164-542: Operation Opera ( Hebrew : מִבְצָע אוֹפֵּרָה ), also known as Operation Babylon , was a surprise airstrike conducted by the Israeli Air Force on 7 June 1981, which destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor located 17 kilometres (11 miles; 9.2 nautical miles) southeast of Baghdad , Iraq . The Israeli operation came a year after the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force had caused minor damage to
328-558: A light bulb with a power rating of 100 W is turned on for one hour, the energy used is 100 watt hours (W·h), 0.1 kilowatt hour, or 360 kJ . This same amount of energy would light a 40-watt bulb for 2.5 hours, or a 50-watt bulb for 2 hours. Power stations are rated using units of power, typically megawatts or gigawatts (for example, the Three Gorges Dam in China is rated at approximately 22 gigawatts). This reflects
492-685: A Hebrew form. Medieval Hebrew added 6421 words to (Modern) Hebrew. The approximate number of new lexical items in Israeli is 17,000 (cf. 14,762 in Even-Shoshan 1970 [...]). With the inclusion of foreign and technical terms [...], the total number of Israeli words, including words of biblical, rabbinic and medieval descent, is more than 60,000. In Israel, Modern Hebrew is currently taught in institutions called Ulpanim (singular: Ulpan). There are government-owned, as well as private, Ulpanim offering online courses and face-to-face programs. Modern Hebrew
656-549: A bomb that destroyed the reactor's first set of core structures while they were awaiting shipment to Iraq. In June 1980, Mossad agents are said to have assassinated Yehia El Mashad , an Egyptian atomic scientist working on the Iraqi nuclear program. Shortly afterward, two other Iraqi engineers working on the program, Salman Rashid and Abdul Rasul , fell ill and died on trips to Switzerland and France respectively, with Mossad suspected of having poisoned them. It has also been claimed that
820-595: A century ago, was fluent enough in this idiom to be able to follow the Mishna Berurah without any trouble." Hebrew has been revived several times as a literary language, most significantly by the Haskalah (Enlightenment) movement of early and mid-19th-century Germany. In the early 19th century, a form of spoken Hebrew had emerged in the markets of Jerusalem between Jews of different linguistic backgrounds to communicate for commercial purposes. This Hebrew dialect
984-525: A communication failure the message was never received and the Israeli planes entered Iraqi airspace undetected. Upon reaching Iraqi airspace, the squadron split up, with two of the F-15s forming close escort to the F-16 squadron, and the remaining F-15s dispersing into Iraqi airspace as a diversion and ready back-up. The attack squadron descended to 30 m (98 ft) over the Iraqi desert, attempting to fly under
1148-492: A constant opposing force of one newton , the rate at which work is done is one watt. 1 W = 1 J / s = 1 N ⋅ m / s = 1 k g ⋅ m 2 ⋅ s − 3 . {\displaystyle \mathrm {1~W=1~J{/}s=1~N{\cdot }m{/}s=1~kg{\cdot }m^{2}{\cdot }s^{-3}} .} In terms of electromagnetism , one watt
1312-661: A corollary Hebrew ceased to function as a spoken language around the same time. Moshe Zvi Segal , Joseph Klausner and Ben Yehuda are notable exceptions to this view. During the latter half of the 20th century, accumulating archaeological evidence and especially linguistic analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls has disproven that view. The Dead Sea Scrolls, uncovered in 1946–1948 near Qumran revealed ancient Jewish texts overwhelmingly in Hebrew, not Aramaic. The Qumran scrolls indicate that Hebrew texts were readily understandable to
1476-494: A covert flight over foreign territory, making mid-air refueling unfeasible. The Israelis eventually concluded that a squadron of heavily fueled and heavily armed F-16As , with a group of F-15As to provide air cover and fighter support, could perform a surgical strike to eliminate the reactor site without having to refuel. The decision to go through with the operation was hotly contested within Begin's government. Ariel Sharon ,
1640-579: A distinct style of philosophical Hebrew. This is used in the translations made by the Ibn Tibbon family. (Original Jewish philosophical works were usually written in Arabic. ) Another important influence was Maimonides , who developed a simple style based on Mishnaic Hebrew for use in his law code, the Mishneh Torah . Subsequent rabbinic literature is written in a blend between this style and
1804-454: A flight of Israeli Air Force F-16A fighter aircraft, with an escort of F-15As , bombed the Osirak reactor deep inside Iraq. Israel called the operation an act of self-defense, saying that the reactor had "less than a month to go" before "it might have become critical ." The airstrike reportedly killed ten Iraqi soldiers and one French civilian. The attack took place about three weeks before
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#17327731672201968-594: A gradually accepted movement. It was not, however, until the 1904–1914 Second Aliyah that Hebrew had caught real momentum in Ottoman Palestine with the more highly organized enterprises set forth by the new group of immigrants. When the British Mandate of Palestine recognized Hebrew as one of the country's three official languages (English, Arabic, and Hebrew, in 1922), its new formal status contributed to its diffusion. A constructed modern language with
2132-468: A literary language down through the Byzantine period from the 4th century CE. The exact roles of Aramaic and Hebrew remain hotly debated. A trilingual scenario has been proposed for the land of Israel. Hebrew functioned as the local mother tongue with powerful ties to Israel's history, origins and golden age and as the language of Israel's religion; Aramaic functioned as the international language with
2296-536: A literary language, especially in Spain, as the language of commerce between Jews of different native languages, and as the liturgical language of Judaism, evolving various dialects of literary Medieval Hebrew , until its revival as a spoken language in the late 19th century. In May 2023, Scott Stripling published the finding of what he claims to be the oldest known Hebrew inscription, a curse tablet found at Mount Ebal , dated from around 3200 years ago. The presence of
2460-529: A member of the Security Cabinet , later said that he was among those who advocated bombing the reactor. Dayan, Defense Minister (until late 1980) Ezer Weizman and Deputy Prime Minister Yigael Yadin were among those opposed. According to Mueller, "the principal difference between the hawks and doves on this issue lay in their estimation of the likely international political costs of an air strike". Shai Feldman specifies that "[those opposed] feared that
2624-537: A military intelligence analyst for the United States Air Force , wrote in 2004 that Israel had "gambled that the strike would be within Iraq's threshold of tolerance." Moriarty argues that Iraq, already in the midst of a war with Iran, would not start a war with Israel at the same time and that its "threshold of tolerance was higher than normal." Joseph Cirincione , then director of non-proliferation at
2788-573: A nuclear program sometime in the 1960s, and in the mid-1970s looked to expand it through the acquisition of a nuclear reactor. After failing to convince the French Government to sell them a gas cooled graphite moderated plutonium- producing reactor and reprocessing plant , and likewise failing to convince the Italian government to sell them a Cirene reactor, the Iraqi government convinced
2952-400: A nuclear reactor which aimed to forestall the development of a nuclear weapon. Due to last minute Iranian concerns that the reactor had been already fueled and could release radioactive fallout if hit, they did not attack the actual reactor dome, but the control room, research/centrifuge facilities, and the adjacent buildings. The targets were struck and the buildings were damaged, along with
3116-616: A rare interview granted to Israeli Army Radio , claimed that the Gulf War, and especially the Iraqi Scud missile attacks on Israel during that war, vindicated his decision to bomb the reactor. In response to their failures to prevent the Osirak attack (and the earlier H-3 attack), Saddam Hussein ordered the execution of Colonel Fakhri Hussein Jaber, the head of Iraq's Western Air Defense Zone, and all officers under his command above
3280-555: A rebuttal saying that Richter had never inspected Osirak and had never been assigned to inspect facilities in the Middle East. Eklund claimed that the safeguards procedures were effective and that they were supplemented by precautionary measures taken by the nuclear suppliers. Anthony Fainberg, a physicist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory , disputed Richter's claim that a fuel processing program for
3444-548: A set of dialects evolving out of Late Biblical Hebrew and into Mishnaic Hebrew, thus including elements from both but remaining distinct from either. By the start of the Byzantine Period in the 4th century CE, Classical Hebrew ceased as a regularly spoken language, roughly a century after the publication of the Mishnah, apparently declining since the aftermath of the catastrophic Bar Kokhba revolt around 135 CE. In
