The Status of Nuclear Energy in Israel
John Steinbach
December 2008
The Status of Nuclear Energy in Israel
John Steinbach
December 2008
Abstract
Discussion of the status of nuclear energy in Israel of necessity must focus principally on its nuclear weapons program. When nuclear proliferation is discussed in international forums, the issue of Israel’s substantial nuclear arsenal is too often ignored or downplayed. Despite a maintaining a forty-year plus policy of neither confirming nor denying possession of nuclear weapons, with some 200 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, Israel is now the world’s fifth largest nuclear power. Substantial assistance from France, South Africa, the United States and others, enabled Israel to clandestinely develop a sophisticated nuclear weapons arsenal, which includes miniaturized fusion-boosted fission bombs, neutron bombs and, possibly, thermonuclear bombs. Israel’s nuclear weapons delivery system of ballistic and cruise missiles, nuclear-capable fighter-bombers, submarines, and nuclear artillery and land mines places the entire Middle East, Europe and much of Asia and Africa within range.
Israel’s nuclear program has profound implications for the Middle East and the planet. While the initial motivation for its nuclear program was originally linked to a determination to prevent another Holocaust, the size and sophistication of its current arsenal, and public statements by Israeli leaders imply an offensive role. Israel regularly employs the nuclear threat as a coercive lever in order to maintain the status quo and to influence events to its perceived advantage, Israel’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and its policy of Nuclear Opacity, reinforce the prospect that future conflicts in the region could rapidly escalate into a regional or global nuclear cataclysm.
“Our aim should be to create a security environment, and you can’t do that if you don’t recognize publicly that Israel has nuclear weapons,” George Perkovitch, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace[1]
“Should war break out in the Middle East again, or should any Arab nation fire missiles against Israel, as the Iraqis did, a nuclear escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now be a strong probability.” Seymour Hersh[2]
Introduction
With several hundred sophisticated weapons and a robust delivery system, Israel has quietly supplanted Britain as the World’s 5th largest nuclear power, and now rivals France and China in the size of its nuclear arsenal. Nonetheless, Israel is universally recognized a major nuclear power. According to Hans Blix, former U.N. Chief Weapons Inspector, “The whole world is fairly sure that they have about 200 weapons, and beating around the bush I think doesn’t change very much — they are part of the nuclear landscape,”[3] According to the authoritative Center for Defense Information, “In short, the Israeli nuclear weapon infrastructure is probably quite large, including the full range of strategic and tactical battlefield weapons.”[4]
While recently much attention has been lavished on the threat posed by Iranian weapons of mass destruction, the major nuclear power in the region, Israel, has been largely ignored. Possessing a sophisticated nuclear arsenal and an integrated strategy for its use in combat, Israel’s nuclear arsenal provides the major regional impetus for the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, representing an acute threat to peace and stability in the Middle East. With India and Pakistan, the other nuclear armed non-signatories to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the Israeli nuclear program imperils nuclear nonproliferation efforts. Israel’s nuclear weapons program reinforces the prospect that future conflicts in the region could rapidly escalate into a regional or global nuclear cataclysm.
For political reasons, Israel maintains a policy of nuclear ambiguity or opacity, neither confirming nor denying its nuclear program, most clearly enunciated in 1963 by Shimon Peres; “Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons in [the Middle east]”.[5] In 2001, Aluf Benn writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists discussed the policy of Israel’s Nuclear Opacity; “although everyone knows what capabilities Israel has, it remains silent about them.”[6]Because of its draconian military censorship, the world has derived most of its knowledge about the Israeli nuclear program from whistle-blowers, unguarded comments by Israeli political leadership, and analysis of evidence by scientists and arms control experts. Information contained in this paper was collected from authoritative sources and contemporary press accounts. Where possible, direct quotes from Israeli officials and commentators, and nuclear experts are used to illustrate points. When possible, primary sources are referenced. Because of its extreme nuclear secrecy, obtaining an accurate overview of Israel’s nuclear program requires careful analysis and cautious skepticism.
Background Analysis
Any meaningful discussion of Israel’s nuclear policy requires examination of the roots of Israeli attitudes leading to the development of its nuclear weapons program. First and foremost, the shadow of the Holocaust weighed heavily on the minds of David Ben-Gurion and Ernst David Bergman as they became preoccupied with the idea of an Israeli bomb. Avner Cohen writes in Israel and the Bomb, “Israel’s project was conceived in the shadow of the Holocaust, and the lessons of the Holocaust provided justification and motivation for the project.”[7] According to Shimon Perez, Bergman stated, “I am convinced…that the State of Israel needs a defense research program of its own, so that we shall never again be as lambs led to the slaughter.”[8] In 1966, Bergman wrote to Meir Ya’ari, the leader of the leftist political party MAPAM; “I cannot forget that the Holocaust came upon the Jewish people as a surprise. The Jewish people cannot allow themselves such an illusion for a second time.”[9] David Ben-Gurion in his farewell address to the Israeli Armaments Development Authority (RAFAEL), defended the nuclear project saying, “I am confident, based not only on what I heard today, that our science can provide us with the weapons that are needed to deter our enemies from waging war against us.”[10] Speculating about a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and U. S. President Richard Nixon that laid the basis for Israel’s policy of ‘Nuclear Opacity,’ noted historian Avner Cohen wrote, “Meir may have assured Nixon that Israel thought of nuclear weapons as a last-resort option, a way to provide her Holocaust-haunted nation with a psychological sense of existential deterrence.”[11]
The question of the ‘existential threat’ posed by Israel’s small size and lack of territorial depth, in juxtaposition with size, resources and population of its Arab neighbors has been posited as a primary justification for Israel’s nuclear program.[12] This theme of defensive nuclear deterrence still resonates within Israel, but the size and sophistication of its nuclear arsenal, and statements by public officials strongly suggest that deterrence is only one aspect of a much broader and far-reaching offensive nuclear strategy.
