the point that none of these catastrophes had been caused

by volcanoes, by lightning, by crashing comets, or by

conflagrations set by humankind.

Sinai peninsular area of apparent nuclear war activity

Sinai peninsular area of apparent nuclear war activity.

Zecharia Sitchin (1985) devotes an entire

chapter to a discussion of nuclear warfare

in ancient times in Mesopotamia and the

Sinai peninsula. In this book he also

suggests the destruction of the Sinai

“space facilities” by nuclear weapons. He

offers as evidence:

“…the immense cavity in the center of the

Sinai and the resulting fracture lines (see figure), the vast

surrounding flat area covered with blackened stones, traces of

radiation south of the Dead Sea, the new extent and shape of the

Dead Sea – is still there, four thousand years later”.


 

 

Copyright © 2007 The Canadian. All rights reserved.

THIS ARTICLE CALLS IT DIVINE JUDGMENT

Sodom and Gomorrah (play /ˈsɒd.əm/;[1] play /ɡə.ˈmɔr.ə/[2]) were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources, as well as the Qur'an. According to the Torah, the kingdoms of Sodom and Gomorrah were allied with the cities of Admah, Zeboim and Bela. These five cities, also known as the "cities of the plain", were situated on the Jordan river plain in the southern region of the land of Canaan. The Jordan river plain (which corresponds to area just north of the modern day Dead Sea[3]) has been compared to the garden of Eden,[Gen.13:10] being a land well-watered and green, suitable for grazing livestock.

Divine judgment by Yahweh was then passed upon Sodom and Gomorrah along with two other neighboring cities that were completely consumed by fire and brimstone. Neighboring Zoar was the only city to be spared during that day of judgment.[Deut.29:23][Gen.10:19] In Christian and Islamic traditions, Sodom and Gomorrah have become synonymous with impenitent sin, and their fall with a proverbial manifestation of God's wrath.[4][Jude 1:7] Sodom and Gomorrah have been used as metaphors for vice and homosexuality viewed as a deviation. The story has therefore given rise to words in several languages, including the English word sodomy, used in so-called sodomy laws to describe a sexual "crime against nature" consisting of anal and/or oral sex, either homosexual or heterosexual.[5]

Etymology

The name Sodom is derived from Hebrew: סְדוֹם, Modern Sədom Tiberian Səḏôm, and Greek Σόδομα Sódoma. The name Gomorrah is derived from Hebrew: עֲמוֹרָה, Modern ʿAmora Tiberian Ġəmôrāh/ʿĂmôrāh, and Greek Γόμοῤῥα / Gómorrha. The exact meaning of the names is uncertain. The name Sodom could be a word from an early Semitic language ultimately related to the Arabic sadama, meaning "fasten", "fortify", "strengthen", and Gomorrah could be based on the root gh m r, which means "be deep", "copious (water)".[6]

 Historicity

The historical existence of Sodom and Gomorrah is still in dispute by archaeologists, as little archaeological evidence has ever been found in the regions where they were supposedly situated. The Bible indicates they were located near the Dead Sea (Genesis 14:1-3, 14:8-10, 34:3).

Strabo states that locals living near Moasada (as opposed to Masada) say that "there were once thirteen inhabited cities in that region of which Sodom was the metropolis". Strabo identifies a limestone and salt hill at the south western tip of the Dead Sea, and Kharbet Usdum ruins nearby as the site of biblical Sodom.[7]

Archibald Sayce translated an Akkadian poem describing cities that were destroyed in a rain of fire, written from the view of a person who escaped the destruction; the names of the cities are not given.[8] However, Sayce later mentions that the story more closely resembles the doom of Sennacherib's host.[9]

In 1976 Giovanni Pettinato claimed that a cuneiform tablet that had been found in the newly discovered library at Ebla contained the names of all five of the cities of the plain (Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Bela), listed in the same order as in Genesis. The names si-da-mu [TM.76.G.524] and ì-ma-ar [TM.75.G.1570 and TM.75.G.2233] were identified as representing Sodom and Gomorrah, which gained some acceptance at the time.[10] However, Alfonso Archi states that, judging from the surrounding city names in the cuneiform list, si-da-mu lies in northern Syria and not near the Dead Sea, and ì-ma-ar is a variant of ì-mar, known to represent Emar, an ancient city located near Ebla.[11] William Shea points out in 1983 that on the 'Eblaite Geographical Atlas' [TM.75.G.2231], ad-mu-ut and sa-dam are good readings by Pettinato and correspond to Admah and Sodom, and they are contained in a list of cities that traces a route along the shores of, or quite possibly within the Dead Sea, whose position may have since shifted along its fault.[12] Today, the scientific consensus is reported as being that "Ebla has no bearing on ... Sodom and Gomorra."[13]

If the cities actually existed, they might have been destroyed as the result of a natural cataclysm. Geologists have confirmed that no volcanic activity occurred within the last 4000 years. However, it is possible that the towns were destroyed by an earthquake in the region, especially if the towns lay along a major fault, the Jordan Rift Valley. However, there is a lack of contemporary accounts of seismic activity within the necessary timeframe to corroborate this theory.[14]

Possible candidates for Sodom or Gomorrah are the sites discovered or visited by Walter E. Rast and R. Thomas Schaub in 1973, including Bab edh-Dhra, which was originally excavated in 1965 by archaeologist Paul Lapp, only to have his work continued by Rast and Schaub following his death by accidental drowning in the waters off of Cyprus in 1970. Other possibilities also include Numeira, es-Safi, Feifeh and Khanazir, which were also visited by Schaub and Rast. All sites were located near the Dead Sea, with evidence of burning and traces of sulfur.[15][16] Archaeological remains excavated from Bab edh-Dhra are currently displayed in Karak Archaeological Museum (Karak Castle) and Amman Citadel Museum.

Another possible candidate for Sodom is the Tall el-Hammam dig site which began in 2006 under the direction of Steven Collins. Tall el-Hammam is located in the southern Jordan river valley approximately 14 kilometers Northeast of the Dead Sea, and seemingly fitting the Bible descriptions of the lands of Sodom. The ongoing dig is a result of joint cooperation between Trinity South Western University and the Department of Antiquities of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.[17] The tall proper is 36 hectares while the footprint size of general settlement extends beyond this well over 40 hectares. Due to the size this puts Tall el-Hammam as one of the largest Bronze sites that has been discovered in Jordan. Analysis of the findings indicates that the site was occupied from the Chalcolithic period on up the Iron Age (however there may likely be period gaps as well, along with evidences of glazed artifacts - such as pottery and rocks, and destruction). In addition there is evidence of Hellenistic, Eastern Roman, and Byzantium occupation on the site.[18]

The Jewish historian Josephus identifies the Dead Sea in geographic proximity to the ancient biblical city of Sodom. However, he refers to the lake by its Greek name, Asphaltites.[19]

 Biblical narratives

The Book of Genesis is the primary source that mentions the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Major and minor prophets in the Hebrew Bible have also referred to Sodom and Gomorrah to parallel their prophetic events. In suite, the New Testament also contains passages of parallels to the destruction and surrounding events that pertained to these cities and those who were involved. Later Deuterocanonical texts attempt to glean additional insights about these cities of the Jordan Plain.

 Political climate

In Genesis Chapter 14, Sodom and Gomorrah's political situation is described during the time biblical Lot had encamped in Sodom's territory.[20] Genesis 13:13 indicates that at that time, "the men of Sodom [were] wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly." Sodom was ruled by king Bera while Gomorrah was ruled by king Birsha. Their kingship, however, was not sovereign, because all of the river Jordan plain was under Elamite rule for twelve years. The kingdom of Elam was ruled by king Chedorlaomer.[Genesis 14:1-4]

In the thirteenth year of subjection to Elam, the five kings of the river Jordan plain aligned together to rebel against Elamite rule.[v.4] These kings included those of Sodom and Gomorrah as well as their neighbors: king Shinab of Admah, king Shemeber of Zeboiim, and the unnamed king of Bela (later called Zoar).[v.2]

In response, Elam's king Chedorlaomer, gathered additional forces from Shinar, Ellasar and Goyim to suppress this rebellion from the cities of the plain.[v.1,2] They waged war in the Vale of Siddim[v.3,8] in the fourteenth year. The battle was brutal with heavy losses in the cities of the plain, with their resultant defeat.[v.10] Sodom and Gomorrah were spoiled of their goods, and captives were taken, including Lot.[v.11,12]

The tide of war turned when Lot's uncle Abram gathered an elite force that slaughtered king Chedorlaomer's forces in Hobah, north of Damascus.[v.14-17] The success of his mission freed the cities of the plain from under Elam's rule.[v.18-20]

 Judgment

In Genesis 18, three men came, thought by most commentators to have been angels appearing as men,[21] to Abram (Abraham) in the plains of Mamre.

After the angels received the hospitality of Abraham and Sarah, his wife, the LORD revealed to Abraham that he would destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, because their cry was great, "and because their sin is very grievous."[Gen 18:20] In response, Abraham inquired of the LORD if he would spare the city if 50 righteous people were found in it, to which the LORD agreed he would not destroy it for the sake of the righteous yet dwelling therein. Abraham then inquired of God for mercy at lower numbers (first 45, then 40, then 30, then 20, and finally at 10), with the LORD agreeing each time.[Gen 18:22-33][22] Two of the angels proceeded to Sodom and were met by Abraham's nephew Lot, who convinced the angels to lodge with him, and they ate with Lot.

Genesis 19:4-5 (KJV) described what followed, which confirmed its end:

4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, [even] the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter:
5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where [are] the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them. (NRSV: know them, NIV: can have sex with them, NJB: can have intercourse with them).

Lot refused to give his guests to the inhabitants of Sodom and, instead, offered them his two virgin daughters "which have not known man" and to "do ye to them as [is] good in your eyes".[Gen 19:8] However, they refused this offer and threatened to do worse to Lot than they would have done to his guests, and then came near to break down the door. Lot's angelic guests rescued him and struck the men with blindness, thereby revealing to Lot that they were not ordinary men but angels, and they informed Lot of their mission to destroy the city.[Genesis 19:9-13]

Then (not having found even 10 righteous people in the city), they commanded Lot to gather his family and leave. As they made their escape, one angel commanded Lot to "look not behind thee" (singular "thee").[Genesis 19:17] However, as Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed with brimstone and fire from the LORD, Lot's wife looked back at the city, and she became a pillar of salt.[Genesis 19:23-26]

Religious views

 Jewish

Rictor Norton views classical Jewish texts as stressing the cruelty and lack of hospitality of the inhabitants of Sodom to the "stranger".[23] The Jewish Encyclopedia has information on the importance of hospitality to the Jewish people.[24] The people of Sodom were seen as guilty of many other significant sins. Rabbinic writings affirm that the Sodomites also committed economic crimes, blasphemy and bloodshed.[25] One of the worst was to give money or even gold ingots to beggars, after inscribing their names on them, and then subsequently refusing to sell them food. The unfortunate stranger would end up starving and after his death, the people who gave him the money would reclaim it.