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#17327731672203608-640: A special team within US intelligence being set up to investigate the failure to detect preparations for an operation of this magnitude within the Israeli Air Force, military intelligence, the Mossad, and political system. In 2009, the Prime Minister of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki demanded that Israel compensate Iraq for the destruction of the reactor. An Iraqi official asserted that Iraq's right to redress
3772-668: A spoken language, it continued to be used as a lingua franca among scholars and Jews traveling in foreign countries. After the 2nd century CE when the Roman Empire exiled most of the Jewish population of Jerusalem following the Bar Kokhba revolt , they adapted to the societies in which they found themselves, yet letters, contracts, commerce, science, philosophy, medicine, poetry and laws continued to be written mostly in Hebrew, which adapted by borrowing and inventing terms. After
3936-472: A truly Semitic vocabulary and written appearance, although often European in phonology , was to take its place among the current languages of the nations. While many saw his work as fanciful or even blasphemous (because Hebrew was the holy language of the Torah and therefore some thought that it should not be used to discuss everyday matters), many soon understood the need for a common language amongst Jews of
4100-541: A turbine, which generates 648 MW e (i.e. electricity). Other SI prefixes are sometimes used, for example gigawatt electrical (GW e ). The International Bureau of Weights and Measures , which maintains the SI-standard, states that further information about a quantity should not be attached to the unit symbol but instead to the quantity symbol (e.g., P th = 270 W rather than P = 270 W th ) and so these unit symbols are non-SI. In compliance with SI,
4264-495: A unit of time, namely 1 J/s. In this new definition, 1 absolute watt = 1.00019 international watts. Texts written before 1948 are likely to be using the international watt, which implies caution when comparing numerical values from this period with the post-1948 watt. In 1960, the 11th General Conference on Weights and Measures adopted the absolute watt into the International System of Units (SI) as
4428-558: A vernacular in Judea until it was displaced by Aramaic, probably in the 3rd century CE. Certain Sadducee , Pharisee , Scribe , Hermit, Zealot and Priest classes maintained an insistence on Hebrew, and all Jews maintained their identity with Hebrew songs and simple quotations from Hebrew texts. While there is no doubt that at a certain point, Hebrew was displaced as the everyday spoken language of most Jews, and that its chief successor in
4592-518: Is 8198, of which some 2000 are hapax legomena (the number of Biblical Hebrew roots, on which many of these words are based, is 2099). The number of attested Rabbinic Hebrew words is less than 20,000, of which (i) 7879 are Rabbinic par excellence, i.e. they did not appear in the Old Testament (the number of new Rabbinic Hebrew roots is 805); (ii) around 6000 are a subset of Biblical Hebrew; and (iii) several thousand are Aramaic words which can have
4756-644: Is a Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic language family . A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages , it was natively spoken by the Israelites and remained in regular use as a first language until after 200 CE and as the liturgical language of Judaism (since the Second Temple period ) and Samaritanism . The language was revived as a spoken language in the 19th century, and
4920-587: Is an understandable way to behave if you are the Israeli military-security establishment." Following the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 , American forces captured a number of documents detailing conversations that Saddam Hussein had with his inner sanctum. In a 1982 conversation Hussein stated that, "Once Iraq walks out victorious [over Iran], there will not be any Israel." Of Israel's anti-Iraqi endeavors, Saddam noted, "Technically, they [the Israelis] are right in all of their attempts to harm Iraq." Tom Moriarty,
5084-567: Is fighting to stop businesses from using only English signs to market their services. In 2012, a Knesset bill for the preservation of the Hebrew language was proposed, which includes the stipulation that all signage in Israel must first and foremost be in Hebrew, as with all speeches by Israeli officials abroad. The bill's author, MK Akram Hasson , stated that the bill was proposed as a response to Hebrew "losing its prestige" and children incorporating more English words into their vocabulary. Hebrew
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5248-733: Is named after the Scottish inventor James Watt . The unit name was proposed by C. William Siemens in August 1882 in his President's Address to the Fifty-Second Congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science . Noting that units in the practical system of units were named after leading physicists, Siemens proposed that watt might be an appropriate name for a unit of power. Siemens defined
5412-605: Is one of several languages for which the constitution of South Africa calls to be respected in their use for religious purposes. Also, Hebrew is an official national minority language in Poland , since 6 January 2005. Hamas has made Hebrew a compulsory language taught in schools in the Gaza Strip. Megawatt The watt (symbol: W ) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m ⋅s . It
5576-666: Is supported by Resolution 487 adopted by the United Nations Security Council in response to the attack. In early 2010, The Siasat Daily , citing an unnamed Iraqi parliament member, reported that Iraqi officials had received word from the UN Secretariat that the Iraqi government was entitled to seek compensation from Israel for damage caused by the attack. Israel claims that the attack impeded Iraq's nuclear ambitions by at least ten years. In an interview in 2005, Bill Clinton expressed support for
5740-573: Is the only successful large-scale example of linguistic revival . It is the only Canaanite language, as well as one of only two Northwest Semitic languages, with the other being Aramaic , still spoken today. The earliest examples of written Paleo-Hebrew date back to the 10th century BCE. Nearly all of the Hebrew Bible is written in Biblical Hebrew , with much of its present form in the dialect that scholars believe flourished around
5904-457: Is the primary official language of the State of Israel. As of 2013 , there are about 9 million Hebrew speakers worldwide, of whom 7 million speak it fluently. Currently, 90% of Israeli Jews are proficient in Hebrew, and 70% are highly proficient. Some 60% of Israeli Arabs are also proficient in Hebrew, and 30% report having a higher proficiency in Hebrew than in Arabic. In total, about 53% of
6068-523: Is the rate at which electrical work is performed when a current of one ampere (A) flows across an electrical potential difference of one volt (V), meaning the watt is equivalent to the volt-ampere (the latter unit, however, is used for a different quantity from the real power of an electrical circuit). 1 W = 1 V ⋅ A . {\displaystyle \mathrm {1~W=1~V{\cdot }A} .} Two additional unit conversions for watt can be found using
6232-530: Is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer . The watt is named in honor of James Watt (1736–1819), an 18th-century Scottish inventor , mechanical engineer , and chemist who improved the Newcomen engine with his own steam engine in 1776. Watt's invention was fundamental for the Industrial Revolution . When an object's velocity is held constant at one meter per second against
6396-547: Is used to pronounce the Hebrew Bible; however, properly it should be distinguished from the historical Biblical Hebrew of the 6th century BCE, whose original pronunciation must be reconstructed. Tiberian Hebrew incorporates the scholarship of the Masoretes (from masoret meaning "tradition"), who added vowel points and grammar points to the Hebrew letters to preserve much earlier features of Hebrew, for use in chanting
6560-650: The Chayei Adam in Hebrew, as opposed to Yiddish , as a guide to Halacha for the " average 17-year-old" (Ibid. Introduction 1). Similarly, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan 's purpose in writing the Mishnah Berurah was to "produce a work that could be studied daily so that Jews might know the proper procedures to follow minute by minute". The work was nevertheless written in Talmudic Hebrew and Aramaic, since, "the ordinary Jew [of Eastern Europe] of
6724-661: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published excerpts from the testimony of Roger Richter, a former IAEA inspector who described the weaknesses of the agency's nuclear safeguards to the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations . Richter testified that only part of Iraq's nuclear installation was under safeguard and that the most sensitive facilities were not even subject to safeguards. IAEA's Director-General Sigvard Eklund issued