A second major factor influencing Israel’s strategic policies is its close identification with Europe and the West. Historically, Israel’s leadership has identified closely with Europe rather than the Middle East, exacerbating already great regional tensions.[13] Ashkenazim (Jews of European ancestry), although a minority of the Israeli Jewish population, disproportionately occupy positions of leadership, and heavily influence opinion and policy.[14] (Mizrahim and Sephardim, Asian and Mediterranean Jews, comprise 39% of Israel’s population, compared to 37% Ashkenazim[15]) Writing for Gush Shalom, Uri Avnery, a leader of Israel’s Peace Bloc, wrote,
“In his book ‘The Jewish State’, the founding document of the Zionist movement, Theodor Herzl famously wrote: ‘For Europe we shall be (in Palestine) a part of the wall against Asia…the vanguard of culture against barbarism…’ This attitude is typical for the whole history of Zionism and the State of Israel up to the present day.”[16]
In 2007 Naftali Tamir, Israeli ambassador to Australia, is quoted in Haaretz as saying, “Israel and Australia are like sisters in Asia. We are in Asia without the characteristics of Asians. We don’t have yellow skin and slanted eyes. Asia is basically the yellow race. Australia and Israel are not – we are basically the white race.”[17] While the Israeli Foreign Office quickly repudiated Tamir, the fact that a high-ranking Israeli diplomat would assume license to make such a transparently racist comment underscores Avnery’s argument.
This century-long history of Israeli Western chauvinism and anti-Arab racism in turn generates Arab anti-Semitism, thus creating a vicious cycle of mutual suspicion and mistrust. A related complicating factor in negotiating a just and lasting Arab/Israeli peace is the emergence of radical religious movements in Israel, and the Arab world, increasingly changing the character of the confrontation from one primarily about land to one about religion.[18]
Despite these impediments to Israeli/Arab peace, majority Arab public support for “a just and lasting peace with Israel” has increased significantly since 2006.[19] A 2007 survey indicated a substantial majority of Israelis supporting a comprehensive peace agreement with the Arabs.[20] It should be noted that while majority public opinion in Israel and the Arab nations supports a comprehensive peace agreement, there remains deep skepticism within both communities about prospects for peace.
History of the Israeli Bomb
The Israeli nuclear program began in the late 1940s under the direction of Ernst David Bergmann, who established the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission in 1952. Convinced that nuclear weapons would solve Israel’s security problems, Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion and a young Shimon Perez became the principal architects and the driving force behind the nascent Israeli program.[21]
France provided the bulk of early nuclear cooperation with Israel, culminating in construction of a heavy water moderated, natural uranium reactor and plutonium-reprocessing factory situated near Beersheba in the Negev Desert. Originally designed as a 24 Megawatt (MW) facility, the Dimona reactor was built with a cooling system three times larger that needed and numerous sources suggest that in fact Israel did enlarge its capacity significantly.[22] Because of the lack of any electrical generation capacity and the inclusion of a plutonium-reprocessing facility, it is clear that from the beginning that the French understood that they were providing Israeli with nuclear weapons.[23]
The aftermath of the 1956 Suez Crisis precipitated top-secret talks that cemented and accelerated the Israeli-French nuclear collaboration. From its inception in the 1950s, Israeli scientists were active partners in the French nuclear weapons program, including development and testing, and providing critical nuclear expertise. The current Israeli nuclear program should be understood largely as an extension of this earlier collaboration.
The United States became aware of the Dimona construction in late 1960 and the outgoing Eisenhower administration demanded an explanation. The official response was that Dimona was for “peaceful purposes,” including scientific, industrial and medical.[24] In reality, the sole purpose of the Dimona plant was to produce nuclear bombs.[25] After several years of delay were caused by Charles de Gaulle’s decision in 1960 to end official French involvement in Dimona’s construction, Dimona finally went on line in 1964 and plutonium reprocessing began shortly thereafter. [26] Despite various Israeli claims that Dimona was a manganese plant or a textile factory, extreme security measures employed told a far different story. In 1967, Israel shot down one of their own Mirage fighters that approached too close to Dimona and in 1973 shot down a Libyan civilian airliner which strayed off course, killing 104.[27]
According to Michael Karpin, author of The Bomb In the Basement, In November 16, 1966, Israel, which had by then separated enough plutonium for a primitive nuclear weapon, successfully carried out a sophisticated laboratory test that established the viability of its nuclear bomb.[28] There is substantial reporting from credible sources that Israel participated as full partners in the Algerian French nuclear tests, and thus had no need to actually test a nuclear weapon.[29] According to Avner Cohen, during the 1967 war Israel assembled “two deliverable nuclear explosive devices.”[30]By the time of the 1973 war, Israel possessed an arsenal of perhaps several dozen deliverable atomic bombs, and reportedly went on full nuclear alert.[31]
Possessing advanced nuclear technology and “world class” nuclear scientists, Israel was confronted early with a major problem- how to obtain the necessary uranium and heavy water to operate the Dimona reactor. Israel’s own uranium source, phosphate deposits in the Negev, were inadequate to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding program. During the early 1960s, France had supplied Israel with relatively small quantities of uranium but as Israeli/French relations cooled a larger source was needed. The short-term answer in 1968 was to collaborate with West Germany in the Plumbat affair, successfully diverting 200 tons of yellowcake (uranium oxide).[32] The West German authorities subsequently covered up their role in this clandestine operation.[33] Allegations that a U.S. corporation called Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) diverted hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium to Israel from the mid-50s to the mid-60s, are disputed by investigative Journalist Seymour Hersh.[34] In the late 1960s, Israel solved the uranium problem by developing close ties with South Africa in a quid pro quo arrangement whereby Israel supplied the technology and tritium for the ‘Apartheid Bomb,’ while South Africa provided as much as 600 tons of uranium.[35]
Heavy water was needed as a moderator for the natural uranium reactor at Dimona and Israel solved this problem by purchasing 20 tons from Norway. With the assurance that it would be used strictly for peaceful purposes, the agreement gave Norway the right to inspect the heavy water for thirty-two years but Israel refused to permit meaningful inspections. Israel agreed in 1990 to return half of the heavy water to Norway.[36] As of 1990 Israel had reportedly used two tons of heavy water and retained approximately eight more for future use.[37]
In 1977, the Soviet Union warned the U.S. that satellite photos indicated South Africa was planning a nuclear test in the Kalahari Desert but the Apartheid regime backed down under pressure. On September 22, 1979, a U.S. satellite detected an atmospheric test of a small nuclear explosion in the Indian Ocean off South Africa. Apparently because of Israel’s possible involvement, a carefully selected scientific panel kept in the dark about important details issued a report questioning the accuracy of the Vela satellite. Later it was learned through Israeli sources that the Indian Ocean was actually the last of three carefully guarded tests of miniaturized Israeli 155mm nuclear artillery shells.[38]/[39]
The Israeli/South African collaboration did not end with the bomb testing, but continued until the fall of Apartheid, especially with the developing and testing of ballistic missiles during the 1970s and 1980s.[40] The RSA series of South African ballistic missiles appear to be virtually identical to Israel’s Jericho series.[41] Israel and South Africa conducted numerous joint missile tests at the Overberg Test Range. In addition to uranium and test facilities, South Africa provided Israel with large amounts of investment capital; while Israel provided a major trade outlet, enabling the Apartheid state to avoid international economic sanctions.[42] The Israeli-South Africa nuclear collaboration officially ended in 1989.
