Israeli leader who mourned Mandela's death helped white regime get missiles [View all]

[Jesus Malverde]

Among the world leaders who have showered South Africa with condolences since the death of Nelson Mandela, Israel’s Shimon Peres stood out as a peer. Like Mandela, he won a Nobel Peace prize. Like Mandela, he stayed on the world stage long past retirement age. Mandela died at 95. At 90, Peres is still serving as Israel’s president.

The world has lost a great leader who changed the face of history,” said Peres on behalf of the Israeli nation. “Nelson Mandela was a human rights fighter who made his mark on the war against discrimination and racism."

But in the 1970s, while Mandela was languishing in a damp prison cell on Robben Island, Peres was making deals with South Africa's apartheid regime, according to interviews and documents gathered by NBC News, a recent documentary and a book based on Israeli and South African government documents. With the help of an Israeli operative now famed as the Hollywood mogul behind “Pretty Woman” and “Fight Club,” Peres traded missiles for money and the uranium needed for atomic bombs.

At the center of the relationship was a "Joint Secretariate for Political and Psychological Warfare" set up in 1975 to handle various matters, not the least of which was "propaganda and psychological warfare." It was an outgrowth of a $100 million South African propaganda campaign to fix the country’s tarnished image. Leading the effort was the late Eschel Rhoodie, a brash apparatchik who had convinced the regime’s leaders they needed to sell apartheid to the western media.

Under terms of the agreement, championed by Peres, then Defense Minister, and Yitzhak Rabin, the Prime Minister, Israel would help South Africa burnish its international reputation. South Africa would supply the money, with each country appointing a secretary to look after its interests.

As the relationship grew, the two sides began to cooperate on military, even nuclear development. Peres, the architect of Israel’s nuclear program, had procured the country’s first nuclear reactor in the 1950s, and built a clandestine agency called the Science Liaison Bureau that collected nuclear technology.

In a February 1993 interview, Rhoodie told NBC News he was the chief representative on the South African side. "Arnon Milchan was the chief representative on the Israeli side,” said Rhoodie. “We paid him about 30,000 rand [$40,000] a year." Milchan is now a Hollywood billionaire who has produced more than 120 movies, including “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” and “L.A. Confidential.” When he was in his 20s, however, Peres recruited him for the Science Liaison Bureau. Peres designated Milchan to represent Israel in South Africa.

http://investigations.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/12/08/21795608-israeli-leader-who-mourned-mandelas-death-helped-white-regime-get-missiles

Articles like this, from NBC, you know the gloves are off...