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6888-576: The Los Angeles Times called it " state-sponsored terrorism ". The destruction of Iraq's Osirak reactor has been cited as an example of a preventive strike in contemporary scholarship on international law . The efficacy of the attack is debated by historians, who acknowledge that it brought Iraq back from the brink of nuclear capability but drove its weapons program underground and cemented Iraqi President Saddam Hussein 's future ambitions for acquiring nuclear weapons. Iraq had established
7052-569: The 1981 Israeli legislative elections for the Knesset . At the time of its occurrence, the attack was met with sharp international criticism, including in the United States , and Israel was rebuked by the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly in two separate resolutions. Media reactions were also negative: "Israel's sneak attack ... was an act of inexcusable and short-sighted aggression", wrote The New York Times , while
7216-727: The Ancient Greek Ἑβραῖος ( hebraîos ) and Aramaic 'ibrāy , all ultimately derived from Biblical Hebrew Ivri ( עברי ), one of several names for the Israelite ( Jewish and Samaritan ) people ( Hebrews ). It is traditionally understood to be an adjective based on the name of Abraham 's ancestor, Eber , mentioned in Genesis 10:21 . The name is believed to be based on the Semitic root ʕ-b-r ( ע־ב־ר ), meaning "beyond", "other side", "across"; interpretations of
7380-656: The Ba'ath Party had come to power in 1968. On 6 April 1979, Israeli agents sabotaged the Osirak reactor awaiting shipment to Iraq at La Seyne-sur-Mer in France. On 14 June 1980, Mossad agents assassinated Yahya El Mashad , an Egyptian nuclear scientist who headed the Iraqi nuclear program, in a hotel in Paris. In July 1980, Iraq received from France a shipment of approximately 12.5 kilograms of highly enriched uranium fuel to be used in
7544-547: The Canaanite group of languages . Canaanite languages are a branch of the Northwest Semitic family of languages. Hebrew was the spoken language in the Iron Age kingdoms of Israel and Judah during the period from about 1200 to 586 BCE. Epigraphic evidence from this period confirms the widely accepted view that the earlier layers of biblical literature reflect the language used in these kingdoms. Furthermore,
7708-689: The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace , wrote in 2006: Israel had pulled off a remarkable military raid, striking targets with great precision over long distances. But the bombing set back Israel more than Iraq. It further harmed Israel's international reputation, later worsened by the ill-fated 1982 invasion of Lebanon, while making Iraq appear a victim of Israeli aggression. Hebrew language Hebrew ( Hebrew alphabet : עִבְרִית , ʿĪvrīt , pronounced [ ʔivˈʁit ] or [ ʕivˈrit ] ; Samaritan script : ࠏࠨࠁࠬࠓࠪࠉࠕ ʿÎbrit )
7872-572: The Gospel of Matthew . (See the Hebrew Gospel hypothesis or Language of Jesus for more details on Hebrew and Aramaic in the gospels.) The term "Mishnaic Hebrew" generally refers to the Hebrew dialects found in the Talmud , excepting quotations from the Hebrew Bible. The dialects organize into Mishnaic Hebrew (also called Tannaitic Hebrew, Early Rabbinic Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew I), which
8036-495: The Latin alphabet of ancient Rome . The Gezer calendar is written without any vowels , and it does not use consonants to imply vowels even in the places in which later Hebrew spelling requires them. Numerous older tablets have been found in the region with similar scripts written in other Semitic languages, for example, Proto-Sinaitic . It is believed that the original shapes of the script go back to Egyptian hieroglyphs , though
8200-682: The Maccabean Revolt (167–160 BCE) and the emergence of the Hasmonean kingdom , the Great Jewish Revolt (66–73 CE), and the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–135 CE). The nationalist significance of Hebrew manifested in various ways throughout this period. Michael Owen Wise notes that "Beginning with the time of the Hasmonean revolt [...] Hebrew came to the fore in an expression akin to modern nationalism. A form of classical Hebrew
8364-578: The Mediterranean Sea for the raid. The Israelis shortly afterwards received their first agreed delivery of F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft (the first batch was originally earmarked for Iran, but because of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 , the Israeli Air Force received theirs ahead of schedule). The new F-16s would be used for the raid. Israeli F-4 Phantoms also ran reconnaissance missions over areas of southern and western Iraq. While
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#17327731672208528-411: The Saudi desert . King Hussein of Jordan, vacationing in the Gulf of Aqaba , witnessed the planes overfly his yacht, and noticed their Israeli markings. Taking into account the location, heading, and armament of the jets, Hussein quickly deduced the Iraqi reactor to be the most probable target. Hussein immediately contacted his government and ordered a warning to be sent to the Iraqis. However, due to
8692-422: The Second Aliyah , it replaced a score of languages spoken by Jews at that time. Those languages were Jewish dialects of local languages, including Judaeo-Spanish (also called "Judezmo" and "Ladino"), Yiddish , Judeo-Arabic and Bukhori (Tajiki), or local languages spoken in the Jewish diaspora such as Russian , Persian and Arabic . The major result of the literary work of the Hebrew intellectuals along
8856-399: The literary and liturgical language into everyday spoken language . However, his brand of Hebrew followed norms that had been replaced in Eastern Europe by different grammar and style, in the writings of people like Ahad Ha'am and others. His organizational efforts and involvement with the establishment of schools and the writing of textbooks pushed the vernacularization activity into
9020-438: The nuclear weapons capability of other states in the region. In 1976, Iraq purchased an Osiris -class nuclear reactor from France. While Iraq and France maintained that the reactor, named Osirak by the French, was intended for peaceful scientific research, the Israelis viewed the reactor with suspicion, believing it was designed to produce nuclear weapons that could escalate the ongoing Arab–Israeli conflict . On 7 June 1981,
9184-507: The official language of the State of Israel . Estimates of worldwide usage include five million speakers in 1998, and over nine million people in 2013. After Israel, the United States has the largest Hebrew-speaking population, with approximately 220,000 fluent speakers (see Israeli Americans and Jewish Americans ). Modern Hebrew is the official language of the State of Israel, while pre-revival forms of Hebrew are used for prayer or study in Jewish and Samaritan communities around
9348-484: The ostraca found near Lachish , which describe events preceding the final capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian captivity of 586 BCE. In its widest sense, Biblical Hebrew refers to the spoken language of ancient Israel flourishing between c. 1000 BCE and c. 400 CE . It comprises several evolving and overlapping dialects. The phases of Classical Hebrew are often named after important literary works associated with them. Sometimes
9512-504: The same nuclear facility in Operation Scorch Sword , with the damage having been subsequently repaired by French technicians. Operation Opera, and related Israeli government statements following it, established the Begin Doctrine , which explicitly stated the strike was not an anomaly, but instead "a precedent for every future government in Israel". Israel's counter-proliferation preventive strike added another dimension to its existing policy of deliberate ambiguity , as it related to
9676-441: The 10th century BCE at the beginning of the Monarchic period , the traditional time of the reign of David and Solomon . Classified as Archaic Biblical Hebrew , the calendar presents a list of seasons and related agricultural activities. The Gezer calendar (named after the city in whose proximity it was found) is written in an old Semitic script, akin to the Phoenician one that, through the Greeks and Etruscans , later became
9840-454: The 1980s in the USSR , Hebrew studies reappeared due to people struggling for permission to go to Israel ( refuseniks ). Several of the teachers were imprisoned, e.g. Yosef Begun , Ephraim Kholmyansky , Yevgeny Korostyshevsky and others responsible for a Hebrew learning network connecting many cities of the USSR. Standard Hebrew, as developed by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, was based on Mishnaic spelling and Sephardi Hebrew pronunciation. However,
10004-535: The 19th century was a lexical modernization of Hebrew. New words and expressions were adapted as neologisms from the large corpus of Hebrew writings since the Hebrew Bible, or borrowed from Arabic (mainly by Ben-Yehuda) and older Aramaic and Latin. Many new words were either borrowed from or coined after European languages, especially English, Russian, German, and French. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921 (along with English and Arabic), and then in 1948 became an official language of