Although the French and South Africans were primarily responsible for the Israeli nuclear program, the U.S. shares responsibility. Investigative journalist Mark Gaffney wrote, [the Israeli nuclear program] “was possible only because of calculated deception on the part of Israel, and willing complicity on the part of the U.S.”[43] Israel was the second nation to sign on to Eisenhower’s ‘Atoms for Peace’ program, and became the recipient of a 5MW highly enriched uranium research reactor at Nahal Soreq which went online in 1960. This reactor later became the centerpiece of much of Israel’s basic nuclear research, and the training nuclear scientists and technicians.
President Kennedy, concerned about the Israeli nuclear program, insisted that U.S. scientists be allowed to inspect the under construction Dimona reactor to ensure that it was, as Israel claimed, strictly for peaceful purposes.[44] The Israeli’s went to extremes to prevent the inspectors from discovering the existence of a nuclear weapons program. Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, had a more ambivalent attitude toward nuclear proliferation and a more pro-Israeli viewpoint. Shortly after his election, President Richard Nixon and Israeli President Golda Meir met in 1969. Nixon agreed to end the Dimona inspections and remove U.S. pressure on Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).[45] In retrospect, the Meir-Nixon understanding set the stage of Israel’s ongoing policy of Nuclear Ambiguity. Nixon formally ended the Dimona inspections in 1970.[46]
From its inception, the U.S. was heavily involved in the Israeli nuclear program. Israeli scientists were largely trained at U.S. universities and were generally welcomed at the nuclear weapons labs.[47] In the early 1960s, the controls for the Dimona reactor were obtained clandestinely from a company called Tracer Lab, the main supplier of U.S. military reactor control panels, purchased through a Belgian subsidiary, apparently with the acquiescence of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA.[48] In 1971, the Nixon administration approved the sale to Israel of hundreds of krytons, a type of high speed switch necessary to the development of sophisticated nuclear bombs.[49] In 1979, President Carter provided ultra high-resolution photos from a KH-11 spy satellite, used 2 years later to bomb the Iraqi Osirak Reactor.[50]
Throughout the Nixon and Carter administrations and accelerating dramatically under Ronald Reagan, U.S. advanced technology transfers to Israel have continued unabated to the present, most recently including ‘supercomputers’ capable of being used to design advanced nuclear weapons and missiles.[51] It has been widely argued that illegal acquisition of U. S. technology essential to nuclear weapons production facilitated the Israeli nuclear program.[52]
Following the 1973 war, Israel intensified its nuclear program while continuing its policy of deliberate nuclear ambiguity. By 1976, the U.S. Central intelligence agency (CIA) estimated that Israel possessed an arsenal of 10-20 plutonium bombs.[53] According to Seymour Hersh, in 1981, five years prior to the Vanunu revelations, an Israeli scientific defector provided Washington with photographic evidence that Israel possessed an arsenal of more than one hundred thermonuclear weapons. A senior intelligence official said, “Why do they need a thermonuclear device? Israel was more advanced and better than any of our people had presumed it to be- clean bombs, better warheads.”[54] Despite this information, until the mid-1980s, most U.S. intelligence estimates of the Israeli nuclear arsenal remained on the order of two-dozen weapons. In 1986, the explosive revelations of Mordechai Vanunu, a nuclear technician working in the Dimona plutonium reprocessing plant, changed everything overnight.
The Vanunu Revelations
A leftist supporter of Palestine, Mordechai Vanunu believed that it was his moral obligation to expose Israel’s nuclear program. He managed to smuggle dozens of photos and valuable scientific data about the operation out of Israel and in 1986 his story was published in the London Sunday Times.[55] Rigorous scientific scrutiny of the Vanunu revelations by nuclear scientists including bomb designers Theodore Taylor and Frank Barnaby, led to the disclosure that Israel possessed as many as 200 highly sophisticated nuclear bombs. The revelations indicated that the Dimona reactor’s capacity had been expanded several fold and that Israel was producing enough plutonium to make ten to twelve bombs per year. Vanunu proved unequivocally that Israel operated a large nuclear bomb production project that included plutonium-reprocessing, uranium enrichment, fuel rod fabrication, depleted uranium munitions fabrication and lithium 6, tritium and deuterium production (used in advanced nuclear weapon design).[56] After closely interrogating Vanunu for several days, Barnaby concluded, “The acquisition by Israel of lithium deuteride implies that it has become a thermonuclear-weapon power – a manufacturer of hydrogen bombs… Israel has the ability to turn out the weapons with a yield of 200-250 kilotons.”[57] Upon examining the Vanunu evidence, a ‘senior U.S. intelligence analyst’ said of the Vanunu data, “The scope of this is much more extensive than we thought. This is an enormous operation.”[58]
Just prior to publication of his information Vanunu, lured to Rome by a female Mossad spy, was beaten, drugged and kidnapped to Israel. Following a campaign of disinformation and vilification in the Israeli press, Vanunu was convicted of treason by a secret security court and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He served over 11 years in solitary confinement in a 6 by 9 foot cell. Vanunu was released from prison in 2004, but has since been held under virtual house arrest under draconian 1945 British Mandate Emergency Regulations. [59] The world press, especially in the United States, has largely ignored The Vanunu revelations and Israel continues to affect an ambiguous nuclear posture.[60]
Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal
Today, estimates of the Israeli nuclear arsenal range from 100 to a maximum of over 400 bombs. Given the magnitude of destruction caused by even the smallest nuclear weapons, the size of Israel’s nuclear arsenal. whether100 or 500 bombs, is irrelevant. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, primitive and small by modern standards, utterly destroyed two major cities. Within a 2km radius of the Hiroshima epicenter there was total destruction of all buildings and massive mortality.[61]/[62] Regardless, there is little doubt that Israeli nuclear weapons are among the world’s most sophisticated, and largely designed for war fighting. According to various sources, the Israeli nuclear arsenal includes boosted fission weapons and small neutron bombs, designed to maximize deadly gamma radiation while minimizing blast effects and long-term radiation- in essence designed to kill people while leaving property intact.[63] Other weapons include ballistic missiles capable of reaching Moscow, Nuclear capable fighter aircraft, cruise missiles, land mines[64], and artillery shells with a range of 45 miles.[65] In June 2000 an Israeli submarine launched a cruise missile that hit a target 950 miles away, making Israel only the third nation after the U.S. and Russia with that capability. Israel currently deploys 3 of these virtually impregnable submarines, each carrying at least 4 cruise missiles.[66] The Israeli nuclear arsenal clearly dwarfs the actual or potential arsenal of all other Middle Eastern states combined and is vastly greater than any conceivable need for defensive deterrence.
