Tel Aviv - This editorial appeared in the Nov. 17 edition of the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, regarding the remarks of certain officials about Iranian capability to make a nuclear attack on that nation.
...But the most problematic comment of all was made by Prof. Yitzhak Ben Israel, the chairman of the Israel Space Agency. It's hard to believe that a man who was a major general in the Israel Defense Forces, a head of the Defense Ministry's arms development authority, a Knesset member and a university lecturer with degrees in math, physics and philosophy is saying such things.
In an interview last week with Globes' Yuval Azulai, he was quoted as saying - after prefacing his remark with the words "the public is ignorant" - that "a single nuclear bomb doesn't destroy a country, not even a neighborhood in Tel Aviv. A nuclear bomb like the one the Iranians want to build has a radius of destruction and death of about 500 meters, and of lighter damage of 1,000 meters .... The public doesn't know exactly what happened at Hiroshima and Nagasaki ... but it's not sexy to talk about it."
"...One could speculate that in an attack on Tel Aviv some 80,000 people could die. An equal number would die painful deaths over the next few months..."
So first of all, a reminder to Prof. Ben Israel about what really could happen if a "small" bomb of 10 kilotons (about as powerful as the bombs dropped on Japan ) explodes over Tel Aviv's city hall. In a radius of around 500 meters, everything, buildings and people, would be melted and vaporized. There would be nothing left south Jabotinsky Street, east of Dizengoff Street, north of King Saul Boulevard and west of Ichilov Hospital. Up to 30,000 people would die.
Within the next radius - up to 1,200 meters covering an area east of the beach, west of Namir Road, south of the Yarkon River and north of Sheinkin Street, most buildings would be destroyed, burying some 30,000 beneath them. There may be survivors, but there would apparently not be anyone to take care of them. The third radius would reach 2,500 meters; huge fires would rage there. No one would be available to rush to put out them out.
One could speculate that in an attack on Tel Aviv some 80,000 people could die. An equal number would die painful deaths over the next few months. This scenario is based on similar scenarios in Graham Ellison's book "Nuclear Terrorism," which describes what would happen in New York and other American cities if they were attacked with nuclear weapons.
And who says Iran would launch just one bomb at Israel and not two or three? This is the truth about the "not so bad" apocalyptic vision of Ben Israel, whose salary is paid for by the Israeli taxpayer...
"Little Boy" exploding over Hiroshima, 1945
So first of all, a reminder to Prof. Ben Israel about what really could happen if a "small" bomb of 10 kilotons (about as powerful as the bombs dropped on Japan ) explodes over Tel Aviv's city hall. In a radius of around 500 meters, everything, buildings and people, would be melted and vaporized. There would be nothing left south Jabotinsky Street, east of Dizengoff Street, north of King Saul Boulevard and west of Ichilov Hospital. Up to 30,000 people would die.
Within the next radius - up to 1,200 meters covering an area east of the beach, west of Namir Road, south of the Yarkon River and north of Sheinkin Street, most buildings would be destroyed, burying some 30,000 beneath them. There may be survivors, but there would apparently not be anyone to take care of them. The third radius would reach 2,500 meters; huge fires would rage there. No one would be available to rush to put out them out.
One could speculate that in an attack on Tel Aviv some 80,000 people could die. An equal number would die painful deaths over the next few months. This scenario is based on similar scenarios in Graham Ellison's book "Nuclear Terrorism," which describes what would happen in New York and other American cities if they were attacked with nuclear weapons.
And who says Iran would launch just one bomb at Israel and not two or three? This is the truth about the "not so bad" apocalyptic vision of Ben Israel, whose salary is paid for by the Israeli taxpayer...
"Little Boy" exploding over Hiroshima, 1945
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