A rabbinic tradition, described in the Mishnah, postulates that the sin of Sodom was related to property: Sodomites believed that "what is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours" (Abot), which is interpreted as a lack of compassion. Another rabbinic tradition is that these two wealthy cities treated visitors in a sadistic fashion. One major crime done to strangers was almost identical to that of Procrustes in Greek mythology. This would be the story of the "bed" that guests to Sodom were forced to sleep in: if they were too short they were stretched to fit it, and if they were too tall, they were cut up (indeed, in Hebrew and Yiddish, the corresponding term for a Procrustean bed is a "Sodom bed").

In another incident, Eliezer, Abraham's servant, went to visit Lot in Sodom and got in a dispute with a Sodomite over a beggar, and was hit in the forehead with a stone, making him bleed. The Sodomite demanded Eliezer pay him for the service of bloodletting, and a Sodomite judge sided with the Sodomite. Eliezer then struck the judge in the forehead with a stone and asked the judge to pay the Sodomite.

The Talmud and the book of Jasher also recount two incidents of a young girl (one involved Lot's daughter Paltith) who gave some bread to a poor man who had entered the city. When the townspeople discovered their acts of kindness, they burned Paltith and smeared the other girl's body with honey and hung her from the city wall until she was eaten by bees. (Sanhedrin 109a.) It is this gruesome event, and her scream in particular, the Talmud concludes, that are alluded to in the verse that heralds the city's destruction: "So[26] said, 'Because the outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah has become great, and because their sin has been very grave, I will descend and see...'"[Gen 18:20-21]

A modern orthodox position is one that holds, "The paradigmatic instance of such aberrant behavior is found in the demand of the men of Sodom to 'know' the men visiting Lot, the nephew of Abraham, thus lending their name to the practice of 'sodomy'."[27]

The scholar and activist Jay Michaelson proposes a reading of the story of Sodom that emphasizes the violation of hospitality as well as the violence of the Sodomites. "Homosexual rape is the way in which they violate hospitality—not the essence of their transgression. Reading the story of Sodom as being about homosexuality is like reading the story of an ax murderer as being about an ax."[28] Michaelson places the story of Sodom in context with other Genesis stories regarding Abraham's hospitality to strangers, and argues that when other texts in the Hebrew Bible mention Sodom, they do so without commentary on homosexuality. The verses cited by Michaelson include Jeremiah 23:14,[Jeremiah 23:14] where the sins of Jerusalem are compared to Sodom and are listed as adultery, lying, and strengthening the hands of evildoers; Amos 4:1-11 (oppressing the poor and crushing the needy);[Amos 4:1-11] and Ezekiel 16:49-50,[Ezekiel 16:49-50] which defines the sins of Sodom as "pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and did toevah before me, and I took them away as I saw fit." Michaelson uses toevah in place of abomination to emphasize the original Hebrew, which he explains as being more correctly translated at "taboo".[29]

 Christian

Several theories have been advanced in Christian thought concerning the sin of Sodom, two of which are prevailing opinions—a sexual and a nonsexual view.

The more prominent theory, representing orthodox Christian opinion, holds that the demand of Lot's countrymen was referring to a militant solicitation for homosexual sex—a same-sex orgy.[30][31]

The contention between the two positions primarily focuses upon the meaning of the word know, in verse 5:

And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where [are] the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them. —Gen 19:5

Those who favor the non-sexual interpretation argue against a denotation of sexual behavior in this context, noting that while the Hebrew word for know appears over 900 times in the Hebrew Scriptures, only approximately 1% (13-14 times)[23][32] of those references is it clearly used as a euphemism for realizing sexual intimacy.[33] Instead, those who hold to this interpretation usually see the demand to know as demanding the right to interrogate the strangers.[34]

Countering this is the observation that one of the examples of "know" meaning to know sexually occurs only three verses later in the same narrative:

Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing.... —Genesis 19:8

The following is a major text in regard to these conflicting opinions:

Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. —Jude 1:7

This reference to "going after strange flesh" is understood in different ways to include something akin to bestiality, having illicit sex with strangers, having sex with angels, but most often God's destruction of the populations of the four cities is interpreted to mean homosexual (same-sex) relations.[35]

Many who interpret the stories in a non-sexual context contend that as the word for "strange" is akin to "another", "other", "altered" or even "next", the meaning is unclear, and if the condemnation of Sodom was the result of sexual activities perceived to be perverse, then it is likely that it was because women sought to commit fornication with "other than human" angels,[36] perhaps referring to Genesis 6 or the apocryphal Book of Enoch. Countering this, it is pointed out that Genesis 6 refers to angels seeking women, not men seeking angels, and that both Sodom and Gomorrah were engaged in the sin Jude describes before the angelic visitation, and that, regardless, it is doubtful that the Sodomites knew they were angels. In addition, it is argued the word used in the King James Version of the Bible for "strange", can mean unlawful or corrupted (Rm. 7:3; Gal. 1:6), and that the apocryphal Second Book of Enoch (different from the one Jude quotes from) condemns "sodomitic" sex (Enoch 10:3; 34:1),[37] thus indicating that homosexual relations was the prevalent physical sin of Sodom.[38]

Both the non-sexual and the homosexuality view invoke certain classical writings as well as other portions of the Bible.[39][40]

Now this was the sin of Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. —Ezekiel 16:49-50

Here the nonsexual view focuses on the inhospitality aspect, while the other notes the description detestable or abomination, the Hebrew word for which often denotes moral sins, including those of a sexual nature.[41][42]

In the Gospel of Matthew (and corresponding verse) when Jesus warns of a worse judgment for some cities than Sodom, inhospitality is perceived by some as the sin, while others see it fundamentally being impenitence:

If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. I tell you the truth, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. --Matthew 10:14-15

The nonsexual view focuses on the cultural importance of hospitality, which this biblical story shares with other ancient civilizations, such as Greece and Rome, where hospitality was of singular importance and strangers were under the protection of the gods.[43]

The orthodox position does not deny this important cultural aspect, but tends to see the refusal to repent as being the main issue behind Jesus's condemnation, with this being causative of the particular inhospitality shown by the cities Jesus referred to. In addition, they see the information regarding Sodom as best indicating that forced perverse sex was the specific means of inhospitality, and the primary physical sin of Sodom.

 Islamic

The Quran contains seven references to "the people of Lut", the biblical Lot, but meaning the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah (references 7:80–84, 11:77–83, 21:74, 22:43, 26:165–175, 27:56–59, and 29:27–33), and their destruction by Allah is associated explicitly with their sexual practices:[44][45]

The 'people of Lot' transgressed consciously against the bounds of God. Their avarice led to inhospitality and robbery, which in turn led to the humiliation of strangers by mistreatment and rape. It was their abominable sin of homosexual sex which was seen as symptomatic of their attitudes,[46][47] and upon Lot's exhorting them to abandon their transgression against God, they ridiculed him,[48] threatening with dire consequences;[47][49][50] Lot only prayed to God to be saved from doing as they did. Then Gabriel met Lot and said that he must run from the town quickly, as Allah gave this command for Gabriel to give to Lot for saving his life. In the Quran it was written that Lot's wife was killed when she turned her head back to look at the disaster, and that only Lot was saved during the destruction of their town,[51] with the understanding that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are identified in Genesis, but "the location remains unnamed in the Qur'an"[52]

 Other references

 Moses

Moses in talking with the Israelites during the Exodus, refers to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah in Deuteronomy 29:22-23:

"Your children who follow you in later generations and foreigners who come from distant lands will see the calamities that have fallen on the land and the diseases with which the LORD has afflicted it. The whole land will be a burning waste of salt and sulfur—nothing planted, nothing sprouting, no vegetation growing on it. It will be like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, which the LORD overthrew in fierce anger." - NIV

See also: Deuteronomy 32:32-33

Major Prophets

Isaiah 1:9-10, Isaiah 3:9 and Isaiah 13:19-22 addresses people as from Sodom and Gomorrah, associates Sodom with shameless sinning and tells Babylon that it will end like Sodom and Gomorrah.

Jeremiah 23:14, Jeremiah 49:17-18, Jeremiah 50:39-40 and Lamentations 4:6 associate Sodom and Gomorrah with adultery and lies, prophesies the fate of Edom, south of the Dead Sea, prophesies the fate of Babylon and uses Sodom as a comparison.

In Ezekiel 16:48-50 God compares Jerusalem to Sodom, saying "Sodom never did what you and your daughters have done." He explains that the sin of Sodom was that "She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me."

Minor Prophets

In Amos 4:1-11 God tells the Israelites he had warned them and treated them like Sodom and Gomorrah, still they did not repent.

In Zephaniah 2:9 the prophet tells Moab and Ammon, southeast and northeast of the Dead Sea, that they will end up like Sodom and Gomorrah.

New Testament

In Matthew 10:1-15, cf. Luke 10:1-12, Jesus declares certain cities more damnable than Sodom and Gomorrah, due to their response to Jesus' disciples, in the light of greater grace (RSV):

"And if any one will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly, I say to you, it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomor'rah than for that town."

In Matthew 11:20-24 Jesus prophesies the fate of some cities where he did some of his works (RSV):

"And you, Caper'na-um, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you."

In Luke 17:28-30 Jesus compares his second-coming to the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah (RSV):

"Likewise as it was in the days of Lot—they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built, but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom fire and sulphur rained from heaven and destroyed them all—so will it be on the day when the Son of man is revealed."

In Romans 9:29 Paul quotes Isaiah 1:9-10 (RSV): "And as Isaiah predicted, 'If the Lord of hosts had not left us children, we would have fared like Sodom and been made like Gomor'rah.'"

In 2Peter 2:4-10 Peter uses the time of Sodom and Lot in his description of the time of the second coming of Jesus.

Jude 1:7 records that both Sodom and Gomorrah were "giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."

Revelation 11:7-8 makes an allegorical use of Sodom when it describes the places where two prophets will descend during the Apocalypse.

Deuterocanonical references

Wisdom 10:6 refers to Five Cities, including Sodom, or Pentapolis: "Wisdom rescued a righteous man when the ungodly were perishing; he escaped the fire that descended on the Five Cities."

Sodom was one of a group of five towns, the Pentapolis (Wisdom 10:6): Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim and Bela—also called Zoar.[Gen 19:22] The Pentapolis region is also collectively referred to as "the cities of the plain".[13:12]

 Modern Sodom

The site of the present Dead Sea Works, a large operation for the extraction of Dead Sea minerals, is called "Sdom" (סדום) according to its traditional Arab name, Khirbet as-sudūm. Nearby is unique Mount Sodom (הר סדום in Hebrew) consisting mainly of salt. In the Plain of Sdom (מישור סדום) to the south there are a few springs and two small agricultural villages.