Like the major nuclear powers, Israel bases its strategic nuclear threat on a ‘triad’ of delivery systems- planes, land-based ballistic missiles and submarine-based cruise missiles with which it can threaten the entire Middle East and beyond. While numerous Israeli planes have nuclear capability,[67] three primary strategic aircraft are designed specifically to deliver nuclear weapons. Additionally, Israel’s tactical arsenal is widely understood to include nuclear artillery shells, nuclear capable short-range and cruise missiles, and nuclear land mines.[68]
• Jericho 1
The Jericho 1 short-range ballistic missile was developed during the 1960s with assistance from France. Deployed in 1973, the Jericho 1 is designed to carry nuclear, chemical and conventional warheads, and reportedly has a 500KG payload with a range of 480-750 kilometers. Approximately 100 Jericho missiles are deployed about 20 km east of Jerusalem at the Sedot Mikha launch site near the Tef Nor airbase. The Jericho 1 can reach Cairo and Damascus. There are also reports that the Jericho 1 can be deployed using mobile launchers.[69] Some reports claim that the Jericho 1 is no longer operational.[70]
• Jericho 2
The Jericho 2 is a 2-stage nuclear-capable intermediate range ballistic missile with a generally reported range of 1,500-3,500 km.[71] According to Janes Intelligence Review, the extended range of the Jericho 2 is 5,000km, with a payload of 2,500kg.[72] Developed and flight tested in collaboration with South Africa, the Jericho 2, apparently identical to the South African RSA 2, was deployed sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s.[73] With its extended range and sophisticated inertial and terminal guidance system, the Jericho 2 targets virtually the entire Middle East. Approximately 50 Jericho 2 missiles are reportedly deployed at a facility named Zachariah (Hebrew for God remembers with a vengeance.)[74]
• Jericho 3 (Shavit)
On January 17, 2008, Israel launched a long-range ballistic missile from the Palmahim Air Base, Israel’s satellite launch site.[75] There is speculation that this was a test launch of the Jericho 3 missile. The Jericho 3, which reportedly closely resembles the South African RSA 3 ballistic missile, is designed with a range of up to 4,000 km carrying a payload of 1,000 kg.[76] According to the Israeli Defense Ministry, the missile is capable of carrying “an unconventional” payload.[77] Although apparently not yet currently deployed, cities like Moscow, Islamabad and far beyond will be within range of the Jericho 3.
• Other potential Nuclear-Capable Missiles
Lance MGM-52 short-range missiles (130 km range); Gabriel-4 cruise missiles (200 km range); Harpoon Cruise Missile (120 km range); Popeye Turbo air/sea launched cruise missile (300 km rang); and Popeye 1 & 3 cruise missiles (100 & 300 km ranges).[78]
• F-4E-2000 Phantom (Kurnas-2000- Sledge-Hammer)
In 1968 the U.S. agreed to sell Israel the F-4E, at that time considered to be “the most advanced airplane in service, anywhere.”[79] Approximately fifty planes were upgraded and deployed beginning in 1989. Modifications include reinforced skin and fuel cells, rewiring, advanced APG-76 radar, new J-79-GE-17 turbojet engines, air-to-air Sparrow, Sidewinder or Python missiles, and guided bombs.[80] [81] [82] With a carrying capacity of 7,200 kg and a relatively long range of 1,600 km, the F-4E was reportedly placed on nuclear alert during the 1973 war and may still be allocated for a nuclear role.[83]
•F-15I (Raam- Thunder)
The F15I, the largest plane in the Israeli Air force, has a range of 4,450 KM, enough to reach Tehran and return without refueling. Detachable conformal fuel tanks such as those found jettisoned in Turkey following the 2007 raid on Syria permit the F-15I a greatly expanded range.[84] In 2003, Israel demonstrated its range of by flying three F15-Es one-way from Israel to Poland without refueling, a distance of 1,600 km, approximately the same as Tehran.[85] According to John Pike, “The 25 F-15Is operational since 1999 [and the 100 F-16Is] were procured first and foremost to deal with the Iranian threat”[86]
•F-16I Sufa (Storm)
The F-16I is the most recent and advanced addition to the Israeli nuclear arsenal. A total of 102 planes have been purchased. The F-16I has a comparable range and capability to the F-15E. Both planes took part in the massive military exercise that took place in June 2008 over the Mediterranean and Greece, widely seen as a direct threat to Iran. Over 100 F15s & F-16s participated.[87] The F-15I and F-16I are nuclear capable.
•Submarines:
Three Dolphin class submarines, with “ the most advanced sailing and combat systems in the world,” complete the third and potentially most important leg of Israel’s nuclear ‘triad’.[88] The first three Dolphin submarines were delivered and deployed in the late 1990s, and have since undergone retrofitting. The Dolphin has six 533mm and four 650mm torpedo tubes. Built by the German shipyard HDW, it has been widely reported that the submarines have been modified to carry nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.[89]
According to press reports, in 2000 Israel conducted a successful test of a submarine-launched cruise missile that hit a target 900 miles away.[90] Among the cruise missiles suspected of being modified to carry a nuclear warhead are the Harpoon with a range of 130km, a modified Popeye Turbo with a range of 320km, a modified Gabriel 4LR with a range of 200km, as well as a new indigenously designed missile with a longer range.
Dolphin submarines are designed to patrol the Mediterranean Sea, and the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The Dolphin has range of 4,500 miles and can remain on patrol for more than a month at a time.[91]/[92] In addition to the current submarine fleet, in 2005 Israel purchased two more advanced Dolphin submarines from Germany. The new submarines feature a larger fuel capacity, extending the range to over 10,000 km and operational endurance to approximately fifty days, thus permitting deployment to the Persian Gulf without refueling.[93] The new submarines, scheduled for delivery in 2010, will be equipped with a super quiet new Air-Independent, fuel-cell-based propulsion system (AIP) which will enable them to stay submerged for extended periods.[94] Israel is also in the process of retrofitting two of its older Gall Class submarines to accommodate the new weapons. With a fleet of seven near invulnerable nuclear-capable submarines, Israel will soon have the capability of targeting the whole of Europe, the Middle East, and most of Africa and Asia.