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#173277316722010168-495: The 6th century BCE, during the time of the Babylonian captivity . For this reason, Hebrew has been referred to by Jews as Lashon Hakodesh ( לְשׁוֹן הַקֹּדֶש , lit. ' the holy tongue ' or ' the tongue [of] holiness ' ) since ancient times. The language was not referred to by the name Hebrew in the Bible , but as Yehudit ( transl. ' Judean ' ) or Səpaṯ Kəna'an ( transl. "the language of Canaan " ). Mishnah Gittin 9:8 refers to
10332-579: The Aramaized Rabbinic Hebrew of the Talmud. Hebrew persevered through the ages as the main language for written purposes by all Jewish communities around the world for a large range of uses—not only liturgy, but also poetry, philosophy, science and medicine, commerce, daily correspondence and contracts. There have been many deviations from this generalization such as Bar Kokhba 's letters to his lieutenants, which were mostly in Aramaic, and Maimonides' writings, which were mostly in Arabic; but overall, Hebrew did not cease to be used for such purposes. For example,
10496-503: The British Mandate who at the turn of the 20th century were arriving in large numbers from diverse countries and speaking different languages. A Committee of the Hebrew Language was established. After the establishment of Israel, it became the Academy of the Hebrew Language . The results of Ben-Yehuda's lexicographical work were published in a dictionary ( The Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew , Ben-Yehuda Dictionary ). The seeds of Ben-Yehuda's work fell on fertile ground, and by
10660-402: The French government to sell them an Osiris-class research reactor . The purchase also included a smaller accompanying Isis-type reactor, the sale of 72 kilograms of 93% enriched uranium and the training of personnel. The total cost has been given as $ 300 million (equivalent to $ 1.62 billion in 2023). In November 1975, the countries signed a nuclear cooperation agreement and in 1976, the sale of
10824-488: The French, we could have done something to remove the threat." Jonathan Steele , writing in The Guardian , described the reaction: The world was outraged by Israel's raid on 7 June 1981. "Armed attack in such circumstances cannot be justified. It represents a grave breach of international law," Margaret Thatcher thundered. Jeane Kirkpatrick , the U.S. ambassador to the UN and as stern a lecturer as Britain's then prime minister, described it as "shocking" and compared it to
10988-416: The Great conquered Babylon, he allowed the Jewish people to return from captivity. In time, a local version of Aramaic came to be spoken in Israel alongside Hebrew. By the beginning of the Common Era , Aramaic was the primary colloquial language of Samarian , Babylonian and Galileean Jews, and western and intellectual Jews spoke Greek , but a form of so-called Rabbinic Hebrew continued to be used as
11152-432: The Hebrew name of god , Yahweh, as three letters, Yod-Heh-Vav (YHV), according to the author and his team meant that the tablet is Hebrew and not Canaanite. However, practically all professional archeologists and epigraphers apart from Stripling's team claim that there is no text on this object. In July 2008, Israeli archaeologist Yossi Garfinkel discovered a ceramic shard at Khirbet Qeiyafa that he claimed may be
11316-437: The Hebrew Bible. The Masoretes inherited a biblical text whose letters were considered too sacred to be altered, so their markings were in the form of pointing in and around the letters. The Syriac alphabet , precursor to the Arabic alphabet , also developed vowel pointing systems around this time. The Aleppo Codex , a Hebrew Bible with the Masoretic pointing, was written in the 10th century, likely in Tiberias, and survives into
11480-489: The Iranians. Rather than carrying out a follow-up air raid after their September attack, on 30 November 1980, an Iranian F-4 Phantom reconnaissance jet took pictures of the Osirak reactor. The photographs were allegedly placed in a top-secret metal container, and certain elements of the Iranian military delivered them to the Israelis. With these photographs, the Israelis began to plan out Operation Opera. A team of Israeli pilots using A-4 Skyhawk aircraft began practicing over
11644-444: The Iraqi Air Force was busy fighting the Iranians, on one occasion, an Iraqi MiG-21 chased an Israeli F-4; the Iraqi jet ran out of fuel and the pilot was forced to eject . However, in their missions, the Israelis discovered a blind area on Iraqi radar, on the border with Saudi Arabia. While the Iraqis were aware of the blind area, they did not remedy the problem because they did not expect a war with Saudi Arabia. The Iraqi Air Force
11808-570: The Israeli attack were to cover up Israel's possession of nuclear weapons and, more importantly, the determination not to allow the Arab nation to acquire scientific or technical knowledge." Syria requested condemnation not only of Israel for terrorism against Arab peoples, but also of the United States, "which continue[s] to provide Israel with instruments of destruction as part of its strategic alliance." The representative of France stated that
11972-577: The Israeli pilots conversed in Saudi-accented Arabic while in Jordanian airspace and told Jordanian air controllers that they were a Saudi patrol that had gone off course. While flying over Saudi Arabia, they pretended to be Jordanians, using Jordanian radio signals and formations. The Israeli planes were so heavily loaded that the external fuel tanks that had been mounted on the planes were exhausted in-flight. The tanks were jettisoned over
12136-454: The Israeli population speaks Hebrew as a native language, while most of the rest speak it fluently. In 2013 Hebrew was the native language of 49% of Israelis over the age of 20, with Russian , Arabic , French , English , Yiddish and Ladino being the native tongues of most of the rest. Some 26% of immigrants from the former Soviet Union and 12% of Arabs reported speaking Hebrew poorly or not at all. Steps have been taken to keep Hebrew
12300-417: The Middle East was the closely related Aramaic language, then Greek , scholarly opinions on the exact dating of that shift have changed very much. In the first half of the 20th century, most scholars followed Abraham Geiger and Gustaf Dalman in thinking that Aramaic became a spoken language in the land of Israel as early as the beginning of Israel's Hellenistic period in the 4th century BCE, and that as
12464-627: The Mossad bombed several of the French and Italian companies it suspected of working on the project, and sent threatening letters to top officials and technicians, causing several French technicians to resign. Following the bombing in April 1979, France inserted a clause in its agreement with Iraq saying that French personnel would have to supervise the Osirak reactor on-site for a period of ten years. The alleged assassinations caused widespread panic among Iraqi nuclear scientists. Saddam Hussein, worried over
12628-535: The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. American newspapers were as fulsome. "Israel's sneak attack ... was an act of inexcusable and short-sighted aggression," said the New York Times . The Los Angeles Times called it " state-sponsored terrorism ". Ten Iraqi soldiers and one French civilian were killed in the attack. The civilian killed was engineer Damien Chaussepied, variously described as 24 or 25 years old, who
12792-674: The Talmud, the Gemara , generally comments on the Mishnah and Baraitot in two forms of Aramaic. Nevertheless, Hebrew survived as a liturgical and literary language in the form of later Amoraic Hebrew, which occasionally appears in the text of the Gemara, particularly in the Jerusalem Talmud and the classical aggadah midrashes . Hebrew was always regarded as the language of Israel's religion, history and national pride, and after it faded as
12956-460: The Talmud, various regional literary dialects of Medieval Hebrew evolved. The most important is Tiberian Hebrew or Masoretic Hebrew, a local dialect of Tiberias in Galilee that became the standard for vocalizing the Hebrew Bible and thus still influences all other regional dialects of Hebrew. This Tiberian Hebrew from the 7th to 10th century CE is sometimes called "Biblical Hebrew" because it
13120-657: The United Nations took two paths. The United Nations Security Council issued a unanimous and almost immediate response on 19 June 1981, following eight meetings and statements from Iraq and the International Atomic Energy Agency . Security Council Resolution 487 strongly condemned the attack as a "clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations and the norms of international conduct" and called on Israel to refrain from such attacks in
13284-589: The United States , writes that a senior Israeli official met with a representative of the Ayatollah Khomeini in France one month prior to the Israeli attack. The source of the assertion is Ari Ben-Menashe , a former Israeli government employee. At the alleged meeting, the Iranians explained details of their 1980 attack on the site, and agreed to let Israeli planes land at an Iranian airfield in Tabriz in
13448-488: The ability to speak the language and attempted to promote its use. According to the Jerusalem Talmud , Megillah 1:9: "Rebbi Jonathan from Bet Guvrrin said, four languages are appropriate that the world should use them, and they are these: The Foreign Language (Greek) for song, Latin for war, Syriac for elegies, Hebrew for speech. Some are saying, also Assyrian (Hebrew script) for writing." The later section of