 Popular culture

 See also

References

  1. ^ "Sodom". Wiktionary. Retrieved 2012-05-10. Adapted from «/ˈsɒdəm/».
  2. ^ "Book of Mormon Pronunciation Guide". LDS.org. Retrieved 2012-02-25. IPA-ified from «ga-mōr´a».
  3. ^ Smith, William (circa 1863). "Sodom". Smith's Bible Dictionary. http://topicalbible.org/s/sodom.htm. Retrieved 2011-08-15.
  4. ^ Qur'an(S15)Al-Hijr:72-73
  5. ^ Koerner, Brendan (2002-12-10). "What is sodomy". Slate. http://www.slate.com/id/2075271/. Retrieved 2010-05-30.
  6. ^ B. Macdonald (2000) (PDF). "East of the Jordan": Territories and Sites of the Hebrew Scriptures. American Schools of Oriental Research. ISBN 0-89757-031-6. http://www.asor.org/pubs/macdonald.pdf.
  7. ^ de Saulcy, Ferdinand (1853). Voyage autour de la mer Morte et dans les terres bibliques. Paris: Gide et J. Baudry.
  8. ^ A. H. Sayce. "The Overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah (Accadian Account)" Records of the Past XI 115.
  9. ^ Archibald Sayce (1887). The Hibbert Lectures, 1887: Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion. pp. 309.
  10. ^ Hershel Shanks (September/October 1980). "BAR Interviews Giovanni Pettinato". Biblical Archaeology Review 6 (5).
  11. ^ Alfonso Archi (November/December 1981). "Are "The Cities of the Plain" Mentioned in the Ebla Tablets?". Biblical Archaeology Review 7 (6).
  12. ^ Bryant G. Wood (Summer 1999). "The Discovery of the Sin Cities of Sodom and Gomorrah". Bible and Spade 12 (3).
  13. ^ Chavalas, Mark W., and K. Lawson Younger, Jr. (eds.) Mesopotamia and the Bible: Comparative Explorations. 2003. P.41
  14. ^ J. Penrose Harland (September 1943). "Sodom and Gomorrah: The Destruction of the Cities of the Plain". Biblical Archaeologist 6 (3).
  15. ^ "Does Archeological Data Support the Biblical Story?". http://www.aish.com/societyWork/sciencenature/Biblical_Archeology_Sodom_and_Gomorrah.asp.
  16. ^ [1]
  17. ^ "tallelhammam.com". http://www.tallelhammam.com.
  18. ^ "tallelhammam.com". http://www.tallelhammam.com/uploads/TeHEP_SEASON_FIVE_2010_REPORT.pdf.
  19. ^ Josephus. Antiquities of the Jews. Book I. Chapter 9. Retrieved from: http://sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/ant-1.htm
  20. ^ Genesis 13:11-12
  21. ^ According to Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary on the Bible, the "three men" were three heavenly beings in human bodies. "Some think they were all created angels; others, that one of them was the Son of God, the Angel of the covenant." In Genesis 18:3, the word "Lord" is the same word as in verse 1, but is plural, which would seem to indicate that Abraham could not determine that they were heavenly beings since they appeared as men. It wasn't until after the three had eaten, verses 9-15, that Abraham realized the true identity of his visitors and their purpose.three strangers
  22. ^ This is compared with the Sorites paradox in Geocomputation, Stan Openshaw, Robert J. Abrahart, 2000, p. 167.
  23. ^ a b The Inhospitable Sodomites
  24. ^ Jewish Encyclopedia
  25. ^ James Alfred Loader (1990). A tale of two cities : Sodom and Gomorrah in the Old Testament, early Jewish and early Christian traditions. Peeters Publishers. pp. 28.
  26. ^ Hashem
  27. ^ Jewish Ethics and Halakhah For Our Time (2002); Cf. Genesis Rabbah 50:5, on Gen. 9:22 ff. More generally see M.Kasher, Torah Shlemah, vol. 3 to Gen 19:5.)[139]
  28. ^ Michaelson, Jay (2011). God Vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality. Boston: Beacon Press. pp. 68-69. ISBN 9780807001592. http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2267.
  29. ^ Michaelson, Jay. God vs. Gay. pp. 69-70.
  30. ^ "The Old Testament Attitude to Homosexuality." Expository Times, 102 (1991): 259-363
  31. ^ Boswell, John (1980). Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 94.
  32. ^ Gn 4:1,17,25, 24:16, 38:26; Num 31:17,18,35; Jdg 11:39, 19:25, 21:11,12; 1Sam 1:19, 1Ki 1:4, cf. Mt 1:25, Lk 1:34
  33. ^ Jack Bartlet, Rogers (2006). Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality: Explode the myths, heal the church. Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox Press. pp. 139.
  34. ^ D S. Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Tradition, p. 8; John J. McNeil, the Church and the Homosexual, p. 50; Daniel Helminiak, http://www.neednotfret.com/content/view/124/89/
  35. ^ Miller, David. "Homosexuality and 'Strange Flesh'". Web: 28 Mar 2010. Homosexuality and 'Strange Flesh'
  36. ^ Bailey, Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition, pp. 11-16; Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, p.97
  37. ^ http://www38.bibliotecapleyades.net/enoch/2enoch01-68.htm
  38. ^ response to prof. l. William Countryman's review in Anglican theological review; On Careless Exegesis and Jude 7, Robert A. J. Gagnon
  39. ^ Bailey, Homosexuality and Western Tradition, pp. 1-28; McNeil, Church and the Homosexual, pp. 42-50; Boswell, Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, pp. 92-97
  40. ^ review essay of homosexuality, science, and the "plain sense" of scripture, part 2, Robert A. J. Gagnon
  41. ^ Lv.18:22; 26-27,29,30; 20:13; Dt. 23:18; 24:4 1Ki. 14:24; Ezek. 22:11; 33:26
  42. ^ cf. Straight & Narrow?: Compassion and Clarity in the Homosexuality Debate, Thomas E. Schmidt
  43. ^ Peck, Harry Thurston (1898). Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities. New York: Harper and Brothers. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin//ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0062;query=id%3D%238285;layout=;loc=hospitium-1. Retrieved 2006-03-17.
  44. ^ Duran (1993) p. 179
  45. ^ Kligerman (2007) pp. 53–54
  46. ^ Quran 07:81
  47. ^ a b Quran 26:165
  48. ^ Quran 29:29
  49. ^ Quran 54:33
  50. ^ Quran 7:80
  51. ^ Quran 26:168
  52. ^ [2]Ishmael Instructs Isaac: An Introduction to the Qurʼan for Bible Readers By John Kaltner - Liturgical Press, 1999 - page 97
  53. ^ "Notes from New Sodom". BSCreview. http://www.bscreview.com/author/hal-duncan/. Retrieved 2010-10-28.
  Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Sodom and Gomorrah

 External links

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Battle of Siddim
Abram Makes the Enemies Flee Who Hold His Nephew (1613 etching by Antonio Tempesta at the National Gallery of Art)
Date Early 2nd millenium BCE
Location Vale of Siddim (Salt Sea)
Result Cities of the Jordan plain freed from Elamite control; King of Elam killed; Lot and captives rescued
Belligerents
Five Kings of the

Cities of the Plain


Non aligned army

Four Kings of Mesopotamia
Commanders and leaders
King Bera King Chedorlaomer
Strength
Abram's 318 elite[1] Elamite Empire
Casualties and losses
No casualty figures;
all captives restored
Slaughter of Chedorlaomer and other kings

The Battle of Siddim, or Battle of the Vale of Siddim refers to an event in the Hebrew Bible book of Genesis 14:1-12 that occurred in the days of Abram and Lot. The Vale of Siddim was the battleground for the cities of the Jordan Plain revolting against the Elamite empire and its Mesopotamian allies.

According to the Bible, in the days of Lot, before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, The Elamite empire occupied the Land of Canaan which included all of the Jordan River Plain and many surrounding tribes and cities. The occupation was under the rule of King Chedorlaomer for twelve years. In the thirteenth year, five kings of the cities of the Jordan plain revolted against Elamite rule. According to Jewish tradition, the revolt started with refusing to pay tribute to the Elamite empire. This triggered Chedorlaomer to assemble forces from the four main directions of Mesopotamia. Chedorlaomer's campaign to the Jordan plains began with sacking and looting every city along the way.(Genesis 14:1–7)

Four kings of Mesopotamia

In response to the uprising of several kings that Chedorlaomer ruled over, he ensured victory by calling together three other nations, to align with the Kingdom of Elam. These four aligned kings were:

  1. King Chedorlaomer, ruler of the Persian empire of Elam, to the East and commander of the alliance.
  2. King Amraphel, ruler of Shinar from the southern regions of Babylon.
  3. King Arioch, ruler of Ellasar, from Assur to the North.
  4. King Tidal, leader of the Hittites from the West.[2]

 Five kings of the Jordan plain

The five kings from the Jordan River Plain rebelled against Elam rule, during Chedorlaomer's thirteenth year of reign over them. Their rebellion caused a domino effect that pushed Chedorlaomer to campaign against at least seven other nearby tribes and cities. The five kings of the plain were:

  1. Bera king of Sodom
  2. Birsha king of Gomorrah
  3. Shinab king of Admah
  4. Shemeber king of Zeboyim
  5. the king of Bela (renamed Zoar when Sodom destroyed)

Aftermath

The Mesopotamian forces overwhelmed the kings of the Jordan plain driving some them into asphalt or tar pits that littered the vale. Those who escaped, fled to the mountains including the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah. The cities of Sodom of Gomorrah were then spoiled of their goods and provisions as well as the taking of captives. Among the captives was Abram's nephew, Lot. (Genesis 14:10–12)

When word reached Abram, he immediately mounted a rescue operation, arming 318 of his trained servants who went in pursuit of the Mesopotamian armies that were returning to their homelands. They caught up with them in the city of Dan, flanking the enemy on multiple sides, during a night raid. The attack ran its course as far as Hobah, north of Damascus where he defeated Chedorlaomer and his forces. Abram recovered all the goods, even the captives who included Lot. (Genesis 14:13–17)

After the battle, Melchizedek brought out bread and wine and blessed Abraham, who gave him a tenth of the plunder. (Genesis 14:18-20) Peter Leithart suggests that the bread and wine constituted a victory celebration.[3]

 Scholarly analysis

 Identifying the kings

Amraphel has been thought by some scholars such as the writers of the Catholic Encyclopedia and the Jewish Encyclopedia to be an alternate version of the name of the famed Hammurabi. The name is also associated with Ibal Pi-El II of Esnunna.[4][5]

Arioch has been thought to have been a king of Larsa (Ellasar being an alternate version of this). It has also been suggested that it is URU KI, meaning "this place here".

Following the discovery of documents written in the Elamite language and Babylonian language, it was thought that Chedorlaomer is a transliteration of the Elamite compound Kudur-Lagamar, meaning servant of Lagamaru - a reference to Lagamaru, an Elamite deity whose existence was mentioned by Assurbanipal. However, no mention of an individual named Kudur Lagamar has yet been found; inscriptions that were thought to contain this name are now known to have different names (the confusion arose due to similar lettering).[6][7] David Rohl identifies Chedorlaomer with an Elamite king named Kutir-Lagamar.

Tidal[8][9][10] has been considered to be a transliteration of Tudhaliya - either referring to the first king of the Hittite New Kingdom (Tudhaliya I) or the proto-Hittite king named Tudhaliya. With the former, the title king of Nations would refer to the allies of the Hittite kingdom such as the Ammurru and Mittani; with the latter the term "goyiim" has the sense of "them, those people". al ("their power") gives the sense of a people or tribe rather than a kingdom. Hence td goyim ("those people have created a state and stretched their power").

