The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) are heavily lobbying Congress for $2.775 billion in military aid to Israel. However credible reports from the U.S. Army and a former president confirm the existence of an Israeli nuclear weapons arsenal. This could prohibit U.S. taxpayer funded fiscal year 2010 foreign aid.

The declassified U.S. Army report titled “The Joint Operating Environment 2008” identifies Israel as a nuclear weapons power. Specifically the U.S. Army highlights “a growing arc of nuclear powers running from Israel in the west through an emerging Iran to Pakistan, India, and on to China, North Korea, and Russia in the east.” Jimmy Carter became the first former president to confirm in 2008 that Israel has secretly financed, developed and deployed an undeclared arsenal of nuclear weapons.

The Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 as amended by the Symington Amendment of 1976 and the Glenn Amendment of 1977 prohibit U.S. military assistance to countries that acquire or transfer nuclear reprocessing technology outside of international nonproliferation regimes. Israel, unlike Iran, is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. If Congress wishes to provide U.S. taxpayer funded foreign aid to Israel in compliance with U.S. law, it may do so only under a special waiver from the office of the president as in the case for Pakistan.

Upholding the Symington Amendment could be an early litmus test as Congress and the executive branch strive to restore public confidence in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and global financial crisis. According to IRmep director of research Grant F. Smith, “Governance depends on rule of law — it is imperiled if government openly flouts important laws. It is no longer acceptable for Congress or the president to invoke ‘strategic ambiguity,’ a practice whereby U.S. government officials publicly pretend to the American people that Israel possesses no nuclear weapons.”

Links to the U.S. army report on nuclear proliferation may be found at the Israel Lobby Archive: http://IRmep.org/ila/. The Archive is a unit of the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy in Washington. The Archive digitizes declassified documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act filings with law enforcement, intelligence, and trade agencies.