Israel reportedly also possesses and can readily deploy a comprehensive arsenal of chemical and biological weapons.[95]Like its nuclear program, much of what is known is based on conjecture and analysis.[96] According to the London Sunday Times, Israel has produced both chemical and biological weapons with a sophisticated delivery system, quoting a senior Israeli intelligence official, “There is hardly a single known or unknown form of chemical or biological weapon . . .which is not manufactured at the Nes Tziyona Biological Institute.”)[97] The same report described F-16 fighter jets specially designed for chemical and biological payloads, with crews trained to load the weapons on a moments notice. In an effort to recruit East European Jewish Scientists, David Ben-Gurion as saying in 1948, “either increase the capacity to kill the masses or to cure the masses; both are important.”[98]
Israel signed the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1993, but has since refused to ratify it. While chemical weapons research probably continues, “It is unlikely that this offensive CW program exists today.”[99] It has never signed the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). The current status of Israel’s biological weapons status is unclear, however, “For all practical purposes, Israel acts as if it maintains a policy of biological ambiguity.”[100]
Nuclear Weapons Complex[101]
Israel’s major nuclear weapons complex facilities are the Nahal Soreq Nuclear Research Center, the Negev Nuclear Research Center (Dimona). Other facilities include:
• Eliabun storage facility for tactical nuclear artillery shells, nuclear landmines and other tactical nuclear weapons;
• Haifa Rafael-Israel Armament Development Authority, “Reportedly the location of a nuclear weapons design laboratory (Division 20), a missile design development laboratory (Division 48) and a weapons assembly plant.”[102]
• Haifa Port, the main Israeli Navy base and homeport of Israel’s submarines;
• Mishor Neger Phosphates Chemical Company (uranium mining).[103] [104]
• Yodefat nuclear weapons assembly facility. According to Vanunu, plutonium is transported from Dimona to Yodefat;[105]
• Triosh strategic weapons storage facility;
• Beit Zekhary Sedot Mikha Jericho IRBM base missile launch facility;
• Palachim Airbase missile test range and space launch facility;
• Be’er Yaakov research and missile assembly facility;
• Rehovot Heavy Water Production Plant;
• Tel Nof air base and reportedly location of a strategic nuclear weapons storage bunker;
• Nevatim Air Base and site of an underground strategic air command center.[106]
• Nahal Soreq Nuclear Research Center:
The Nahal Soreq is centered on a 5 megawatt highly enriched uranium research reactor provided by the U. S. as part of the Atoms for Peace program. The reactor went online in 1960. The International Atomic Energy Agency has announced that the Nahel Soreq reactor will be shutdown and replaced by a particle accelerator.[107] Despite IAEA oversight of the research reactor to ensure that it operates only for peaceful purposes, Nahel Soreq is widely reported to be a major nuclear weapons research and production facility involved in plutonium reprocessing, and nuclear weapons research and design, and should be considered analogous to Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos Labs in the U.S.,[108]/[109] According to John Pike, the Soreq facility is “the functional equivalent of the US Livermore or Los Alamos national weapons laboratories. It is responsible for nuclear weapons research, design and fabrication.”[110] Nahel Soreq is also involved in commercial nuclear research.[111] It is likely that Nahal Soreq is a contaminated site with serious radiation containment problems.[112] The reactor, scheduled to be decommissioned in eight years, will be replaced with a super-fast particle accelerator purchased from West Germany.[113]
• Negev Nuclear Research Center (Dimona)
Located in the Negev Desert, the Dimona complex is the largest nuclear site in Israel comprising a wide array of nuclear facilities. Mordechai Vanunu, the Dimona whistle-blower provided much of the information available about Dimona. The Dimona Complex is an enormous enterprise buried six stories deep in the Negev Desert. According to Vanunu, when U.S. scientists inspected Dimona in the 1960s, the elevator shaft was bricked over so the inspectors were completely unaware of the underground operation.[114] Dimona’s centerpiece, the heavy water moderated natural uranium plutonium production reactor was originally rated at 24MW, but is understood to have been expanded to between 70 and 150 MW.[115] In the mid-60s, a plutonium reprocessing plant was completed. Reportedly, Dimona can produce between 40-60kg of Plutonium each year, enough for approximately 5-10 nuclear bombs.[116] The reactor has been operated nearly continually for nearly 45 years and is at the end of its operational life. According to the authoritative Janes Intelligence Review, “However, after about 35 years in operation, there is growing concern even within the Israeli Government that Dimona is no longer able to meet the needs of an expanding nuclear arsenal. According to internal Dimona reports, the nuclear reactor there is suffering severe damage from 35 years of operation.”[117]
The operations of Dimona are broken down into individual facilities called Machons. Machon 1 is the plutonium production reactor and also produces tritium for ‘boosted’ fission bombs. Machon 2 is the top-secret lab, six floors deep, where plutonium is reprocessed and where lithium-6 deuteride, used to boost fission bombs, is separated. Machon 3 processes natural uranium for reactor use and converts lithium deuteride into solids. Machon 4 treats high and low level wastes. High-level waste is stored and low-level waste is mixed with tar and buried. Machon 5 is a fuel rod assembly plant. Machon 6 is an operations service center for the other facilities. Machon 8 is a uranium enrichment facility and experimental laboratory. Machon 9 is a laser uranium separation and plutonium enrichment facility. Machon 10 manufactures depleted uranium munitions. In addition to the nine Machons, satellite photos show dozens of buildings and suggest a radioactive waste burial site nearby.[118]
Radiological Environmental and Health Concerns
The plutonium isotope 239 used in a nuclear bomb is produced when neutrons in the core of a nuclear reactor bombard Uranium 238. Weapons grade plutonium generally consists of approximately 93% Plutonium 239 and 7% Plutonium 240. Dedicated Plutonium reactors, such as Dimona, require that the irradiated uranium be removed every few weeks to prevent the buildup of undesirable isotopes.[119] The process of producing, separating, processing and weaponizing plutonium is extremely complex generating large amounts of extremely high-level radioactive wastes and even more low-level radioactive waste. Given the well-documented history of the failure of the world’s other nuclear nations to manage their own nuclear waste issues, despite its secrecy blanket, it is unlikely that Israel has fared any better.[120] Writing in the Washington Post, Jonathon Broder pointed out, “It took the end of the Cold War for the United States to begin addressing environmental disasters like the Hanford nuclear waste site in Washington state. In their tiny, crowded country, Israelis don’t have the luxury of waiting until peace permits such environmental issues to be discussed.”[121]
The Dimona reactor has been operating nearly continually for forty-five years, making it one of the oldest reactors in the world.[122] Reports in the Israeli and international media suggest that the Dimona reactor, which is nearing or at the end of its operational life, has suffered significant deterioration and represents a serious radiological threat.[123] Employees at Dimona have complained about workplace radiation exposure and ensuing cancer and other health effects, and several have filed and won lawsuits against the Israeli government.[124]/[125] In 2002, Israel Television broadcast a special report detailing first hand the dangers Dimona poses to plant workers and the surrounding environment. [126]