Geopolitical context

It was common practise for vassals/allies to accompany a powerful king during their conquests. For example, in a letter from about 1770 BC[5] reporting a speech aimed at persuading the nomadic tribes to acknowledge the authority of Zimri-Lim of Mari:

There is no king who can be mighty alone. Ten or fifteen kings follow Hammurabi the man of Babylon; as many follow Rim-Sin the man of Larsa, Ibal-pi-El the man of Eshnunna, and Amut-pi-El the man of Quatna and twenty kings follow Yarim-Lim the man of Yamhad.

The alliance of four states would have ruled over cities/countries that were spread over a wide area: from Elam at the extreme eastern end of the Fertile Crescent to Anatolia at the western edge of this region. Because of this, there is a limited range of time periods that match the Geopolitical context of Genesis 14. In this account, Chedorlaomer is described as the king to whom the cities of the plain pay tribute. Thus, Elam must be a dominant force in the region and the other three kings would therefore be vassals of Elam and/or trading partners.[5]

There were periods when Elam was allied with Mari through trade.[11] Mari also had connections to Syria and Anatolia, who, in turn, had political, cultural, linguistic and military connections to Canaan.[12] The earliest recorded empire was that of Sargon, which lasted until his grandson, Naram Sin.[5]

According to Kenneth Kitchen,[13] a better agreement with the conditions in the time of Chedorlaomer is provided by Ur Nammu. Mari had had links to the rest of Mesopotamia by Gulf trade as early as the Jemdet Nasr period but an expansion of political connections to Assyria did not occur until the time of Isbi-Erra.[5] The Amorites or MARTU were also linked to the Hittites of Anatolia by trade.[5]

Trade between the Harappan culture of India and the Jemdet Nasr flourished between c 2000-1700BC. As Isin declined, the fortunes of Larsa - located between Eshnunna and Elam - rose until Larsa was defeated by Hammurabi. Between 1880 and 1820 BC there was Assyrian trade with Anatolia, in particular in annakum or tin.[11][14][15] The main trade route between Ashur and Kanesh running between the Tigris and Euphrates passed through Haran. The empire of Shamshi-Adad I and Rim-Sin I included most of northern Mesopotamia. Thus, Kitchen concludes that this is the period in which the narrative of Genesis 14 falls into a close match with the events of the time of Shamsi Adad and Chedorlaomer[5]

The relevant rulers in the region at this time were:

 Dating of events

When cuneiform was first deciphered in the 19th century Theophilus Pinches translated some Babylonian tablets which were part of the Spartoli collection in the British Museum and believed he had found in the Chedorlaomer Text the names of three of the "Kings of the East" named in Genesis 14. As this is the only part of Genesis which seems to set Abraham in wider political history, it seemed to many 19th and early 20th century exegetes and Assyriologists to offer an opening to date Abraham, if the kings in question could only be identified.

In 1887, Schrader was the first to propose that Amraphel could be an alternate spelling for Hammurabi.[16] The terminal -bi on the end of Hammurabi's name was seen to parallel Amraphel since the cuneiform symbol for -bi can also be pronounced -pi. Tablets were known in which the initial symbol for Hammurabi, pronounced as kh to yield Khammurabi, had been dropped, so that Ammurapi was a viable pronunciation. If Hammurabi were deified in his lifetime or soon after (adding -il to his name to signify his divinity), this would produce something close to the Bible's Amraphel. A little later Jean-Vincent Scheil found a tablet in the Imperial Ottoman Museum in Istanbul from Hammurabi to a king named Kuder-Lagomer of Elam, which he identified with the same name in Pinches' tablet. Thus by the early 1900s many scholars had become convinced that the kings of Gen. 14:1 had been identified,[17][18] resulting in the following correspondences:[19]

Name from Gen. 14:1 Name from Archaeology
Amraphel king of Shinar Hammurabi (="Ammurapi") king of Babylonia
Arioch king of Ellasar Eri-aku king of Larsa
Chedorlaomer king of Elam (= Chodollogomor in the LXX) Kudur-Lagamar king of Elam
Tidal, king of nations (i.e. goyim, lit. 'nations') Tudhulu, son of Gazza

Today these dating attempts are little more than a historical curiosity. On the one hand, as the scholarly consensus on Near Eastern ancient history moved towards placing Hammurabi in the late 18th century (or even later), and not the 19th, confessional and evangelical theologians found they had to choose between accepting these identifications or accepting the biblical chronology; most were disinclined to state that the Bible might be in error and so began synchronizing Abram with the empire of Sargon I, and the work of Schrader, Pinches and Scheil fell out of favour. Meanwhile, further research into Mesopotamia and Syria in the second millennium BCE undercut attempts to tie Abraham in with a definite century and to treat him as a strictly historical figure, and while linguistically not implausible, the identification of Hammurabi with Amraphel is now regarded as untenable.[20]

There is rarely ever consensus on any matters involving Bible interpretation; one modern interpretation of Genesis 14 is summed up by Michael Astour in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (s.v. "Amraphel", "Arioch" and "Chedorlaomer"), who explains the story as a product of anti-Babylonian propaganda during the 6th century Babylonian captivity of the Jews:

After Böhl's widely accepted, but wrong, identification of mTu-ud-hul-a with one of the Hittite kings named Tudhaliyas, Tadmor found the correct solution by equating him with the Assyrian king Sennacherib (see Tidal). Astour (1966) identified the remaining two kings of the Chedorlaomer texts with Tukulti-Ninurta I of Assyria (see Arioch) and with the Chaldean Merodach-baladan (see Amraphel). The common denominator between these four rulers is that each of them, independently, occupied Babylon, oppressed it to a greater or lesser degree, and took away its sacred divine images, including the statue of its chief god Marduk; furthermore, all of them came to a tragic end ... All attempts to reconstruct the link between the Chedorlaomer texts and Genesis 14 remain speculative. However, the available evidence seems consistent with the following hypothesis: A Jew in Babylon, versed in Akkadian language and cuneiform script, found in an early version of the Chedorlaomer texts certain things consistent with his anti-Babylonian feelings.[21]

The Chedorlaomer tablets are now thought to be from the 6th or 7th century BCE, a millennium after the time of Hammurabi, but at roughly the time when the main elements of Genesis are thought to have been set down. Another prominent scholar considers a relationship between the tablet and Genesis speculative, but identifies Tudhula as a veiled reference to Sennacherib of Assyria, and Chedorlaomer, i.e. Kudur-Nahhunte, as "a recollection of a 12th century BCE king of Elam who briefly ruled Babylon."[22]

The last serious attempt to place a historical Abraham in the second millennium resulted from discovery of the name Abi-ramu on Babylonian contracts of about 2000 BCE, but this line of argument lost its force when it was shown that the name was also common in the first millennium,[23] leaving the patriarchal narratives in a relative biblical chronology but without an anchor in the known history of the Near East.

A few evangelical scholars continue to argue against the consensus: Kitchen asserts that the only known historical period in which a king of Elam, whilst allied with Larsa, was able to enlist a Hittite king and a King of Eshunna as partners and allies in a war against Canaanite cities is in the time of Old Babylon c 1822-1764 BC. This is when Babylon is under Hammurabi and Rim Sin I controls Mari, which is linked through trade to the Hittites and other allies along the length of the Euphrates. This trade is mentioned in the Mari letters, a source which documents a geo-political relationship back to when the ships of Dilmun, Makkan and Meluhha docked at the quays of Agade in the time of Sargon. In the period of Old Babylon, c 1822-1764 BC, Rim Sin I brought together kings of Syro-Anatolia whose kingdoms were located on the Euphrates in a coalition focused on Mari whose king was Shamsi Adad. Kitchen uses the geo-political context, the price of slaves and the nature of the covenants entered into by Abraham to date the events he encounters. He sees the covenants, between Abraham and the other characters encountered at various points in Abraham's journeys, as datable textual artifacts having the form of legal documents which can be compared to the form of legal documents from different periods.[13] Of particular interest is the relationship between Abraham and his wife, Sarah. When Sarah proves to be barren, she offers her handmaiden, Hagar, to Abraham to provide an heir. This arrangement, along with other aspects of the covenants of Abraham, lead Kitchen to a relatively narrow date range which he believes aligns with the time of Hammurabi.[13]

 See also

References

Notes
  1. ^ Genesis 14:14
  2. ^ Freedman, Meyers & Beck. Eerdmans dictionary of the Bible (ISBN 0802824005, ISBN 978-0-8028-2400-4), 2000, p.232
  3. ^ Leithart, Peter (2000). Blessed are the Hungry: Meditations on the Lord's Supper. Moscow, ID: Canon Press. p. 26.
  4. ^ Amraphael
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Micael Roaf "Cambridge Atlas of Archaeology - king lists p 111 and pp 108-123
  6. ^ 'Chedorlaomer' at JewishEncyclopedia.com
  7. ^ Kudur-Lagamar from History of Egypt by G. Maspero
  8. ^ Akkadian tD ("have stretched themselves")
  9. ^ (Akkadian verbal stem intensive, reflexive expressing the bringing about of a state)
  10. ^ tD
  11. ^ a b Khalifa, Shaika Haya Ali Al; Rice, Michael (1986). Bahrain through the Ages. KPI. ISBN 0-7103-0112-X.
  12. ^ The Mari letters
  13. ^ a b c Kitchen, Kenneth A. "The Patriarchal Age: Myth or History?" in Shanks, Hershel (ed.) Biblical Archaeology Review 21:02 (March/April 1995)
  14. ^ Nayeem, Dr. Muhammed Abdul (1990). Prehistory and Protohistory of the Arabian Peninsula. Hyderabad.
  15. ^ Roaf, Michael (1990). Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East. Equinox. ISBN 0-8160-2218-6.
  16. ^ Orr, James, general editor (1915). "Hammurabi". International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. http://www.studylight.org/enc/isb/view.cgi?number=T4049.
  17. ^ "Amraphel". The Catholic Encyclopedia. 1917. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01441a.htm.
  18. ^ Pinches, Theophilus (1908). The Old Testament In the Light of The Historical Records and Legends of Assyria and Babylonia (third ed.). London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924005788256.
  19. ^ MacKenzie, Donald (1915). "The Golden Age of Babylonia". Myths of Babylonia and Assyria. p. 247. http://www.sacred-texts.com/ane/mba/mba17.htm. "The identification of Hammurabi with Amraphel is now generally accepted"
  20. ^ Browning, W.R.F. (2010). "Amraphel". A Dictionary of the Bible (second ed.). Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 0-19-954399-2. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O94-Amraphel.html. "The identification, once popular, that this Amraphel was the famous Hammurabi of Babylon (1728–1686 BCE) is not tenable ... Most scholars doubt whether Gen. 14 describes historical events."
  21. ^ The Anchor Bible Dictionary, s.v. "Chedorlaomer"
  22. ^ Hindel, Ronald (1994). "Finding Historical Memories in the Patriarchal Narratives". Biblical Archaeology Review 21 (4): 52–59, 70–72.
  23. ^ Thompson, Thomas (2002). The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham. Valley Forge, Pa: Trinity Press International. ISBN 1-56338-389-6. http://books.google.com/?id=lwrzapZYqFAC&dq.