13612-470: The above equation and Ohm's law . 1 W = 1 V 2 / Ω = 1 A 2 ⋅ Ω , {\displaystyle \mathrm {1~W=1~V^{2}/\Omega =1~A^{2}{\cdot }\Omega } ,} where ohm ( Ω {\displaystyle \Omega } ) is the SI derived unit of electrical resistance . The watt
13776-478: The above phases of spoken Classical Hebrew are simplified into "Biblical Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 10th century BCE to 2nd century BCE and extant in certain Dead Sea Scrolls) and "Mishnaic Hebrew" (including several dialects from the 3rd century BCE to the 3rd century CE and extant in certain other Dead Sea Scrolls). However, today most Hebrew linguists classify Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew as
13940-490: The airbase. Iran claimed that 48 Iraqi aircraft were destroyed, although US intelligence concluded that 27 aircraft were destroyed and 11 others damaged. Among the aircraft hit were two Tu-22 Blinder and three Tu-16 Badger strategic bombers (which could have been used to retaliate against Israel in the event of an attack). The attack was a severe blow to Iraqi airpower, and largely gave Iran air superiority over Iraq. Israeli reconnaissance planes had been monitoring Iraq during
14104-480: The assumption that winds were blowing in that direction. In October 1980, Mossad reported to Begin that the Osirak reactor would be fueled and operational by June 1981. This assessment was significantly aided by reconnaissance photos supplied by the United States, specifically using the KH-11 KENNEN satellite. French technicians installing the reactor later said it was scheduled to become operational only by
14268-566: The attack, and observed that the Iraqi Air Force had been severely degraded and their retaliatory capacity had been weakened. Yehuda Zvi Blum , in a speech to the United Nations Security Council following the attack, claimed that the operation was launched on a Sunday afternoon under the assumption that workers present on the site, including foreign experts employed at the reactor, would have left. Notwithstanding this precaution, there were hundreds of French workers and other nationals at
14432-472: The attack: "everybody talks about what the Israelis did at Osiraq, in 1981, which, I think, in retrospect, was a really good thing. You know, it kept Saddam from developing nuclear power." Louis René Beres wrote in 1995 that "[h]ad it not been for the brilliant raid at Osiraq, Saddam's forces might have been equipped with atomic warheads in 1991." In 2010, squad leader Ze'ev Raz said of the operation: "There
14596-561: The average Jew, and that the language had evolved since Biblical times as spoken languages do. Recent scholarship recognizes that reports of Jews speaking in Aramaic indicate a multilingual society, not necessarily the primary language spoken. Alongside Aramaic, Hebrew co-existed within Israel as a spoken language. Most scholars now date the demise of Hebrew as a spoken language to the end of the Roman period , or about 200 CE. It continued on as
14760-547: The beginning of the 20th century, Hebrew was well on its way to becoming the main language of the Jewish population of both Ottoman and British Palestine. At the time, members of the Old Yishuv and a very few Hasidic sects, most notably those under the auspices of Satmar , refused to speak Hebrew and spoke only Yiddish. In the Soviet Union, the use of Hebrew, along with other Jewish cultural and religious activities,
14924-555: The case of an emergency. While the new Iranian government was officially hostile to Israel, due to both nations having a common enemy (Iraq), and Iranian fears that the Iraqis would create an atomic bomb to use on them, they clandestinely worked with Israel to forestall such a development. The distance between Israeli military bases and the reactor site was significant—over 1,600 km (990 mi; 860 nmi). The Israeli planes would have to violate Jordanian and/or Saudi airspace in
15088-602: The composition of 1 Maccabees in archaizing Hebrew, Hasmonean coinage under John Hyrcanus (134-104 BCE), and coins from both the Great Revolt and Bar Kokhba Revolt featuring exclusively Hebrew and Palaeo-Hebrew script inscriptions. This deliberate use of Hebrew and Paleo-Hebrew script in official contexts, despite limited literacy, served as a symbol of Jewish nationalism and political independence. The Christian New Testament contains some Semitic place names and quotes. The language of such Semitic glosses (and in general
15252-468: The content of Hebrew inscriptions suggests that the written texts closely mirror the spoken language of that time. Scholars debate the degree to which Hebrew was a spoken vernacular in ancient times following the Babylonian exile when the predominant international language in the region was Old Aramaic . Hebrew was extinct as a colloquial language by late antiquity , but it continued to be used as
15416-452: The damage and loss of life it had caused. The resolution also solemnly warned Israel to refrain from taking such measures in the future. Debate prior to passage of the UN resolution reflected member states' differing positions on issues such as nuclear proliferation in the region and the appropriateness and justifiability of Israel's actions. The Iraqi representative stated that "the motives behind
15580-451: The decision to attack would lead to a fatal inability to act in response to the perceived threat. According to Karl P. Mueller, in the spring of 1979, Begin had reached the conclusion that an anticipatory attack was necessary. Anthony Cordesman writes that the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad conducted a series of clandestine operations to halt construction or destroy the reactor. In April 1979, Mossad agents in France allegedly planted
15744-504: The delivery of four F-16 aircraft to Israel, but blocked punitive action by the UN. The suspension on the delivery of the aircraft was lifted two months later. The UN General Assembly followed the Security Council with Resolution No. 36/27 on 13 November 1981, expressing deep alarm and condemning Israel over the "premeditated and unprecedented act of aggression," and demanding that Israel pay prompt and adequate compensation for
15908-568: The dialects of Classical Hebrew that functioned as a living language in the land of Israel. A transitional form of the language occurs in the other works of Tannaitic literature dating from the century beginning with the completion of the Mishnah. These include the halachic Midrashim ( Sifra , Sifre , Mekhilta etc.) and the expanded collection of Mishnah-related material known as the Tosefta . The Talmud contains excerpts from these works, as well as further Tannaitic material not attested elsewhere;
16072-423: The earliest Hebrew writing yet discovered, dating from around 3,000 years ago. Hebrew University archaeologist Amihai Mazar said that the inscription was "proto-Canaanite" but cautioned that "[t]he differentiation between the scripts, and between the languages themselves in that period, remains unclear", and suggested that calling the text Hebrew might be going too far. The Gezer calendar also dates back to
16236-513: The earliest speakers of Modern Hebrew had Yiddish as their native language and often introduced calques from Yiddish and phono-semantic matchings of international words. Despite using Sephardic Hebrew pronunciation as its primary basis, modern Israeli Hebrew has adapted to Ashkenazi Hebrew phonology in some respects, mainly the following: The vocabulary of Israeli Hebrew is much larger than that of earlier periods. According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann : The number of attested Biblical Hebrew words
16400-584: The early 6th century BCE, the Neo-Babylonian Empire conquered the ancient Kingdom of Judah , destroying much of Jerusalem and exiling its population far to the east in Babylon . During the Babylonian captivity , many Israelites learned Aramaic, the closely related Semitic language of their captors. Thus, for a significant period, the Jewish elite became influenced by Aramaic. After Cyrus
16564-500: The effect on the morale of the project's scientists, awarded cash bonuses and luxury cars to all senior scientists. Meshad's widow was awarded $ 300,000 and promised that she and her children would receive a lifelong pension. Iraqi scientists were given financial bonuses for international travel, which they had become increasingly fearful of, and received instructions on how to avoid potential Mossad assassinations. In an air attack codenamed Operation Scorch Sword , Iran attacked and damaged
16728-483: The end of 1981. Nonetheless, in October 1980, the Israeli cabinet (with Dayan absent) finally voted 10–6 in favor of launching the attack. After the approval for Operation Opera, the Israelis began to plan their mission against Osirak. The basic procedure for the airstrike had been formulated as early as 1979. However, the Israelis needed photographic intelligence about the layout of the plant. That task allegedly fell to