The Palestinian Authority has expressed concerns about radiation exposure from Dimona, and documents increased cancer rates among nearby populations.[127] Jordan also has expressed concern about radiation dangers posed by the Dimona facility. Sufian al-Tell, a Jordanian environmental specialist, calculates that the Dimona reactor may have produced as much as four thousand tons of nuclear waste. [128] Others claim that low-level waste is buried in the nearby Negev. Israel, to the extent that it addresses these concerns at all, claims that Dimona poses no threat to workers or the environment. According to Elehanan Azoulay, Deputy Director of the Negev Nuclear Research Center, “We stop the reactor, check the systems and renovate them… Israeli citizens, apart from being assured that the reactor is safe, can sleep more soundly because this reactor is working.”[129] In 2004, the Israeli military distributed potassium iodide pills to some Dimona residents, apparently to protect them in case of radiation leakage.[130]
After forty-five years of operation, it becomes problematic whether even the most comprehensive overhaul of a nuclear reactor can address inherent safety issues, particularly brittleness in the reactor vessel itself caused by intense neutron bombardment. Janes Intelligence Review reported,
“According to internal Dimona reports, the nuclear reactor there is suffering severe damage from 35 years of operation. This damage has come from the neutron radiation from the reactor core, and this bombardment has changed the reactor structure at the atomic level. Metal supports have become brittle and warped as the neutrons have created gas bubbles in the metal itself.”[131]
Israeli nuclear scientists have called on Israel to shut down Dimona, citing environmental concerns and pointing out that Israel has no need of further plutonium production. The Sunday London Times reported that Professor Uzi Eben, a former senior official in Israel’s nuclear program, called for Dimona’s shutdown to “avert a catastrophe.”[132]
Radiological Concerns and Censorship
Like every other aspect of Israel’s nuclear policy, the issue of health and environmental concern posed by Dimona and the research reactor at Nahal Soreq is tightly censored and seldom mentioned by either the government or by the Israeli press. Due to censorship concerns, much about what is known about Israel’s nuclear program has been gleaned indirectly. Avner Cohen published his groundbreaking work, Israel and the Bomb, in the U.S. to evade censorship, but was prevented for several years from returning to Israel because of arrest threats.[133]
An example dealing specifically with censorship about Dimona’s radiological hazards concerned Israeli retaliation against the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for broadcasting a March 2003 documentary.[134] In the program, the BBC features five Dimona workers who appeared on Israeli Television Channel 2, discussing the health and environmental consequences of their work. BBC attempted to get them to testify again on camera but was told about threats to punish them like Vanunu if they cooperated. Ariel Speiler, one of the Dimona workers interviewed on Israeli TV refused to talk about his experience working at Dimona saying, “The Secret Service silenced me. They’ve silenced me completely. They told me not to say one word. What can I do? What can I do? They told me; “You’ll end up like Vanunu”. How long has he been in prison? 15 years? Do you want me to go to jail? I really wanted to talk. I asked the others but they refused. Nobody wants to talk.”[135]
The BBC went on to interview Israeli investigative journalist, Ronen Bergman about Yehil Horev, Israeli Ministry of Defense chief censor. Bergman recounted the story of how he interviewed Brigadier-General Yitzhak Yaakov, former chief weapons scientist of the IDF, about his fictional memoir. When Bergman submitted his story to Horev’s censors, Yaakov, was publicly vilified as a traitor and forced to spend two years in prison. On camera Bergman stated,
“Horev was afraid that veterans of the Israeli army, the Israeli intelligence, the Israeli nuclear effort, would try to maintain their footprint in the history of Israel and tell their story. And he wanted to frighten them. In this sense he was successful.”
After the documentary was aired, Israel announced that it was cutting off all ties and ending cooperation with the BBC.[136]
Israeli Nuclear Strategy
In popular imagination, the Israeli bomb is a “weapon of last resort,” to be used only at the last minute to avoid annihilation. At least in its early years, this articulation of David Ben-Gurion and Shimon Perez was motivated by fresh memories of the Holocaust.[137] Whatever truth this formulation may have had in the minds of the early Israeli nuclear strategists, today the Israeli nuclear arsenal is inextricably linked to and integrated with overall Israeli military and political strategy. Israeli nuclear expert Oded Brosh said in 1992, “…we need not be ashamed that the nuclear option is a major instrumentality of our defense as a deterrent against those who attack us.”[138] Seymour Hersh points out in The Sampson Option; “The Samson Option is no longer the only nuclear option available to Israel.”[139] Over the decades, Israel has made numerous veiled nuclear threats against the Arab nations and against the Soviet Union (by extension Russia since the end of the Cold War). For example Ariel Sharon, former Israeli Prime Minister is quoted as saying, “Arabs may have the oil, but we have the matches.”[140] In 1983 and again in 2003, Sharon suggested that India consider joining with Israel to attack Pakistani nuclear facilities.[141]
Possessing an overwhelming nuclear superiority allows Israel to act with impunity even in the face worldwide opposition. During the 1982 invasion of Lebanon Israel destroyed Beirut, resulting in 20,000 deaths, most civilian.[142] Despite the near destruction of a neighboring state, not to mention the utter destruction of the Syrian Air Force, Israel was able to carry out the war for months and the occupation many years at least in part due to its nuclear threat. In late 2008, Israel implemented a blockade of Gaza characterized by Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestinian human rights, as “a crime against humanity, a flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”[143]
The implicit U.S. nuclear umbrella enjoyed by Israel may also be a factor in encouraging Israeli adventurism. Writing in the Fall of 2004, James Russell wrote,
“It might be equally argued that the strategic umbrella provided by U.S. forces could in fact encourage Israel to act more aggressively than it otherwise would, since its actions would be backed not just by its own nuclear force but also by the thousands of warheads in the U.S. arsenal and the array of standoff conventional munitions used to great effect in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Russell continued, “The NPR (U.S. Nuclear Posture Review) implies that the defense of Israel represents a core mission for the strategic deterrent by identifying several near-term contingencies involving an attack on Israel that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons by the United States.”[144]
Israel uses its nuclear arsenal not just in the context of deterrence” or of direct war fighting, but in other more subtle but no less important ways. For example, the possession of weapons of mass destruction can be a powerful lever to maintain the status quo, or to influence events to Israel’s perceived advantage, such as to protect the so called moderate Arab states from internal insurrection, or to intervene in inter-Arab warfare.[145] In Israeli strategic jargon this concept is called ‘nonconventional compellence’, exemplified by a quote from Shimon Peres,