NOTE:  IN MODERN TIMES, WE HAVE EVEN MORE STRESS OVER THE POSSIBILITY OF NUCLEAR WAR BETWEEN ISRAEL AND IRAN OR EVEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN.  WHAT IF THE U.S. GETS INVOLVED?  WHAT IF A SERIES OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS GET DESTROYED SIMILAR TO FUKISHIMA IN JAPAN?

Nuclear winter (also known as atomic winter) is a hypothetical climatic effect of nuclear war. It is theorized that detonating large numbers of nuclear weapons has a profound and severe effect on the climate causing cold weather and reduced sunlight for a period of months or even years, especially over flammable targets such as cities, where large amounts of smoke and soot would be ejected into the Earth's stratosphere.

Similar climatic effects can be caused by comets or an asteroid impact,[1][2] also sometimes termed an impact winter, or by a supervolcano eruption, known as a volcanic winter.[3]

Mechanism

The nuclear winter scenario predicts that the huge fires caused by nuclear explosions (from burning urban areas) would loft massive amounts of dense smoke from the fires, into the upper troposphere / stratosphere. At 10-15 kilometers (6–9 miles) above the Earth's surface, the absorption of sunlight would further heat the smoke, lifting some, or all of it, into the stratosphere, to where the smoke would persist for years, with no rain to wash it out. This aerosol of particles would block out much of the sun's light from reaching the surface, causing surface temperatures to drop drastically.

Aerosol removal timescale

The exact timescale for how long this smoke remains, and thus how severely this smoke affects the climate once it reaches the stratosphere, is dependent on both chemical and physical removal processes. The physical removal mechanisms affecting the timescale of smoke particle removal are how quickly the particles in the smoke coagulate[4] and fall out of the atmosphere via dry deposition,[4] and to a slower degree, the time it takes for solar radiation pressure to move the particles to a lower level in the atmosphere. Whether by coagulation or radiation pressure, once the particles are at this lower atmospheric level cloud seeding can begin, permitting precipitation to wash the smoke aerosol out of the atmosphere by the wet deposition mechanism. The chemical processes that affect the removal are dependent on the ability of atmospheric chemistry to oxidize the smoke, via reactions with oxidative species such as ozone and nitrogen oxides, both of which are found at all levels of the atmosphere.[5] Historical data on residence times of aerosols, albeit a different mixture of aerosols, from megavolcano eruptions appear to be in the 1-2 year time scale.[6] Aerosol atmosphere interactions are still poorly understood.[7][8]

 Consequences

Climatic effects

A study presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December 2006 found that even a small-scale, regional nuclear war could disrupt the global climate for a decade or more. In a regional nuclear conflict scenario where two opposing nations in the subtropics would each use 50 Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons (about 15 kiloton each) on major populated centers, the researchers estimated as much as five million tons of soot would be released, which would produce a cooling of several degrees over large areas of North America and Eurasia, including most of the grain-growing regions. The cooling would last for years, and according to the research could be "catastrophic".[9][10]

Ozone depletion

A 2008 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science found that a nuclear weapons exchange between Pakistan and India using their current arsenals could create a near- global ozone hole, triggering human health problems and wreaking environmental havoc for at least a decade.[11] The computer-modeling study looked at a nuclear war between the two countries involving 50 Hiroshima-sized nuclear devices on each side, producing massive urban fires and lofting as much as five million metric tons of soot about 50 miles (80 km) into the stratosphere. The soot would absorb enough solar radiation to heat surrounding gases, setting in motion a series of chemical reactions that would break down the stratospheric ozone layer protecting Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation.

Recent modeling

Based on new work published in 2007 and 2008 by some of the authors of the original studies, several new hypotheses have been put forth.[12][13]

A minor nuclear war with each country using 50 Hiroshima-sized atom bombs as airbursts on urban areas could produce climate change unprecedented in recorded human history. A nuclear war between the United States and Russia today could produce nuclear winter, with temperatures plunging below freezing in the summer in major agricultural regions, threatening the food supply for most of the planet. The climatic effects of the smoke from burning cities and industrial areas would last for several years, much longer than previously thought. New climate model simulations, which are said to have the capability of including the entire atmosphere and oceans, show that the smoke would be lofted by solar heating to the upper stratosphere, where it would remain for years.

Compared to climate change for the past millennium, even the smallest exchange modeled would plunge the planet into temperatures colder than the Little Ice Age (the period of history between approximately A.D. 1600 and A.D. 1850). This would take effect instantly, and agriculture would be severely threatened. Larger amounts of smoke would produce larger climate changes, and for the 150 Teragrams (Tg) case produce a true nuclear winter (1 Tg is 10^12 grams), making agriculture impossible for years. In both cases, new climate model simulations show that the effects would last for more than a decade.

2007 study on global nuclear war

A study published in the Journal of Geophysical Research in July 2007,[14] Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences,[15] used current climate models to look at the consequences of a global nuclear war involving most or all of the world's current nuclear arsenals (which the authors described as being only about a third the size of the world's arsenals twenty years earlier). The authors used a global circulation model, ModelE from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which they noted "has been tested extensively in global warming experiments and to examine the effects of volcanic eruptions on climate." The model was used to investigate the effects of a war involving the entire current global nuclear arsenal, projected to release about 150 Tg of smoke into the atmosphere, as well as a war involving about one third of the current nuclear arsenal, projected to release about 50 Tg of smoke. In the 150 Tg case they found that:

A global average surface cooling of –7°C to –8°C persists for years, and after a decade the cooling is still –4°C (Fig. 2). Considering that the global average cooling at the depth of the last ice age 18,000 yr ago was about –5°C, this would be a climate change unprecedented in speed and amplitude in the history of the human race. The temperature changes are largest over land ... Cooling of more than –20°C occurs over large areas of North America and of more than –30°C over much of Eurasia, including all agricultural regions.

In addition, they found that this cooling caused a weakening of the global hydrological cycle, reducing global precipitation by about 45%. As for the 50 Tg case involving one third of current nuclear arsenals, they said that the simulation "produced climate responses very similar to those for the 150 Tg case, but with about half the amplitude," but that "the time scale of response is about the same." They did not discuss the implications for agriculture in depth, but noted that a 1986 study which assumed no food production for a year projected that "most of the people on the planet would run out of food and starve to death by then" and commented that their own results show that "this period of no food production needs to be extended by many years, making the impacts of nuclear winter even worse than previously thought."

 Kuwait wells in the first Gulf War

Following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Carl Sagan and other scientists predicted that burning oil wells could cause environmental damage comparable to nuclear winter.[16] Nearly 700 oil wells were set ablaze by the retreating Iraqi army and the fires were not fully extinguished until November 6, 1991, eight months after the end of the war.[17] The fires consumed an estimated six million barrels of oil daily.

According to a 1992 study from Peter Hobbs and Lawrence Radke, daily emissions of sulfur dioxide were 57% of that from electric utilities in the United States, emissions of carbon dioxide were 2% of global emissions and emissions of soot were 3,400 metric tons per day.[18] However, pre-war claims of wide scale, long-lasting, and significant global environmental impacts were not borne out and found to be significantly exaggerated by the media and speculators,[19] with climate models at the time of the fires predicting only more localized effects such as a daytime temperature drop of ~10 °C within ~200 km of the source.[20] At the peak of the fires, the smoke absorbed 75% to 80% of the sun’s radiation. The particles were never observed to rise above 6 km and when combined with scavenging by clouds gave the smoke a short residency time in the atmosphere and localized its effects;[18] Professor Carl Sagan of the Turco, Toon, Ackerman, Pollack, Sagan (TTAPS) study hypothesized in January 1991 that enough smoke from the fires "might get so high as to disrupt agriculture in much of South Asia...." Sagan later conceded in his book The Demon-Haunted World that this prediction did not turn out to be correct: "it was pitch black at noon and temperatures dropped 4°–6°C over the Persian Gulf, but not much smoke reached stratospheric altitudes and Asia was spared."[21]

The 2007 study discussed above noted that modern computer models have been applied to the Kuwait oil fires, finding that individual smoke plumes are not able to loft smoke into the stratosphere, but that smoke from fires covering a large area like some forest fires can lift smoke into the stratosphere, and this is supported by recent evidence that it occurs far more often than previously thought[22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. The study also suggested that the burning of the comparably smaller cities, which would be expected to follow a nuclear strike, would also loft significant amounts of smoke into the stratosphere:

Stenchikov et al. [2006b][29] conducted detailed, high-resolution smoke plume simulations with the RAMS regional climate model [e.g., Miguez-Macho et al., 2005][30] and showed that individual plumes, such as those from the Kuwait oil fires in 1991, would not be expected to loft into the upper atmosphere or stratosphere, because they become diluted. However, much larger plumes, such as would be generated by city fires, produce large, undiluted mass motion that results in smoke lofting. New large eddy simulation model results at much higher resolution also give similar lofting to our results, and no small scale response that would inhibit the lofting [Jensen, 2006].[31]

 History

 Early work

In June 1957, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons by Samuel Glasstone was published containing a section entitled "Nuclear Bombs and the Weather" (pages 69–71), which states: "The dust raised in severe volcanic eruptions, such as that at Krakatoa in 1883, is known to cause a noticeable reduction in the sunlight reaching the earth ... The amount of debris remaining in the atmosphere after the explosion of even the largest nuclear weapons is probably not more than about 1 percent or so of that raised by the Krakatoa eruption. Further, solar radiation records reveal that none of the nuclear explosions to date has resulted in any detectable change in the direct sunlight recorded on the ground."[32]

In 1974, John Hampson suggested that a full-scale nuclear exchange could result in depletion of the ozone shield, possibly subjecting the earth to ultraviolet radiation for a year or more.[33][34] In 1975, the United States National Research Council (NRC) reported on ozone depletion following nuclear war, judging that the effect of dust would probably be slight climatic cooling.[33][35]

According to Dr. Vitalii Nikolaevich Tsygichko, a Senior Analyst at the Academy of Sciences, the author of the study, Mathematical Model of Soviet Strategic Operations on the Continental Theater, and a former member of the General Staff, military analysts discussed the idea of a "nuclear winter" (although they did not use that exact term) years before U.S. scientists wrote about it in the 1980s.[36]

 1982

In 1981, William J. Moran began discussions and research in the NRC on the dust effects of a large exchange of nuclear warheads. An NRC study panel on the topic met in December 1981 and April 1982.[33]

As part of a study launched in 1980 by Ambio, a journal of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Paul Crutzen and John Birks circulated a draft paper in early 1982 with the first quantitative evidence of alterations in short-term climate after a nuclear war.[33] In 1982, a special issue of Ambio devoted to the possible environmental consequences of nuclear war included a paper by Crutzen and Birks anticipating the nuclear winter scenario.[37] The paper discussed particulates from large fires, nitrogen oxide, ozone depletion and the effect of nuclear twilight on agriculture. Crutzen and Birks showed that smoke injected into the atmosphere by fires in cities, forests and petroleum reserves could prevent up to 99% of sunlight from reaching the Earth's surface, with major climatic consequences: "The normal dynamic and temperature structure of the atmosphere would therefore change considerably over a large fraction of the Northern Hemisphere, which will probably lead to important changes in land surface temperatures and wind systems."[37] An important implication of their work was that a "first strike" nuclear attack would have severe consequences for the perpetrator.

