Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 1998, Pages 84, 93

Edna’s Essays: an Israeli Traveler Along The American Way

Israel’s Biological and Chemical Research and Development-Potential Menace at Home and Abroad

By Dr. Edna Homa Hunt

Israeli newspapers have a rather shrewd, albeit obvious, method of imparting secret and sometimes strategically important information. An especially pertinent case in point, in view of the crisis over inspections in Iraq, was the recent publication of information about the Ness-Ziona facility.

Ness-Ziona, a small town in the heart of Israel’s densely populated center, has been home to what—since 1952, during the regime of David Ben-Gurion—has been widely known in Israel as the “experimental station.” It was established as a laboratory for basic and applied research in chemistry and biology, with a staff of about 300, including 120 physicists, mathematicians, chemists and veterinarians.

From its inception this institute has been under the exclusive supervision and control of the prime minister’s office. This fact is acknowledged publicly in its scientific publications, which add that it is independent regarding policies for conduct of research and actual management.

Physically the institute is located in Ness-Ziona’s “industrial zone,” behind a high wall and surrounded by an electronic fence. Thus by now this facility is better known to its neighbors as a secret laboratory for the development of chemical and biological weapons. And, since the revelation of what happened in Russian Sverdlovsk on April 2, 1979, the presence of the secret lab has become their nightmare. The reason is that the Sverdlovsk scenario could be repeated in Ness-Ziona as well. (See accompanying map.)

An invisible cloud of death descended on Sverdlovsk on that lovely spring morning, but residents became aware of it only six days later when untold numbers of people began dying horribly and inexplicably.

By recounting the history of the terrifying events in Sverdlovsk as they finally were revealed by the Soviet authorities, the Jan. 9, 1998 weekend supplement of the Tel Aviv daily Ma’ariv confirmed the presence of facilities for developing and producing the makings of chemical and biological weaponry in Israel, principally in Ness-Ziona but also in other installations around the country.

This was an example of how Israeli publications bypass censorship to discuss indirectly such topics as the existence of Israeli facilities containing agents of killer diseases potentially deployable as “weapons of mass destruction,” and also a potential source of a terrifying domestic epidemic in the event of an accident. The newspaper achieves “acceptability” for the discussion of such a possible accident in Israel by describing the existence elsewhere of similar facilities and a real catastrophe that already has occurred.

One of several witnesses to the accidental release of an anthrax “cloud” in Sverdlovsk was a professor who emigrated to Israel in 1990. He was quoted as saying that “when the biological institute was first built [in Sverdlovsk] it was situated outside the city. As the years went by, the city grew and residential neighborhoods as well as industry were built around it.” Much the same has happened in Ness-Ziona. Originally the institute was surrounded by orange groves. By now residential quarters closely—and dangerously—abut it.

Rafi Elul is a Labor member of the Knesset who resides in the area and considers himself as “representative” of the population most vulnerable to the danger of a potential accident. [Note: Israel’s members of Knesset are not representatives of a geographical district, but of a political party.] In February 1997 MK Elul demanded that the special Knesset Committee for Scientific/Technical Research and Development discuss “what goes on at the Ness-Ziona institute.”

He did so apparently on the assumption that at least some of its programs endangered Ness-Ziona residents and probably those beyond the town itself, particularly those living in the southeast in the path of the prevailing winds. One such location is the town of Rehovot—site of the famous Weizmann Institute, and the important Kaplan Hospital—with a population of at least 90,000 people.

MK Elul therefore demanded removal of the institute from densely populated areas. Unfortunately, however, his demand for information and the request of a Knesset committee to conduct a site visit were rejected, both for reasons of “secrecy.”

There is another quite odd twist to the Ness-Ziona institute story, even though I am

Some of the public, in any case, is taking the law seriously and residents of some rural areas are already filing environmental lawsuits to compel government enforcement of the sweeping new law, which is intended in 103 articles to clean up the country’s air, land and water, as well as protect the Mediterranean and Red Sea coasts. It also provides protection for wildlife, prohibiting, for example, the hunting of rare species of animal and birds.

The future won’t be all black if government proves itself in earnest about the greening of Egypt. And that would give the Egyptian public something to cheer about besides soccer.