“acquiring a superior weapons system (nuclear) would mean the possibility of using it for compellent purposes- that is forcing the other side to accept Israeli political demands, which presumably include a demand that the traditional status quo be accepted and a peace treaty signed.”[146]
Avner Cohen quotes Peres,
“Israeli nuclear weapons were important in encouraging Arab realism… [They were] instrumental in bringing Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem in 1977 and may have been even more important in convincing other Arabs, particularly the Palestinians, to recognize that the Arab-Israeli conflict could not be resolved by the sword.”[147]
From a slightly different perspective, neo-conservative writer Robert Tucker asked, “What would prevent Israel… from pursuing a hawkish policy employing a nuclear deterrent to freeze the status quo?”[148] Discussing the Israeli Nuclear Compellence doctrine, dissident historian Israel Shahak further observes, “Israel is preparing for a war, nuclear if need be, and for the sake of averting domestic change not to its liking, if it occurs in some or any Middle Eastern states.”[149]
Another major use of the Israeli bomb is to compel the U.S. to act in Israel’s favor, even when it runs counter to its own strategic interests. As early as 1956 Francis Perrin, head of the French A-bomb project wrote “We thought the Israeli Bomb was aimed at the Americans, not to launch it at the Americans, but to say, ‘If you don’t want to help us in a critical situation we will require you to help us; otherwise we will use our nuclear bombs.'”[150] During the 1973 war, Israel used nuclear blackmail to force Kissinger and Nixon to airlift massive amounts of military hardware to Israel. The Israeli Ambassador, Simha Dinitz, is quoted as saying at the time, “If a massive airlift to Israel does not start immediately, then I will know that the U.S. is reneging on its promises and. we will have to draw very serious conclusions…”[151] Another example of this strategy was spelled out in 1987 by Amos Rubin, economic adviser to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who said “If left to its own Israel will have no choice but to fall back on a riskier defense which will endanger itself and the world at large… To enable Israel to abstain from dependence on nuclear arms calls for $2 to 3 billion per year in U.S. aid.”[152] Since then Israel’s nuclear arsenal has expanded exponentially, both quantitatively and qualitatively, while the U.S. currently provides Israel with approximately $3 billion in annual military aid.[153]
Regional and International Implications
During a future Middle Eastern war the possible Israeli use of nuclear weapons should not be discounted. According to Shahak, “In Israeli terminology, the launching of missiles on to Israeli territory is regarded as ‘nonconventional’ regardless of whether they are equipped with explosives or poison gas.”[154] Israeli nuclear doctrine dictates that an unconventional attack requires a nonconventional (nuclear) response; a perhaps unique exception being the Iraqi SCUD attacks during the Gulf War.[155] Seymour Hersh warns, “Should war break out in the Middle East again, or should any Arab nation fire missiles against Israel, as the Iraqis did, a nuclear escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now be a strong probability.”[156] Ezer Weizman, Israel’s current President said “The nuclear issue is gaining momentum (and the) next war will not be conventional.”[157] Jonathan Schell and Martin Sherwin argue, “Israel and the entire Middle East are approaching a stark existential choice: a nuclear holocaust or a nuclear-free Middle East… In a desperate effort to assure its local nuclear monopoly, Israel is in danger of courting national suicide.”[158]
The Israeli nuclear arsenal has profound implications for the Middle East, and global community. Israel Shahak argued, “Israel’s insistence on the independent use of its nuclear weapons can be seen as the foundation on which Israeli grand strategy rests.”[159] According to Seymour Hersh, “the size and sophistication of Israel’s nuclear arsenal allows men such as Ariel Sharon (and Benjamin Netanyahu)[160] to dream of redrawing the map of the Middle East aided by the implicit threat of nuclear force.”[161] General Amnon Shahak-Lipkin, former Israeli Chief of Staff is quoted in the Hebrew language newspaper Maariv; “It is never possible to talk to Iraq about no matter what; it is never possible to talk to Iran about no matter what. Certainly about nuclearization. With Syria we cannot really talk either.” Ze’ev Shiff, the dean of Israeli military commentators writing in Haaretz said, “Whoever believes that Israel will ever sign the UN Convention prohibiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons… is day dreaming,”[162] and Munya Mardoch, Director of the Israeli Institute for the Development of Weaponry, said in 1994, “The moral and political meaning of nuclear weapons is that states which renounce their use are acquiescing to the status of Vassal states. All those states which feel satisfied with possessing conventional weapons alone are fated to become vassal states.”[163]
Russia and before it the Soviet Union has long been an implied target of Israeli nuclear weapons. It is widely reported that the principal purpose of Jonathan Pollard’s spying for Israel was to furnish satellite images of Soviet targets and other super sensitive data relating to U.S. nuclear targeting strategy.[164] According to the widely respected security analyst John Pike, “The USSR has always been one of the primary targets of Israel’s nuclear force, as Israeli assumptions hold that no Arab nation would attack Israel without Soviet support.”[165] Since started launching its own spy satellites in 1988, Israel no longer needs U.S. spy secrets. Israeli nuclear weapons aimed at the Russian heartland seriously complicate disarmament and arms control negotiations and lower the threshold for their actual use. Investigative journalist Mark Gaffney cautions, “… if the familiar pattern (Israel refining its weapons of mass destruction with U.S. complicity) is not reversed soon- for whatever reason- the deepening Middle East conflict could trigger a world conflagration.”[166]
Prospects for a Nuclear Free Middle East
Despite the fact that all states in the region, including Israel, are on record as supporting in principle a Middle East Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone (MENWFZ), prospects for an agreement are discouraging. For its part, Israel conditions any discussions about eliminating its nuclear program upon the prior implementation of a comprehensive and lasting Israeli/Arab peace. The position of the Arab states is that “Israel’s nuclear capabilities are destabilizing and must be “addressed as a precondition to peace and security in the region.”[167] These radically polarized viewpoints give rise to an intractable problem, providing little room for negotiations. As evidenced by the 1983 destruction of the Iraqi Osirak reactor, Israel has made it abundantly clear that it will not permit any other state in the Middle East to acquire nuclear weapons.[168] General Shahak-Lipkin declared “I believe that the state of Israel should from now on use all its power and direct all its effort to preventing nuclear developments in any Arab state whatsoever. In my opinion, all or most (available) means serving that purpose are legitimate.”[169] After the 1983 raid on the Osirak reactor, the U.N. Security Council passed UN resolution 487 condemning Israel’s attack on a International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) safeguarded facility and calling on Israel to, “urgently to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards.”[170] For the past twenty-five Israel with the complicity of the West, has ignored the resolution. This insistence on retaining a nuclear monopoly in the region motivates the Arab states to develop their own deterrence, destabilizing nonproliferation efforts in the region. According to Hans Blix, “Israel is not likely to give up its nuclear weapons until you have a peaceful settlement in the Middle East, and let’s hope that that comes sooner rather than later.”[171]