 1983

In 1982, the so-called TTAPS team (Richard P. Turco, Owen Toon, Thomas P. Ackerman, James B. Pollack and Carl Sagan) undertook a computational modeling study of the atmospheric consequences of nuclear war, publishing their results in Science in December 1983.[38] The phrase "nuclear winter" was coined by Turco just prior to publication.[39] In this early work, TTAPS carried out the first estimates of the total smoke and dust emissions that would result from a major nuclear exchange, and determined quantitatively the subsequent effects on the atmospheric radiation balance and temperature structure. To compute dust and smoke impacts, they employed a one-dimensional microphysics/radiative-transfer model of the Earth's lower atmosphere (to the mesopause), which defined only the vertical characteristics of the global climate perturbation.

Around this time, interest in nuclear war environmental effects also arose in the USSR. After becoming aware of the work of the Swedish Academy and, in particular, papers by N.P.Bochkov and E.I.Chazov,[40] Russian atmospheric scientist Georgy Golitsyn applied his research on dust-storms to the situation following a nuclear catastrophe.[41] His suggestion that the atmosphere would be heated and that the surface of the planet would cool appeared in The Herald of the Academy of Sciences in September 1983.[42] Upon learning of the TTAPS scenarios, Vladimir Alexandrov and G. I. Stenchikov soon published a report on the climatic consequences of nuclear war based on simulations with a two-level global circulation model, which produced results consistent with the TTAPS findings.[43]

1986

In 1984 the WMO commissioned Georgy Golitsyn and N. A. Phillips to review the state of the science. They found that studies generally assumed a scenario that half of the world's nuclear weapons would be used, ~5000 Mt, destroying approximately 1,000 cities, and creating large quantities of carbonaceous smoke - 1–2 × 1014 grams being mostly likely, with a range of 0.2 – 6.4 × 1014 grams (NAS; TTAPS assumed 2.25 × 1014). The smoke resulting would be largely opaque to solar radiation but transparent to infra-red, thus cooling by blocking sunlight but not causing warming from enhancing the greenhouse effect. The optical depth of the smoke can be much greater than unity. Forest fires resulting from non-urban targets could increase aerosol production further. Dust from near-surface explosions against hardened targets also contributes; each Mt-equivalent of explosion could release up to 5 million tons of dust, but most would quickly fall out; high altitude dust is estimated at 0.1-1 million tons per Mt-equivalent of explosion. Burning of crude oil could also contribute substantially.

The 1-D radiative-convective models used in these studies produced a range of results, with coolings up to 15-42 °C between 14 and 35 days after the war, with a "baseline" of about 20 °C. Somewhat more sophisticated calculations using 3-D GCMs (Alexandrov and Stenchikov (1983); Covey, Schneider and Thompson (1984); produced similar results: temperature drops of between 20 and 40 °C, though with regional variations.

All calculations show large heating (up to 80 °C) at the top of the smoke layer at about 10 km; this implies a substantial modification of the circulation there and the possibility of advection of the cloud into low latitudes and the southern hemisphere.

The report made no attempt to compare the likely human impacts of the post-war cooling to the direct deaths from explosions.

 1990

In 1990, in a paper entitled "Climate and Smoke: An Appraisal of Nuclear Winter," TTAPS give a more detailed description of the short- and long-term atmospheric effects of a nuclear war using a three-dimensional model[44]:

First 1 to 3 months:

Following 1 to 3 years:

 Criticism and debate

The TTAPS study was widely reported and criticized in the media. Later model runs in some cases predicted less severe effects, but continued to support the overall conclusion of significant global cooling.[45][46] Recent studies (2006) substantiate that smoke from urban firestorms in a local nuclear war would lead to long lasting global cooling but in a less dramatic manner than a global nuclear war,[47][48] while a 2007 study of the effects of global nuclear war supported the conclusion that it would lead to full-scale nuclear winter.[14][15]

The original work by Sagan and others was criticized as a "myth" and "discredited theory" in the 1987 book Nuclear War Survival Skills, a civil defense manual by Cresson Kearny for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.[49] Kearny said the maximum estimated temperature drop would be only about by 20 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees Celsius), and that this amount of cooling would last only a few days. He also suggested that a global nuclear war would indeed result in millions of deaths from hunger, but primarily due to cessation of international food supplies, rather than due to climate changes.[49]

Kearny, who was not a climate scientist himself, based his conclusions almost entirely on the 1986 paper "Nuclear Winter Reappraised"[50][51] by Starley Thompson and Stephen Schneider. However, a 1988 article by Brian Martin in Science and Public Policy[45] states that although their paper concluded the effects would be less severe than originally thought, with the authors describing these effects as a "nuclear autumn", other statements by Thompson and Schneider[52][53] show that they "resisted the interpretation that this means a rejection of the basic points made about nuclear winter". In addition, the authors of the 2007 study above state that "because of the use of the term 'nuclear autumn' by Thompson and Schneider [1986], even though the authors made clear that the climatic consequences would be large, in policy circles the theory of nuclear winter is considered by some to have been exaggerated and disproved [e.g., Martin, 1988]."[14][15] And in 2007 Schneider emphasized the danger of serious climate changes from a limited nuclear war of the kind analyzed in the 2006 study above, saying "The sun is much stronger in the tropics than it is in mid-latitudes. Therefore, a much more limited war [there] could have a much larger effect, because you are putting the smoke in the worst possible place."[54]

 Policy implications

During the early 1980s, Fidel Castro recommended to the Kremlin a harder line against Washington, even suggesting the possibility of nuclear strikes. The pressure stopped after Soviet officials gave Castro a briefing on the ecological impact on Cuba of nuclear strikes on the United States[55].

In an interview in 2000, Mikhail Gorbachev, in response to the comment "In the 1980s, you warned about the unprecedented dangers of nuclear weapons and took very daring steps to reverse the arms race," said "Models made by Russian and American scientists showed that a nuclear war would result in a nuclear winter that would be extremely destructive to all life on Earth; the knowledge of that was a great stimulus to us, to people of honor and morality, to act in that situation."[56]

As the worldwide implications of Nuclear Winter began to be taken seriously in the late 1980s Much interest by military analysts shifted to fusing of nuclear warheads to explode at low, rather than high altitude. This would reduce the incidence of fire, and thus the likelihood of Nuclear Winter, with the trade off that radioactivity would increase in the larger amounts of dust lofted in local Fallout by these low altitude detonation heights.[57]

Whereas the TTAPS paper described a 3000 MT counterforce attack on ICBM sites, Michael Altfed of the Michigan State University and Political Scientist Stephen Cimbala of Pennsylvania State University maintained that with the trend towards smaller more accurate warheads in the United States and Soviet Nuclear Arsenals the same counterforce attack could be conducted with 1/1000th of that yield. They argued that under such conditions, the reduced danger to the climate is obvious, and this held even if cities were targeted, for there was less likelihood of mass fires. As a consequence of this Altfed and Cimbala have argued that belief in Nuclear Winter has made Nuclear Warfare more plausible and not less, contrary to what Carl Sagan and others have argued, for Nuclear Winter inspired the technological imperative toward improved accuracy and weaponry.[58]

