Propaganda in the London Times
The Sunday Times reports that Israel is preparing to attack Iran with tactical nuclear weapons. This seems unlikely, all the more so when we learn that one of the co-authors, Uzi Mahnaimi, claimed in 1998 that Israel was working on an ethnic bomb that would target its Arab enemies only.
No molecular geneticist with an even cursory knowledge of Israeli population demographics would give this idea a second thought. Genetic research confirms that Sephardic Jews share the genetic composition of the communities in which they hail from. In other words, while it's not impossible to imagine engineering a virus that attacked only certain genetic isolates - such a virus would target half of Israel's population. Moreover, only a crazed scientist would imagine that such a viral weapon wouldn't rapidly mutate to acquire broader infectivity.
The Israeli biological research community is as advanced as any in the world. The likelihood that it would countenance a self-immolating line of research is zero. A reporter who claims otherwise can only have an agenda of his own.
No molecular geneticist with an even cursory knowledge of Israeli population demographics would give this idea a second thought. Genetic research confirms that Sephardic Jews share the genetic composition of the communities in which they hail from. In other words, while it's not impossible to imagine engineering a virus that attacked only certain genetic isolates - such a virus would target half of Israel's population. Moreover, only a crazed scientist would imagine that such a viral weapon wouldn't rapidly mutate to acquire broader infectivity.
The Israeli biological research community is as advanced as any in the world. The likelihood that it would countenance a self-immolating line of research is zero. A reporter who claims otherwise can only have an agenda of his own.
- sheikh X at 7:27 PM
2 Comments:
This is where one of the reporter's political positions lay: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1312869_1,00.html
Yes - she seems sensible. Did you notice the 'correction' to the article you linked to ;-)
It is, of course, the other author with the impressive journalistic pedigree. However, she co-wrote at least one earlier article that seems to have been quite wrong.
However, I wonder if these two aren't being leaked information deliberately, to convince the Iranians that they are indeed vulnerable to a strike.
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