Dutch Intelligence Identifies Israel as a Foreign Threat

Dutch intelligence just named Israel a foreign threat for the first time ever, citing attempts to influence local politics through disinformation and secret outreach to Dutch MPs and journalists.

The backlash centers on a document Israel shared after November's Amsterdam Maccabi riots bypassing diplomats and putting Dutch citizens at risk, according to officials. [source: Anadolu Agency]

Netherlands labels Israel `threat to national security' for first time[_link]

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) July 27, 2025

Israel: Cry, the Beloved Country | Verfassungsblog by Joseph Weiler - Jan. 2023 |

Israel, like many other democracies today, is a deeply polarized society. The operating principle of public discourse is typically: "Art thou for us or for our adversaries" (Joshua 5:13). Whether it is the never-ending Arab-Israeli Conflict and the 55-year Occupation of the Territories (even how to call them both is a divisive issue), or questions of church and state resulting from Israel's self-definition as Jewish and democratic, one could predict with unerring certainty whom one would find on either side of the verbal, political and at times physical barricades. In recent times, the figure of Mr Netanyahu and the legal woes he is facing have deepened the polarization.

It is thus telling that, in the recent eruption in response to Netanyahu's new government plan to reform the judicial system, not only have the protestors' numbers risen to an unprecedented scale, but one finds both in Israel and in the Jewish communities around the world, prominent figures and many individuals - card-carrying Zionists of a center/right conviction - whom one would never expect to see on the anti-government side of the current  barricade. Even the former President of the State, a lifelong Likud member alongside many others of the Menachem Begin old guard, have publicly expressed deep concerns. In the international arena, too, longtime friendly and supportive states are shifting sides.

The Discovery of South Africa's Secret Nuclear Test Site by Soviets, August 1977

South African Foreign Minister designate Roelof Frederik "Pik" Botha (on upper left) meeting at the White House, 23 March 1977, with Secretary of State Vance, President Carter, National Security Adviser Brzezinski and Vice President Mondale. Several months later, Botha denounced the U.S. for the "arrogance" of its message on the South African nuclear test site. (Photo from Jimmy Carter Presidential Library).

South African Foreign Minister designate Roelof Frederik "Pik" Botha (on upper left) meeting at the White House, 23 March 1977, with Secretary of State Vance, President Carter, National Security Adviser Brzezinski and Vice President Mondale. Several months later, Botha denounced the U.S. for the "arrogance" of its message on the South African nuclear test site. (Photo from Jimmy Carter Presidential Library).

In early August 1977, Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev wrote to President Jimmy Carter to inform him that the Soviet Union had detected a nuclear weapons test site in South Africa and to ask that the U.S. and other governments take "energetic efforts" to prevent the emergence of a new nuclear weapons state. Within days, the U.S. government had intelligence that confirmed the Soviet claims, and the State Department, working closely with the White House, had begun to coordinate a diplomatic response with European allies, according to a new set of documents published today by the National Security Archive.

Failure to raise the issue with Pretoria "might increase the risk that South Africa will in fact explode a nuclear device," said one State Department memorandum, which added that the "situation might become uncontrollable" if the United Nations Security Council were to get involved.

By making such statements, Mondale and Carter were not speaking so much to Vorster but to world opinion generally, especially to African leaders, by trying to strengthen the U.S. image as one that favored the forces of freedom worldwide. But trying to stimulate change in South Africa would prove difficult indeed.

The declassified records underline a well-documented point, the essential role of the Soviet Union in blowing the whistle on South Africa's secret nuclear weapons program. As much as Moscow and Washington had been Cold War adversaries, they had shared interests in preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, having been co-sponsors of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and co-participants in the Nuclear Suppliers' Group. And because the U.S. was concerned that the Soviets could use the South African nuclear issue to win broader support in Africa and elsewhere, Washington wanted to stay ahead of the problem, not least because of the international conference on South Africa's apartheid regime that was convening in Lagos, Nigeria.

Israel-South Africa Joint WMD Weapons Research

Flash from the past: Why an apparent Israeli nuclear test in 1979 matters today | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - Sept. 2015 |

At a time when the Iran agreement is in the headlines and other Middle Eastern countries--notably Saudi Arabia--are making noises about establishing their own programs for nuclear energy and nuclear weapons, it is worth giving renewed scrutiny to an event that occurred 36 years ago: a likely Israeli-South African nuclear test over the ocean between the southern part of Africa and the Antarctic.

Sometimes referred to in the popular press as the "Vela incident" or the "Vela Event of 1979," the circumstantial and scientific evidence for a nuclear test is compelling but as long as many items related to the test are still classified, all the questions surrounding it cannot be resolved definitively.

[...]

Yet Israel and South Africa broke the rules, but they did not face consequences. All of this is more than "ancient history;" there is no statute of limitations on nuclear arms agreement violations.

What happened. On September 22, 1979, a US satellite code-named Vela 6911, which was designed to look for clandestine atmospheric nuclear tests and had been in operation for more than 10 years, recorded a double flash in an area where the South Atlantic meets the Indian Ocean, off the coast of South Africa.