 See also

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ "Comet Caused Nuclear Winter". Discover. January 2005. http://discovermagazine.com/2005/jan/comet-caused-nuclear-winter.
  2. ^ Amit Asaravala (May 26, 2004). "A Fiery Death for Dinosaurs?". Wired. http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2004/05/63613.
  3. ^ "Supervolcanoes could trigger global freeze". BBC. February 3, 2000. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/628515.stm.
  4. ^ a b Transformation and removal J. Gourdeau, LaMP Clermont-Ferrand, France, March 12, 2003
  5. ^ Distribution & concentration (2) Dr. Elmar Uherek - Max Planck Institute for Chemistry Mainz, April 6, 2004
  6. ^ How Volcanoes Work - volcano climate effects
  7. ^ B. Geerts Aerosols and climate
  8. ^ Glory Science: Global Aerosol Climatology Project
  9. ^ Regional Nuclear War Could Devastate Global Climate, Science Daily, December 11, 2006
  10. ^ The published papers that were first presented at the AGU Meeting.
  11. ^ Mills, M. J.; Toon, O. B.; Turco, R. P.; Kinnison, D. E.; Garcia, R. R. (2008). "Massive global ozone loss predicted following regional nuclear conflict". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105 (14): 5307–12. Bibcode 2008PNAS..105.5307M. doi:10.1073/pnas.0710058105. PMC 2291128. PMID 18391218. //www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2291128/. as PDF
  12. ^ Climatic Consequences of Nuclear Conflict Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University
  13. ^ Environmental consequences of nuclear war by Owen B. Toon, Alan Robock, and Richard P. Turco. Physics Today, December 2008.
  14. ^ a b c Abstract on Journal of Geophysical Research website
  15. ^ a b c paper available online from Rutgers University website
  16. ^ Wilmington morning Star January 21’st, 1991
  17. ^ GulfLink Summary of Oil Well fires
  18. ^ a b Hobbs, Peter V.; Radke, Lawrence F. (May 15, 1992). "Airborne Studies of the Smoke from the Kuwait Oil Fires". Science 256 (5059): 987–91. Bibcode 1992Sci...256..987H. doi:10.1126/science.256.5059.987. PMID 17795001.
  19. ^ Hosny Khordagu, Dhari Al-Ajmi (July 1993). "Environmental impact of the Gulf War: An integrated preliminary assessment". Environmental Management 17 (4).
  20. ^ Environmental effects from burning oil wells in Kuwait by K. A. Browning, R. J. Allam, S. P. Ballard, R. T. H. Barnes, D. A. Bennetts, R. H. Maryon, P. J. Mason, D. McKenna, J. F. B. Mitchell, C. A. Senior, A. Slingo & F. B. Smith, Nature Publishing Group, 30 May 1991
  21. ^ Sagan, Carl (1996). The demon-haunted world: science as a candle in the dark. New York: Random House. p. 257. ISBN 0-394-53512-X.
  22. ^ http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/pyrocb.html Fire-Breathing Storm Systems
  23. ^ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/fires/main/siberia-smoke.html Satellite Sees Smoke from Siberian Fires Reach the U.S. Coast 2012
  24. ^ http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-08/nrl-nss082610.php Forest Fire Smoke in the Stratosphere: New Insights Into Pyrocumulonimbus Clouds
  25. ^ In-situ observations of mid-latitude forest fire plumes deep in the stratosphere
  26. ^ EO Newsroom: New Images - Smoke Soars to Stratospheric Heights
  27. ^ Observations of Boreal Forest Fire Smoke in the Stratosphere
  28. ^ Fromm et al., 2006, Smoke in the Stratosphere: What Wildfires have Taught Us About Nuclear Winter, Eos Trans. AGU, 87(52), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract U14A-04
  29. ^ Stenchikov et al., 2006, Regional Simulations of Stratospheric Lofting of Smoke Plumes, Eos Trans. AGU, 87(52), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract U14A-05
  30. ^ Regional Climate Simulations over North America: Interaction of Local Processes with Improved Large-Scale Flow
  31. ^ Jensen, 2006, Lofting of Smoke Plumes Generated by Regional Nuclear Conflicts, Eos Trans. AGU, 87(52), Fall Meet. Suppl., Abstract U14A-06
  32. ^ Samuel Glasstone, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, Washington DC, Government Printing Office, 1956, p.69
  33. ^ a b c d Committee on the Atmospheric Effects of Nuclear Explosions, The Effects on the Atmosphere of a Major Nuclear Exchange, Washington D.C., National Academy Press, 1985
  34. ^ Hampson J. (1974). "Photochemical war on the atmosphere". Nature 250 (5463): 189–91. Bibcode 1974Natur.250..189H. doi:10.1038/250189a0. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v250/n5463/pdf/250189a0.pdf.
  35. ^ National Research Council, Long-term worldwide effects of multiple nuclear weapons detonations, Washington DC, National Academy of Sciences, 1975, p.38
  36. ^ http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv//nukevault/ebb285/
  37. ^ a b Crutzen P., Birks J. (1982). "The atmosphere after a nuclear war: Twilight at noon". Ambio 11 (2): 114–25. JSTOR 4312777.
  38. ^ R. P. Turco, O. B. Toon, T. P. Ackerman, J. B. Pollack, and Carl Sagan (23 December 1983). "Nuclear Winter: Global Consequences of Multiple Nuclear Explosions". Science 222 (4630): 1283–92. Bibcode 1983Sci...222.1283T. doi:10.1126/science.222.4630.1283. PMID 17773320. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/222/4630/1283.
  39. ^ US Military History Companion
  40. ^ Chazov, E.I., Vartanian, M.E. (1983). "Effects on human behaviour". In Peterson, Jeannie. The Aftermath: the human and ecological consequences of nuclear war. New York: Pantheon Books. pp. 155–63. ISBN 0-394-72042-3.
  41. ^ Vladimir Gubarev (2001). "Tea Drinking in The Academy. Academician G. S. Golitsyn: Agitations Of The Sea And Earth" (in Russian). Science and Life 3. http://www.nkj.ru/archive/articles/5755/.
  42. ^ Igor Shumeyko, Heavy dust "nuclear winter", 2003-10-08
  43. ^ Alexandrov, V. V. and G. I. Stenchikov (1983): "On the modeling of the climatic consequences of the nuclear war" The Proceeding of Appl. Mathematics, 21 p., The Computing Center of the AS USSR, Moscow.
  44. ^ "Nuclear Winter Theorists Pull Back" The New York Times, January 23, 1990
  45. ^ a b Nuclear winter: science and politics
  46. ^ Does Anybody Remember The Nuclear Winter?
  47. ^ Toon, O. B., Turco, R. P., Robock, A., Bardeen, C., Oman, L., and Stenchikov, G. L. (2006). "Atmospheric effects and societal consequences of regional scale nuclear conflicts and acts of individual nuclear terrorism". Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss. 6 (6): 11745–816. doi:10.5194/acpd-6-11745-2006. http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/6/11745/2006/acpd-6-11745-2006.html.
  48. ^ Robock, A., Oman, L., Stenchikov, G. L., Toon, O. B., Bardeen, C., and Turco, R. P (2007). "Climatic consequences of regional nuclear conflicts". Atmos. Chem. Phys. 7 (8): 2003–12. doi:10.5194/acp-7-2003-2007. http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/7/2003/2007/acp-7-2003-2007.html.
  49. ^ a b Kearny, Cresson (1987). Nuclear War Survival Skills. Cave Junction, OR: Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine. pp. 17–19. ISBN 0-942487-01-X. http://www.oism.org/nwss/.
  50. ^ Thompson, Starley L & Schneider, Stephen H Nuclear Winter Reappraised in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 64, No. 5 (Summer, 1986), pp. 981-1005
  51. ^ Thompson, Starley L.; Stephen H. Schneider. "Nuclear Winter Reappraised". Foreign Affairs 62 (Summer 1986): 981–1005. http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19860601faessay7798/starley-l-thompson-stephen-h-schneider/nuclear-winter-reappraised.html.
  52. ^ Stephen H. Schneider, letter, Wall Street Journal, 25 November 1986.
  53. ^ 'Severe global-scale nuclear war effects reaffirmed', statement resulting from SCOPE-ENUWAR workshop in Bangkok, 9–12 February 1987.
  54. ^ Climate scientists describe chilling consequences of a nuclear war by Brian D. Lee (8 January 2007)
  55. ^ http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv//nukevault/ebb285/ Previously Classified Interviews with Former Soviet Officials Reveal U.S. Strategic Intelligence Failure Over Decades
  56. ^ Mikhail Gorbachev explains what's rotten in Russia
  57. ^ http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11897 A Nuclear Winter's Tale, Science and Politics in the 1980s Lawrence Badash. page 235
  58. ^ http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11897 A Nuclear Winter's Tale, Science and Politics in the 1980s Lawrence Badash. page 242

External links

 

ANALYSIS / How Israel's war with Iran will be fought

Iran regime's Shiite ideology will dictate a prolonged war that will be measured in years, not days.

By Amos Harel | Nov.06, 2009 | 9:53 PM | 3

It is precisely from the events of the passing week, which culminated in an impressive show of force reminiscent of the good old Israel Defense Forces - the IDF that carried out Entebbe and bombed the reactors in Iraq and in Syria - that Israel can glean an important lesson about the limitations of the power at its disposal. These are the limitations dictated by U.S. President Barack Obama: Israel's navy can intercept weapons shipments from Iran, Israel's Military Intelligence can expose Hamas long-range missile tests from Gaza, but at least for the time being, as long as the international community is conducting dialogue with Tehran over its controversial nuclear program, it is best that Israel doesn't do too much to annoy the adults.

The interception of hundreds of tons of weapons, believed to be an Iranian shipment meant for Hezbollah, in the Mediterranean on Wednesday wasn't any different from similar operations carried out by the U.S. Navy, twice this year, though Israel seized a significantly larger amount of weapons. Therefore, the display of the loot the IDF invited everyone to see at the Ashdod port on Thursday received a lukewarm welcome by the world media. It is great that Israel is uncovering and seizing Iranian weapons, the world leaders must be telling themselves, but is there anything here that we didn't know well before the Israeli commandos raided the Antigua-flagged ship in the middle of the night?

The execution by Israeli forces was impeccable, that's true. The IDF apparently followed the arms shipment for a long time, identified the correct ship and planned the operation which went off without a hitch. Now comes the part of diplomacy and public relations. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who will be visiting Washington in the coming days, will be accompanied by intelligence officials who will present the details of the operation to their American colleagues, along with all the necessary proof that Iran is continuing to support terror despite Tehran's denials, and in blatant violation of UN Security Council resolutions.

On the public relations front Israel has gained some ground in light of the fact that both the seizure of the arms ship and the exposure of the Hamas missile test occurred right before the United Nations General Assembly debate on the Goldstone report, which accused Israel of having committed war crimes in Gaza last winter. While the IDF is being accused of war crimes, and the Goldstone report argues that the Israeli offensive was designed specifically to punish the Palestinian civilian population, it doesn't hurt to bring to the forefront the background to these allegations: the ongoing Iranian effort to arm terror organizations with rockets meant to kill Israeli civilians.

But, that's approximately it. Israel is allowed to pester Hamas and Hezbollah with intelligence maneuvers, initiate brilliant pinpoint operations, block their supply of weapons and expose Iran and its proxies - and no more. Here is what Israel isn't permitted to do, for now: Israel is forbidden from threatening to attack Iranian nuclear facilities (our leaders have, in an exceptional move, become silent on the issue). Also forbidden are deterrence displays against Hamas and Hezbollah that go beyond the norm. The White House has enough problems without having to pull satellite photos of Palestinian refugee camps in Gaza.

The priorities of the Obama administration are completely different. Besides its long delayed, critical, decision on the war in Afghanistan, the president is also plagued with internal U.S. issues and the erosion of his popularity among the American public. After that, in a high place on the priority list, stands the issue of Iran. Israel's job, right now, is not to interfere. We are apparently headed toward several more weeks of dialogue, and after that, if talks fail, a U.S. move to impose more sanctions on Iran. Only in 2010 will there be an actual assessment of what effect these sanctions will have, and whether it is possible to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb without resorting to military tactics.

A man who was, up until recently, involved in Israel's decision making process and continues to serve as adviser to many at the helm, said this week that in his opinion, the Israeli leadership should be very careful in formulating an opinion on the dialogue with Iran. He says that the idea of transferring enriched uranium from Iran to Russia is not necessarily a bad idea, and a similar idea was raised five years ago. It was then director of Israel's atomic energy committee Gideon Frank who came up with the idea, and presented it to then prime minister Ariel Sharon. The key, the man says, is in the supervision clauses of the deal. If Iran, in a surprise move, accepts a deal similar to the one it rejected last week, there is definitely room for dialogue.

The IDF must prepare itself for the possibility of an attack against Iran's nuclear facilities because that's the IDF's job. But when the debate among experts and analysts regarding such a scenario revolved around operative questions (will the Americans provide Israel with an airspace corridor over Iran? How many fuel jets will be required? Etc.) it is missing the point. The important question is how willing the U.S. is to protect Israel in the event of a counter attack. The message Israel is getting from Obama's administration at this time is that it is out of the question - and thus the likelihood of an Israeli attack on Iran diminishes drastically.

But how will an Israel-Iran war look if it breaks out eventually? This question is at the center of a new study compiled by the Defense Ministry. Researcher Dr. Moshe Vered writes that such a war could go on for a long time. He believes that the Iranian's typical willingness to sacrifice many victims for a long period of time in a conflict with Israel will dictate a prolonged war between the two states, which will be difficult to end.

Dr. Vered, a physicist, occupies various roles in the defense establishment's technology division. He published his study this week as part of a sabbatical at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar Ilan University. He argues that the length of an Israel-Iran war "will be measured in year, not in weeks or days." This stems from the Shiite perception by which one must fight and sacrifice for the sake of justice and to correct wrongs to Islam and to Muslims. "This outlook sees Israel's existence as a wrong that must be corrected for the sake of world redemption. The achievement of this goal will only be possible once Israel is annihilated. The Iranians will continue fighting this war, as much as it is up to them, until they achieve their objective, despite the heavy toll that will be exacted in battle," Vered writes.

Vered argues further that only the fear the Iranian regime being toppled could bring such a war to an end. But, it seems unlikely that Israel will be able to pose a real threat to the Iranian regime, and "in the absence of a way out, acceptable to both sides, the war could continue for a very long time."

Vered mentions the fact that the Iran-Iraq war, in the 1980s, lasted eight years. Iran fought many years to achieve its demands - to correct the basic wrong of Iraq's invasion into its territory, Iraqi recognition of its culpability, and the removal of the head of the Iraqi regime Saddam Hussein.

