“Israel Ready to Use Nuclear Bomb”: 1980 Secret British Cable Says

31/12/2010 Secret British documents released on Thursday, showed that a UK ambassador to Israel warned as early as 1980 that Israel would detonate a nuclear bomb in case of a new war with the Arabs.

"If they [Israelis] are to be destroyed, they will go down fighting this time. They will be ready to use their atomic weapon," Ambassador John Robinson wrote in a cable to the Foreign Office on May 4, 1980.

Robinson's message, published under a rule that allows official British papers to be released after 30 years, voiced concern that US-hosted negotiations would not lead to an agreement on the Middle East conflict.

"As long as there is no agreement on the West Bank and Jerusalem which satisfies the Palestinians, they will be driven increasingly to extremism; moderate governments in the area and Western interest will be increasingly threatened; opportunities for Soviet influence and intervention will increase; and so will the danger of a new war," the cable said.

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Other documents were also released, in which they revealed that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had some difficulties in dealing with former Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

According to the documents, Thatcher described Begin as the "most difficult" man she had to deal with in the early years of her premiership.
Thatcher said at the time that all "efforts to convince Mr. Begin that his West Bank policy was absurd, and that there should not be Israeli settlements on the West Bank, had failed to move him."

"His response was that Judea and Samaria had been Jewish in biblical times and that they should therefore be so today," she said.
The papers reveal that, during a meeting with French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing in November 1979, Thatcher admitted she had "never had a more difficult man to deal with" than Begin.”

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