16892-515: The energy company Ørsted A/S uses the unit megawatt for produced electrical power and the equivalent unit megajoule per second for delivered heating power in a combined heat and power station such as Avedøre Power Station . When describing alternating current (AC) electricity, another distinction is made between the watt and the volt-ampere . While these units are equivalent for simple resistive circuits , they differ when loads exhibit electrical reactance . Radio stations usually report
17056-711: The first Middle East printing press, in Safed (modern Israel), produced a small number of books in Hebrew in 1577, which were then sold to the nearby Jewish world. This meant not only that well-educated Jews in all parts of the world could correspond in a mutually intelligible language, and that books and legal documents published or written in any part of the world could be read by Jews in all other parts, but that an educated Jew could travel and converse with Jews in distant places, just as priests and other educated Christians could converse in Latin. For example, Rabbi Avraham Danzig wrote
17220-559: The future; the Council recognised the right of Iraq to "establish programmes of technological and nuclear development" and called for Israel to join Iraq within the "IAEA safeguards regime" of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty . The council also stated its consideration that Iraq was "entitled to appropriate redress for the destruction it has suffered." The United States voted for the resolution and suspended
17384-406: The generic term for these passages is Baraitot . The dialect of all these works is very similar to Mishnaic Hebrew. About a century after the publication of the Mishnah, Mishnaic Hebrew fell into disuse as a spoken language. By the third century CE, sages could no longer identify the Hebrew names of many plants mentioned in the Mishnah. Only a few sages, primarily in the southern regions, retained
17548-462: The language as Ivrit , meaning Hebrew; however, Mishnah Megillah refers to the language as Ashurit , meaning Assyrian , which is derived from the name of the alphabet used , in contrast to Ivrit , meaning the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet . Hebrew ceased to be a regular spoken language sometime between 200 and 400 CE, as it declined in the aftermath of the unsuccessful Bar Kokhba revolt , which
17712-465: The language spoken by Jews in scenes from the New Testament) is often referred to as "Hebrew" in the text, although this term is often re-interpreted as referring to Aramaic instead and is rendered accordingly in recent translations. Nonetheless, these glosses can be interpreted as Hebrew as well. It has been argued that Hebrew, rather than Aramaic or Koine Greek, lay behind the composition of
17876-471: The language. The revival of the Hebrew language as a mother tongue was initiated in the late 19th century by the efforts of Ben-Yehuda. He joined the Jewish national movement and in 1881 immigrated to Palestine , then a part of the Ottoman Empire . Motivated by the surrounding ideals of renovation and rejection of the diaspora " shtetl " lifestyle, Ben-Yehuda set out to develop tools for making
18040-414: The likelihood of useful accomplishment is low. Israel's strike increased the determination of Arabs to produce nuclear weapons. Arab states that may attempt to do so will now be all the more secretive and circumspect. Israel's strike, far from foreclosing Iraq's nuclear future, gained her the support of some other Arab states in pursuing it. And despite Prime Minister Begin's vow to strike as often as need be,
18204-526: The manufacturing of nuclear weapons could have been conducted secretly. Fainberg wrote that there was barely enough fuel on the site to make one bomb, and that the presence of hundreds of foreign technicians would have made it impossible for the Iraqis to take the necessary steps without being discovered. In Israel, discussions on which strategy to adopt in response to the Iraqi reactor development were taking place as early as Yitzhak Rabin's first term in office (1974–1977). Reportedly, planning and training for
18368-406: The material necessary for a nuclear weapon. In the end, Begin chose to order the attack based on a worst-case estimate where a weapon could be created in one to two years time. According to Ronen Bergman , Mossad director Yitzhak Hofi told Begin in October 1980 that the Mossad's campaign of assassinations and sabotage could not stop the Iraqi nuclear program and that the only way to put an end to it
18532-420: The matter but failed to obtain assurances that the reactor program would be halted. In addition Israel was not able to convince the French governments of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and François Mitterrand to cease aiding the Iraqi nuclear program. Saddam Hussein consistently maintained that Osirak was intended for peaceful purposes. Begin considered the diplomatic options fruitless, and worried that prolonging
18696-460: The maximum power output it can achieve at any point in time. A power station's annual energy output, however, would be recorded using units of energy (not power), typically gigawatt hours. Major energy production or consumption is often expressed as terawatt hours for a given period; often a calendar year or financial year. One terawatt hour of energy is equal to a sustained power delivery of one terawatt for one hour, or approximately 114 megawatts for
18860-727: The newly declared State of Israel . Hebrew is the most widely spoken language in Israel today. In the Modern Period, from the 19th century onward, the literary Hebrew tradition revived as the spoken language of modern Israel, called variously Israeli Hebrew , Modern Israeli Hebrew , Modern Hebrew , New Hebrew , Israeli Standard Hebrew , Standard Hebrew and so on. Israeli Hebrew exhibits some features of Sephardic Hebrew from its local Jerusalemite tradition but adapts it with numerous neologisms, borrowed terms (often technical) from European languages and adopted terms (often colloquial) from Arabic. The literary and narrative use of Hebrew
19024-514: The operation began during this time. After Menachem Begin became Prime Minister in 1977 the preparations intensified; Begin authorized the building of a full-scale model of the Iraqi reactor which Israeli pilots could practice bombing. Three Israeli pilots died in accidents while training for the mission. Israel's Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan initiated diplomatic negotiations with France, the United States and Italy (Israel maintained that some Italian firms acted as suppliers and sub-contractors) over
19188-430: The operation would derail the fragile Israeli-Egyptian peace process, fuel Arab anxieties about Israel's profile in the region, and damage Israel-French relations". Begin and his supporters, including Sharon, were far less pessimistic than their opponents about the political fallout. Yehoshua Saguy argued for continued efforts in trying to find a non-military solution as it would take the Iraqis five to ten years to produce
19352-534: The phonetic values are instead inspired by the acrophonic principle. The common ancestor of Hebrew and Phoenician is called Canaanite , and was the first to use a Semitic alphabet distinct from that of Egyptian. One ancient document is the famous Moabite Stone , written in the Moabite dialect; the Siloam inscription , found near Jerusalem , is an early example of Hebrew. Less ancient samples of Archaic Hebrew include
19516-412: The plant at the time of the raid. The attack squadron consisted of eight F-16As , each with two unguided Mark-84 2,000-pound (910 kg) delay-action bombs . A flight of six F-15As was assigned to the operation to provide fighter support. The F-16 pilots were Ze'ev Raz, Amos Yadlin , Dobbi Yaffe, Hagai Katz, Amir Nachumi , Iftach Spector , Relik Shafir , and Ilan Ramon . Raz led the attack and
19680-499: The plant cooling mechanisms. Two other F-4s simultaneously hit Baghdad's main power plant, knocking the city's electricity out for nearly two days. The Iraqis denied any major damage. The French and Italian technicians promptly left Iraq, and nearly withdrew from the project, but some later returned in February 1981 and began to repair the damage. Trita Parsi , in the book Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and
19844-488: The power of their transmitters in units of watts, referring to the effective radiated power . This refers to the power that a half-wave dipole antenna would need to radiate to match the intensity of the transmitter's main lobe . The terms power and energy are closely related but distinct physical quantities. Power is the rate at which energy is generated or consumed and hence is measured in units (e.g. watts) that represent energy per unit time . For example, when
20008-591: The present day. It is perhaps the most important Hebrew manuscript in existence. During the Golden age of Jewish culture in Spain , important work was done by grammarians in explaining the grammar and vocabulary of Biblical Hebrew; much of this was based on the work of the grammarians of Classical Arabic . Important Hebrew grammarians were Judah ben David Hayyuj , Jonah ibn Janah , Abraham ibn Ezra and later (in Provence ), David Kimhi . A great deal of poetry