The detection immediately triggered a series of steps in which analysts at national labs in the United States informed their superiors that the recorded signal had all the earmarks of a nuclear test. (Some details about exactly what the analysts did has been written about in Jeffrey Richelson's 2007 book, Spying on the Bomb.) The event has been a subject of controversy ever since, but is now recognized by most analysts as the detection of an Israeli nuclear test with South African logistical cooperation.

The Air Force Technical Analysis Center gave the event the formal designation of Alert (A) 747. Shortly afterward, President Jimmy Carter and his national security team were informed. In his diary entry of September 22, later published in 2010 as White House Diary, the former president wrote, "There was indication of a nuclear explosion in the region of South Africa--either South Africa, Israel using a ship at sea, or nothing."

Continuing to hide Israel's testing violation is a direct counter to the US claim that it stands for the rule of law and implies that the United States cannot be counted on to defend treaties if they are violated by Israel. This failure fosters cynicism about the seriousness of the United States and its allies on the restraining of nuclear weapons. In the wake of the Iran agreement, it underscores concerns that the United States has double standards on arms control when Israel is involved.

Further reading Project Coast: Mandela and Apartheid

A Conspiracy to Commit Genocide: Anti-Fertility Research in Apartheid's Chemical and Biological Weapons Programme

South Africa's chemical and biological weapons programme, codenamed Project Coast, was established in 1981 by Magnus Malan, the Minister of Defence. Project Coast brought together research scientists, doctors, veterinarians and other health professionals under a management committee that included high-ranking members of the South African Defence Force. 3 The project officer was Dr Wouter Basson.

Much of what we know about Project Coast comes from testimony before South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The TRC, established in 1995, was charged with investigating and documenting gross human rights abuses committed in the period 1960-1994, facilitating the granting of amnesty to perpetrators of political violence who made full disclosure, and making known the fate or whereabouts of victims.

Dr. Basson and Apartheid: Whiter Than White | The Guardian - 11 April. 2002 |

For 12 years, Basson ran Project Coast, the apartheid state's highly secret chemical and biological warfare programme originally designed to counter the deployment of similar Soviet weapons in Angola.

To hear Basson tell it, he oversaw an extensive and advanced biological and chemical warfare programme on the front line against the spread of communism and godlessness in Africa. The 51-year-old cardiologist and former army officer has gripped the court with tales of how he outwitted MI6 and the CIA to penetrate the most secret western research establishments in pursuit of his arsenal.

The prosecution dismisses such claims as little more than a James Bond fantasy to cover up a series of horrific experiments on human beings, assassinations of the white regime's opponents and bizarre plots such as the one to secretly mass sterilise black people and another to use ecstasy as a "love drug" to pacify mobs.

Dr. Basson and Apartheid Project Coast - British MoD contracts and Israel's Mossad

South Africa Chemical Chronology | NTI |

A few snippets...

The Constitutional Court of South African rejects the state's request for "leave to appeal against the acquittal of Wouter Basson." Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson states, however, that Pretoria High Court presiding judge Willie Hartzenberg's "decision not to recuse himself...was a constitutional matter as the impartial adjudication of disputes in both criminal and civil cases is the cornerstone of any fair legal system."

Late 1960s and Early 1970s

Israel and South Africa increasingly cooperate with each other in the development of armaments during this period. This cooperation is focused mainly on nuclear weapons and missile programs, but may also have included
collaborative efforts in CBW R&D. [Note: the study cited below provides no corroborating evidence concerning cooperation between the two countries in the CBW field, although there are clear indications of growing Israeli-South African cooperation in other weapons fields.]
-- Stephen Burgess and Helen Purkitt, The Rollback of South Africa's Biological Warfare Program (USAF Academy, Colorado: USAF Institute for National Security Studies, 2001), pp. 5-6. [cached]

1941-1945
CW agents are manufactured by South Africa at the Klipfontein and Firgrove factories in response to a request by the British Ministry of Supply. The two factories have 1,697 employees and are capable of producing 250 tons of different chemical warfare agents each month. The Klipfontein Organic Products plant produces phosgene and mustard. The production of chemical agents and associated weapons is supervised by Brigadier General Van der
Bijl, Director General War Supplies, and Brigadier General Van der Spuy, Director General Technical Services. After the war, the production focus is shifted to DDT and other insecticides. (sic)

Earlier study [cached archive] South Africa CBW | NTI |

Israeli infiltration in South Africa | January 2010 |

The Yom Kippur War in 1973 helped cement the relationship. At the outbreak of the war, South African Defence Minister P.W. Botha expressed solidarity with Israel in what he called "its struggle against forces supported by communistic militarism". He promised that South Africa would "find ways and means to prove our goodwill towards Israel." Soon thereafter, South Africa provided spare parts to Israel for its damaged Mirage aircraft. Scores of South African Jews also fought with the IDF, many dying in battle.

When Israel crossed the Suez Canal, it dealt the death knell to relations between the Zionist state and most African states. In March 1974, Israel established a mission in South Africa at ambassadorial level. Although South Africa did not immediately reciprocate, intelligence and propaganda relations between the two states had blossomed, and the rest of the world saw a strong alliance forming.

Israel and South Africa collaborated closely in  missile development | NTI |

Israel and South Africa collaborated closely in rocket technology in the 1970's and 1980's. South Africa provided Israel with the uranium and test facilities it needed for its strategic weapons programs. In exchange Israel provided aerospace technology.