Iran paid an inconceivable price in that war - half a million dead and economic damage higher than the country's entire oil income in the 20th century - before it agreed to a ceasefire. The ceasefire came only when there was a real danger that the Iranian regime would not survive.

Vered writes that "one can't rule out with a high degree of certainty the possibility that a war will break out between Israel and Iran." Therefore, a careful assessment of the details of a possible war, and preparation for it, are essential. In his study, he fails to find anyone who could develop an effective method to shorten the time of a war.

He goes on to write that the fear of such a war should prompt Israel to prepare mentally, politically, and militarily, while creating ways to end it quickly, should it erupt. The assumption that the war will become prolonged should affect the way Israel prepares for it, as well it should affect the decision whether or not to attack Iranian facilities in the future.

Vered rejects the assumption that in the absence of a shared border, the Israel-Iran war will be fought only with surface to surface missiles. Such warfare shouldn't last a long time because Iran's supply of long-range missiles isn't large. However, he writes, it is more plausible to assume that Iran will want to continue the fighting against Israel via messengers: Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas, and maybe even an Iranian force on Syrian soil, as part of a defense treaty between Tehran and Damascus. He plays down the likelihood of a short confrontation (Israeli assault followed by a punishing counter assault and then an immediate ceasefire under international pressure while both sides realize that the war has played out), he thinks that the ideology of the Iranian regime will dictate a prolonged war. Yes, this isn't exactly what you would call relaxing reading material for the weekend.

FROM: http://www.haaretz.com/news/analysis-how-israel-s-war-with-iran-will-be-fought-1.4628

 

Netanyahu trying to persuade cabinet to support attack on Iran

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who previously objected to attacking Iran, was recently persuaded by Netanyahu and Barak to support such a move.

By Barak Ravid, Amos Harel, Zvi Zrahiya and Jonathan Lis | Nov.02, 2011 | 12

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are trying to muster a majority in the cabinet in favor of military action against Iran, a senior Israeli official has said. According to the official, there is a "small advantage" in the cabinet for the opponents of such an attack.

Netanyahu and Barak recently persuaded Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who previously objected to attacking Iran, to support such a move.

Although more than a million Israelis have had to seek shelter during a week of rockets raining down on the south, political leaders have diverted their attention to arguing over a possible war with Iran. Leading ministers were publicly dropping hints on Tuesday that Israeli could attack Iran, although a member of the forum of eight senior ministers said no such decision had been taken.

Senior ministers and diplomats said the International Atomic Energy Agency's report, due to be released on November 8, will have a decisive effect on the decisions Israel makes.

The commotion regarding Iran was sparked by journalist Nahum Barnea's column in Yedioth Ahronoth last Friday. Barnea's concerned tone and his editors' decision to run the column under the main headline ("Atomic Pressure" ) repositioned the debate on Iran from closed rooms to the media's front pages.

Reporters could suddenly ask the prime minister and defense minister whether they intend to attack Iran in the near future and the political scene went haywire.

Western intelligence officials agree that Iran is forging ahead with its nuclear program. Intelligence services now say it will take Iran two or three years to get the bomb once it decides to (it hasn't made the decision yet ).

According to Western experts' analyses, an attack on Iran in winter is almost impossible, because the thick clouds would obstruct the Israel Air Force's performance.

Netanyahu did not rule out the possibility of the need for a military action on Iran this week. During his Knesset address on Monday, Netanyahu warned of Iran's increased power and influence. "One of those regional powers is Iran, which is continuing its efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. A nuclear Iran would constitute a grave threat to the Middle East and the entire world, and of course it is a direct and grave threat on us," he said.

Barak said Israel should not be intimidated but did not rule out the possibility that Israel would launch a military attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. "I object to intimidation and saying Israel could be destroyed by Iran," he said.

"We're not hiding our thoughts. However there are issues we don't discuss in public ... We have to act in every way possible and no options should be taken off the table ... I believe diplomatic pressure and sanctions must be brought to bear against Iran," he said.

Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya'alon said he preferred an American military attack on Iran to an Israeli one. "A military move is the last resort," he said.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai has not made his mind up yet on the issue. In a speech to Shas activists in the north on Monday Yishai said "this is a complicated time and it's better not to talk about how complicated it is. This possible action is keeping me awake at night. Imagine we're [attacked] from the north, south and center. They have short-range and long-range missiles - we believe they have about 100,000 rockets and missiles."

Intelligence and Atomic Energy Minister Dan Meridor said he supports an American move against Iran. In an interview to the Walla! website some two weeks ago Meridor said "It's clear to all that a nuclear Iran is a grave danger and the whole world, led by the United States, must make constant efforts to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The Iranians already have more than four tons of 3-4 percent enriched uranium and 70 kgs. of 20 percent enriched uranium. It's clear to us they are continuing to make missiles. Iran's nuclearization is not only a threat to Israel but to several other Western states, and the international interest must unite here."

Former Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said he feared a "horror scenario" in which Netanyahu and Barak decide to attack Iran. He warned of a "rash act" and said he hoped "common sense will prevail."

On Tuesday, Barak said at the Knesset's Finance Committee that the state budget must be increased by NIS 7-8 a year for five years to fulfill Israel's security needs and answer the social protest. "The situation requires expanding the budget to enable us to act in a responsible way regarding the defense budget considering the challenges, as well as fulfill some of the demands coming from the Trajtenberg committee," he said.

קראו כתבה זו בעברית: רה"מ מגייס רוב בקבינט לפעולה צבאית נגד מתקני הגרעין האירנים

 

 

 

SPECIAL BULLETIN: IRAN NUCLEAR WATCH, FALL 2012
This is a Special Section published by GPN as an advanced separate publication and it will be the lead section of Issue 11, Fall 2012

   
By now almost everyone in the world acknowledges that Iran is moving relentlessly, in defiance of all the world's pressures on her to stop, towards MILITARY nuclear capability. Moreover, by now an overwhelming majority of observers, reporters and analysts agree that they are very, very close to their goal.

The fear of what Iran can do - for it is certainly clear what it wants to do - is now trickling down to the level of fearful thinking, fantasies and even beginning realistic steps to change one's life arrangements in average people. This is certainly true in Israel which experiences itself, totally correctly, as a prime target of Iranian destructive ambitions.

GPN's editor went to an electrical shop the other day to buy some bulbs including an emergency light for electrical outage and remarked lightly to the sales people, "After all winter is coming." Without a moment's hesitation, one of the sales people said not only with a kind of humor but in genuine fearful seriousness, "You mean nuclear winter."

In fact, GPN does not fear an imminent nuclear attack by Iran so much as it fears the tremendous upheaval and anxiety that will be unleashed in targeted countries by the very fact that Iran has such a capability. Further, GPN fears attacks deeply for the future years and Iran's announced intentions of being the imperialistic dominator of a major part of the world, the Muslim redeemer that finally eliminates the hated "cancerous tumor" of Israel, and the heroic force that at long last achieves the return of Muslim power to the world scene - even at the cost of many martyred shahids among the Muslims.

We believe that a fascist, aggressive, imperialist, anti-semitic, messianic and apocalyptic, martyrdom-embracing government that openly seeks the destruction of at least two other member countries of the United Nations - Israel and the United States of America - MUST BE STOPPED in its tracks.


9-27-12 -   NETANYAHU SAYS:  WORLD MUST DRAW A RED LINE FOR IRAN


UNITED NATIONS — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Thursday that Iran will have enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb by next summer and urged the world to draw a clear "red line" to stop it in its tracks.

 

Saying it was getting "late, very late" to stop Iran, Netanyahu flashed a diagram showing the progress Iran has made toward creating a bomb. He said Iran had already completed the first stage of uranium enrichment, and then he drew his own red line on the diagram to highlight the point of no return – the completion of the second stage and 90 percent enrichment.

 

"Iran is 70 percent of the way there and ... well into the second stage. By next summer, at current enrichment rates, they will have finished the medium enrichment and move on to the final stage," Netanyahu said. "From there it is only a few more weeks before they have enriched enough for a bomb."

 

Netanyahu has repeatedly argued that time is running out to stop the Islamic Republic from becoming a nuclear power and the threat of force must be seriously considered.

"I believe that faced with a clear red line, Iran will back down – and it will give more time for sanctions and diplomacy," the Israeli prime minister said. "Red lines don't lead to war, red lines prevent war ... nothing could imperil the world more than a nuclear-armed Iran."

 

Netanyahu's speech marks perhaps his final plea before Israel takes matters into its own hands. Israeli leaders have issued a series of warnings in recent weeks suggesting that if Iran's uranium enrichment program continues it may soon stage a unilateral military strike, flouting even American wishes.

 

The Obama administration has urgently sought to hold off Israeli military action, which would likely result in the U.S. being pulled into a conflict and cause region-wide mayhem on the eve of American elections.

 

Israel considers a nuclear-armed Iran to be an existential threat, citing Iranian denials of the Holocaust, its calls for Israel's destruction, its development of missiles capable of striking the Jewish state and its support for hostile Arab militant groups.

"Given this record of Iranian aggression without nuclear weapons, just imagine Iranian aggression with nuclear weapons," Netanyahu said.

 

 

Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes but Israel, the U.S. and other Western allies reject the claim. Four rounds of U.N. sanctions have already been placed on Iran.

 

A U.N. report last month only reinforced Israeli fears, finding that Iran has moved more of its uranium enrichment activities into fortified bunkers deep underground where there are impervious to air attack. Enrichment is a key activity in building a bomb, though it has other uses as well, such as producing medical isotopes.

 

While Israel is convinced that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon, American officials believe Iran has not yet made a final decision to take the plunge, even as it develops much of the infrastructure needed to do so.

 

Obama has repeatedly said he will not allow Iran to gain nuclear weapons and has said the U.S. would be prepared to use force as a last resort.Israel's timeline for military action is shorter than that of the United States, which has far more powerful bunker-busting bombs at its disposal, and there is great suspicion in Israel over whether in the moment of truth Obama will follow through on his pledge.

 

Speaking shortly before Netanyahu, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of ethnic cleansing for building settlements in east Jerusalem.

 

"It is a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people via the demolition of their homes," Abbas said in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly.

 

Netanyahu rebuked Abbas in his own address, saying: "We won't solve our conflict with libelous speeches at the U.N."

 

Israel conquered the eastern part of Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Mideast War. It later annexed it but the move has not been internationally recognized. The Palestinians want east Jerusalem to the capital of their future state in the West Bank.

Abbas also said he has opened talks on a new bid for international recognition at the U.N., but didn't specify exactly when he will ask the General Assembly to vote.

"Intensive consultations with the various regional organizations and the state members" were underway, he said.

 

The Palestinians will apply to the General Assembly for nonmember state status.

That stands in sharp contrast to last year, when they asked the Security Council to admit them as a full member state, but the bid failed.

 

Abbas insisted that the new quest for recognition was "not seeking to delegitimize Israel, but rather establish a state that should be established: Palestine."

Palestinian officials said their bid is likely to be submitted on Nov. 29.

 

Executive Director: Prof. Israel W. Charny, Ph.D.
Director of Holocaust and Genocide Review: Marc I Sherman, M.L.S.
This project was made possible in part by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. The contents of this website are the responsibility of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem.
 

 

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