20172-635: The primary language of use, and to prevent large-scale incorporation of English words into the Hebrew vocabulary. The Academy of the Hebrew Language of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem currently invents about 2,000 new Hebrew words each year for modern words by finding an original Hebrew word that captures the meaning, as an alternative to incorporating more English words into Hebrew vocabulary. The Haifa municipality has banned officials from using English words in official documents, and
20336-479: The project. The Osirak facility remained in its damaged state until the 1991 Persian Gulf War , when it was completely destroyed by subsequent coalition air strikes by the United States Air Force , one of them being the Package Q Strike . During the war, 100 out of 120 members of the Knesset signed a letter of appreciation to Menachem Begin, thanking him for ordering the attack on Osirak . In July 1991, Begin, in
20500-518: The prospect of suspending Israel's privileges and rights of membership be considered at the next General Conference held by the organization. On 26 September 1981, the IAEA Conference condemned the attack and voted to suspend all technical assistance to Israel. A draft resolution was introduced to expel Israel from the IAEA, but the proposition was defeated. The United States argued that the attack
20664-514: The radar of the Iraqi defences. At 18:35 local time (14:35 GMT ), 20 km (12 mi) from the Osirak reactor complex, the F-16 formation climbed to 2,100 m (6,900 ft) and went into a 35-degree dive at 1,100 km/h (680 mph), aimed at the reactor complex. At 1,100 m (3,600 ft), the F-16s began releasing the Mark 84 bombs in pairs, at 5-second intervals. At least eight of
20828-490: The rank of major . In addition, 23 other Iraqi pilots and officers were imprisoned. The attack took place approximately three weeks before the Israeli legislative election of 1981 . Opposition leader Shimon Peres criticized the operation as a political ploy, which did not go over well with the electorate. Dan Perry writes that "the Osirak bombing—and Peres's poor political judgement in criticizing it—were crucial in turning
20992-481: The reactor was finalized. Construction for the 40- megawatt light-water nuclear reactor began in 1979 at the Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Center near Baghdad . The main reactor was dubbed Osirak (Osiraq) by the French, blending the name of Iraq with that of the reactor class. Iraq named the main reactor Tammuz 1 ( Arabic : تموز ) and the smaller Tammuz 2 . Tammuz was the Babylonian month when
21156-468: The reactor when operating to have caused lethal exposures to radioactivity in Baghdad, although some people at the reactor site might receive some exposure". This was similarly the conclusion of Herbert Goldstein of Columbia University using IAEA release factors, the lethal contamination would be confined to a close proximity to the reactor and small amounts of radiation would be detectable in Baghdad under
21320-466: The reactor. The shipment was the first of a planned six deliveries totalling 72 kilograms. It was reportedly stipulated in the purchase agreement that no more than two HEU fuel loadings, 24 kilograms, could be in Iraq at any time. Iraq and France claimed that the Iraqi reactor was intended for peaceful scientific research. Agreements between France and Iraq excluded military use. The American private intelligence agency STRATFOR wrote in 2007 that
21484-674: The rest of the Middle East; and eventually Greek functioned as another international language with the eastern areas of the Roman Empire. William Schniedewind argues that after waning in the Persian period, the religious importance of Hebrew grew in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, and cites epigraphical evidence that Hebrew survived as a vernacular language – though both its grammar and its writing system had been substantially influenced by Aramaic. According to another summary, Greek
21648-432: The risks in doing so would rise with each occasion. Charles R. H. Tripp , in an interview for the 25th anniversary of the attack, described the bombing of Osirak as a variation of Israeli military doctrine beginning with the premiership of David Ben-Gurion , "advocating devastating pre-emptive strikes on Arab enemies." Tripp asserted, "the Osirak attack is an illegal way to behave—Resolution 487 established that—but it
21812-573: The site on 30 September 1980, with two F-4 Phantoms , shortly after the outbreak of the Iran–Iraq War . At the onset of the war, Yehoshua Sagi , director of the Israeli Military Intelligence Directorate , publicly urged the Iranians to bomb the reactor. The attack was the first on a nuclear reactor and only the third on a nuclear facility in history. It was also the first instance of a preventive attack on
21976-530: The sixteen released bombs struck the containment dome of the reactor. It was later revealed that half an hour before the Israeli planes arrived, a group of Iraqi soldiers manning anti-aircraft defenses had left their posts for an afternoon meal, turning off their radars. The Israeli planes were still intercepted by Iraqi defenses but managed to evade the remaining anti-aircraft fire. The squadron climbed to high altitude and started their return to Israel. The attack lasted less than two minutes. International response at
22140-510: The sole purpose of the reactor was scientific research. Agreements between France and Iraq excluded military use. The United Kingdom said it did not believe Iraq had the capacity to manufacture fissionable materials for nuclear weapons. The IAEA Director-General confirmed that inspections of the nuclear research reactors near Baghdad revealed no non-compliance with the safeguards agreement. The IAEA's Board of Governors convened on 9–12 June and condemned Israel's action. The Board further asked that
22304-493: The southern villages of Judea." In other words, "in terms of dialect geography, at the time of the tannaim Palestine could be divided into the Aramaic-speaking regions of Galilee and Samaria and a smaller area, Judaea, in which Rabbinic Hebrew was used among the descendants of returning exiles." In addition, it has been surmised that Koine Greek was the primary vehicle of communication in coastal cities and among
22468-474: The spoken language of the Russian Jews, should be treated as their only national language, while Hebrew was to be treated as a foreign language. Hebrew books and periodicals ceased to be published and were seized from the libraries, although liturgical texts were still published until the 1930s. Despite numerous protests, a policy of suppression of the teaching of Hebrew operated from the 1930s on. Later in
22632-470: The term "Hebrew" generally render its meaning as roughly "from the other side [of the river/desert]"—i.e., an exonym for the inhabitants of the land of Israel and Judah , perhaps from the perspective of Mesopotamia , Phoenicia or Transjordan (with the river referred to being perhaps the Euphrates , Jordan or Litani ; or maybe the northern Arabian Desert between Babylonia and Canaan ). Compare
22796-605: The tide of what initially had seemed to be a hopeless election campaign for Likud ". Begin responded to Peres's accusation at a Likud rally: "Jews, you have known me for forty years, since I lived in the Hassidoff neighborhood of Petah Tikva to fight for the Jewish people (a reference to Begin's incognito days in the Irgun ). Would I send Jewish boys to risk death—or captivity worse than death, because those barbarians would have tortured our boys horribly—for elections?" On 30 June, Likud
22960-569: The unit of power. In the electric power industry , megawatt electrical ( MWe or MW e ) refers by convention to the electric power produced by a generator, while megawatt thermal or thermal megawatt (MWt, MW t , or MWth, MW th ) refers to thermal power produced by the plant. For example, the Embalse nuclear power plant in Argentina uses a fission reactor to generate 2,109 MW t (i.e. heat), which creates steam to drive
23124-570: The unit within the existing system of practical units as "the power conveyed by a current of an Ampère through the difference of potential of a Volt". In October 1908, at the International Conference on Electric Units and Standards in London, so-called international definitions were established for practical electrical units. Siemens' definition was adopted as the international watt. (Also used: 1 A × 1 Ω.) The watt
23288-580: The upper class of Jerusalem , while Aramaic was prevalent in the lower class of Jerusalem, but not in the surrounding countryside. After the suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt in the 2nd century CE, Judaeans were forced to disperse. Many relocated to Galilee, so most remaining native speakers of Hebrew at that last stage would have been found in the north. Many scholars have pointed out that Hebrew continued to be used alongside Aramaic during Second Temple times, not only for religious purposes but also for nationalistic reasons, especially during revolts such as
23452-568: The uranium-fueled reactor "was believed to be on the verge of producing plutonium for a weapons program". In a 2003 speech, Richard Wilson , a professor of physics at Harvard University who visually inspected the partially damaged reactor in December 1982, said that "to collect enough plutonium [for a nuclear weapon] using Osirak would've taken decades, not years". In 2005, Wilson further commented in The Atlantic : "The Osirak reactor that
23616-505: The word Habiru or cognate Assyrian ebru , of identical meaning. One of the earliest references to the language's name as " Ivrit " is found in the prologue to the Book of Sirach , from the 2nd century BCE. The Hebrew Bible does not use the term "Hebrew" in reference to the language of the Hebrew people; its later historiography, in the Book of Kings , refers to it as יְהוּדִית Yehudit " Judahite (language)". Hebrew belongs to
23780-595: The world today; the latter group utilizes the Samaritan dialect as their liturgical tongue. As a non- first language , it is studied mostly by non-Israeli Jews and students in Israel, by archaeologists and linguists specializing in the Middle East and its civilizations , and by theologians in Christian seminaries . The modern English word "Hebrew" is derived from Old French Ebrau , via Latin from
23944-421: Was a spoken language , and Amoraic Hebrew (also called Late Rabbinic Hebrew or Mishnaic Hebrew II), which was a literary language . The earlier section of the Talmud is the Mishnah that was published around 200 CE, although many of the stories take place much earlier, and were written in the earlier Mishnaic dialect. The dialect is also found in certain Dead Sea Scrolls. Mishnaic Hebrew is considered to be one of
24108-553: Was a potential threat to the Israelis (as the MiG-21 interception showed) and it somewhat deterred Israel from attacking yet. However, Israel had an advantage in that Iraq was preoccupied fighting Iran. On 4 April 1981, the Iranian Air Force launched a major attack on Iraq's H-3 airbase in the western part of the country (near Jordan and Israel). Eight Iranian F-4 Phantoms carried out the long range bombing mission and struck
24272-506: Was an airstrike. Prime Minister Begin defended the timing of the bombing stating that a later attack, after the reactor had become operational, could cause lethal radioactive contamination doses to reach all the way to Baghdad. An analysis by Warren Donnelly of the United States Congressional Research Service concluded that "it would be most unlikely for an attack with conventional bombs upon
24436-414: Was an employee of Air Liquide and the French governmental agency CEA . In 1981, Israel agreed to pay restitution to Chaussepied's family. Iraq said it would rebuild the facility and France agreed, in principle, to aid in the reconstruction. Because of a mix of factors, including the Iran–Iraq War , international pressure and Iraqi payment problems, negotiations broke down in 1984 and France withdrew from
24600-532: Was bombed by Israel in June 1981 was explicitly designed by the French engineer Yves Girard to be unsuitable for making bombs. That was obvious to me on my 1982 visit". Elsewhere Wilson has stated that contrary to claims that the bombing of the Iraqi Osirak reactor delayed Iraq's nuclear bomb program, the Iraqi nuclear program before 1981 was peaceful, and the Osirak reactor was not only unsuited to making bombs but
24764-457: Was carried out against the Roman Empire by the Jews of Judaea . Aramaic and, to a lesser extent, Greek were already in use as international languages, especially among societal elites and immigrants. Hebrew survived into the medieval period as the language of Jewish liturgy , rabbinic literature , intra-Jewish commerce, and Jewish poetic literature . The first dated book printed in Hebrew
24928-420: Was defined as equal to 10 units of power in the practical system of units. The "international units" were dominant from 1909 until 1948. After the 9th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1948, the international watt was redefined from practical units to absolute units (i.e., using only length, mass, and time). Concretely, this meant that 1 watt was defined as the quantity of energy transferred in
25092-598: Was later decorated by the Chief of Staff for his leadership. Ramon, who was the youngest pilot to participate in the operation, later became the first Israeli astronaut and died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster . The operation started on 7 June 1981, at 15:55 local time (12:55 GMT ). The Israeli planes left Etzion Airbase , flying unchallenged in Jordanian and Saudi airspace. To avoid detection,
25256-451: Was no doubt in the mind of the decision makers that we couldn't take a chance. We knew that the Iraqis could do exactly what we did in Dimona ." As early as the autumn of 1981, Kenneth Waltz discussed the fallout from the strike: In striking Iraq, Israel showed that a preventive strike can be made, something that was not in doubt. Israel's act and its consequences however, make clear that
25420-468: Was not a violation of the IAEA Statute and that punitive action against Israel would do great harm to the IAEA and the non-proliferation regime. The attack was strongly criticized around the world, including in the United States. Privately, President Reagan wrote in his journal on the day of the attack, "I swear I believe Armageddon is near," adding of Begin's decision, "He should have told us &
25584-491: Was now a more significant written language than Aramaic within Judaea." This nationalist aspect was further emphasized during periods of conflict, as Hannah Cotton observing in her analysis of legal documents during the Jewish revolts against Rome that "Hebrew became the symbol of Jewish nationalism, of the independent Jewish State." The nationalist use of Hebrew is evidenced in several historical documents and artefacts, including
25748-566: Was published by Abraham Garton in Reggio ( Calabria , Italy) in 1475. With the rise of Zionism in the 19th century, the Hebrew language experienced a full-scale revival as a spoken and literary language. The creation of a modern version of the ancient language was led by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda . Modern Hebrew ( Ivrit ) became the main language of the Yishuv in Palestine , and subsequently
25912-504: Was reelected over Peres's Alignment party, winning by just one seat in the Knesset. The US government had been caught completely off-guard by the attack. A former senior official in US intelligence told Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman that the failure to detect preparations for the attack was perceived as a grave intelligence failure within the US intelligence community , and that it led to
26076-629: Was revived beginning with the Haskalah movement. The first secular periodical in Hebrew, Ha-Me'assef (The Gatherer), was published by maskilim in Königsberg (today's Kaliningrad ) from 1783 onwards. In the mid-19th century, publications of several Eastern European Hebrew-language newspapers (e.g. Hamagid , founded in Ełk in 1856) multiplied. Prominent poets were Hayim Nahman Bialik and Shaul Tchernichovsky ; there were also novels written in
26240-479: Was suppressed. Soviet authorities considered the use of Hebrew "reactionary" since it was associated with Zionism, and the teaching of Hebrew at primary and secondary schools was officially banned by the People's Commissariat for Education as early as 1919, as part of an overall agenda aiming to secularize education (the language itself did not cease to be studied at universities for historical and linguistic purposes ). The official ordinance stated that Yiddish, being
26404-437: Was the language of government, Hebrew the language of prayer, study and religious texts, and Aramaic was the language of legal contracts and trade. There was also a geographic pattern: according to Bernard Spolsky , by the beginning of the Common Era, " Judeo-Aramaic was mainly used in Galilee in the north, Greek was concentrated in the former colonies and around governmental centers, and Hebrew monolingualism continued mainly in
26568-408: Was to a certain extent a pidgin . Near the end of that century the Jewish activist Eliezer Ben-Yehuda , owing to the ideology of the national revival ( שיבת ציון , Shivat Tziyon , later Zionism ), began reviving Hebrew as a modern spoken language. Eventually, as a result of the local movement he created, but more significantly as a result of the new groups of immigrants known under the name of
26732-399: Was under intensive safeguards. In an interview in 2012, Wilson again emphasised: "The Iraqis couldn't have been developing a nuclear weapon at Osirak. I challenge any scientist in the world to show me how they could have done so." Iraq was a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty , placing its reactors under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. In October 1981,
26896-570: Was written, by poets such as Dunash ben Labrat , Solomon ibn Gabirol , Judah ha-Levi , Moses ibn Ezra and Abraham ibn Ezra , in a "purified" Hebrew based on the work of these grammarians, and in Arabic quantitative or strophic meters. This literary Hebrew was later used by Italian Jewish poets. The need to express scientific and philosophical concepts from Classical Greek and Medieval Arabic motivated Medieval Hebrew to borrow terminology and grammar from these other languages, or to coin equivalent terms from existing Hebrew roots, giving rise to
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