Proposals for a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (MENWFZ) began in earnest in 1974 when Iran, under the Shah, introduced a resolution in the U.N. General Assembly. This proposal and others that followed require all states in the region to forswear nuclear weapons, accept IAEA safeguards and inspections, and agree not to accept or transfer nuclear technology. Israel, which steadfastly refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or a Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty (FM(C)T), has offered conditional support for a MENWFZ, and participates actively in the Nonproliferation Treaty Organization. However, as Avner Cohen and Marvin Miller caution;
“Israel’s attitude towards an FM(C)T has now evolved into strong opposition. At the same time, Israel is attempting to “balance” this opposition and its purely rhetorical support for the establishment of a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (NWFZ) by emphasizing various actions it has taken in recent years in support of the global nonproliferation regime such as its active participation in the Comprehensive Test Ban Organization and its adherence to international norms with regard to the export of nuclear and other military technology. In this manner, it seeks to make the case that Israel is a “responsible” albeit opaque nuclear state in contrast to “rogue” states such as Iran.”[172]
David Albright, the director of the Institute for Science and International Security has urged President-Elect Barak Obama to, “make a key priority of persuading Israel to join the negotiations for a universal, verified treaty that bans the production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium for nuclear explosives, commonly called the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT),”[173]
The Arab states, long aware of Israel’s nuclear program, bitterly resent its coercive implications, perceiving it as the paramount threat to peace in the region. In May 2008, the Arab League declared if Israel announces that it has nuclear weapons, the Arab states will withdrawal from the Nonproliferation Treaty.[174] Mohamed Elbaradei, Secretary General of the International Atomic Energy Agency forcefully repudiated the Arab League statement:
“Arab countries’ walkout is not the solution. A walkout by Arab countries will create a great deal of tension in the region that may lead to more pressures and even the use of military force against some Arab countries… We should understand that the use of nuclear weapons will be the beginning of the end of humanity. The use of nuclear weapons by any region like the Middle East – this means the destruction of the entire Middle East. The solution is that we build a strategy as to how we can reach a region free from weapons, including the weapon of the Israeli nuclear programme.”
International Pugwash concludes,
“Even after a comprehensive peace is reached, Israel will probably decide to retain a strategic deterrent capability for some period as an insurance policy against bellicose regimes coming to power in the neighboring states. Until this perception is reversed, it is difficult to foresee dramatic steps in the direction of a WMDFZ (Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone).”[175]
The existence of Israel’s nuclear monopoly in such a historically politically unstable region as the Middle East has serious implications for future arms control and disarmament negotiations, and could threaten nuclear escalation.
Changes In the Middle East Political Environment
The political environment in the Middle East has changed dramatically since the 1973 war. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) represented the Palestinian people in direct negotiations with Israel, leading to the current arrangement in the occupied territories. The Arab states have expressed the desire to normalize their relationship with Israel based on Israel’s return to 1967 borders with Jerusalem becoming the Capitol of both Israel and Palestine, most recently articulated in the 2002 Saudi (Arab) proposal. Egypt and Jordan have signed separate peace agreements with Israel. In 2003 with the support of President Mohammad Khatami and supreme religious leader Ali Khamenei, Iran proposed opening a broad dialogue with the United States, “including full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups.”[176] The proposal, which would have aligned Iranian policies with those of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others in the region, was summarily rejected by the Bush administration.[177]
The Palestinian Authority and Hamas have accepted in principle a two-state solution. In April, 2008, Khaleed Meshaal, the head of Hamas’ Political Bureau is quoted in the Fatah-controlled Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam, “In my heart, of course I believe all of Palestine belongs to the Palestinians. But practically speaking, our political position is a de facto two-state solution.”[178] A February 2008 Haaretz poll showed that 64% of the Israeli public supports direct talks with Hamas.[179] Following the 2007 Annapolis Conference, where the Palestinian Authority, Israel and U.S. agreed in principle to a Two-State solution, Ehud Barak, Israel’s Prime Minister was quoted in Haaretz , “I believe that there is no path other than the path of peace. I believe that there is no just solution other than the solution of two national states for two peoples,”[180]
International pressure has been mounting on Israel to acknowledge its nuclear arsenal in the context of broader nonproliferation negotiations. Mohammed Elbaredi, Secretary General of the IAEA declared, “This is not really sustainable that you have Israel sitting with nuclear weapons capability there while everyone else is part of the non-proliferation regime,” [181], Peter Kuznick, Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at the American University asks,
“Countries like Iran look at what’s happened to India and Pakistan — countries that have tested nuclear weapons recently — and they see that there’s really very little sanctions against them, and [countries like Iran ask], ‘Why is Israel allowed to have nuclear weapons without even any serious discussion about eliminating their nuclear weapons, and why can’t Iran [have the same weapons]?’ So it seems to them that there’s a lot of double standards being imposed at this point.”[182]
Although prospects for a negotiated peace in the Middle East show promise, especially hope that the election of Barack Obama will herald a more even-handed treatment, the window may swiftly close.[183] Benjamin Netanyahu, the hard-line Likud candidate who opposes the current peace process and supports turning the occupied territories into economic Bantustans, appears to be coasting to victory in Israel’s February elections.[184] In addition, the current global economic crisis and plummeting oil prices may destabilize Middle East governments, making negotiations more problematic.[185]After the debacle of the 2005 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, progress toward resolving the current standoff over Israel’s nuclear arsenal may prove critical to the success of the upcoming 2010 Conference. Referring to former nuclear proponents turned disarmament advocates such as former U.s. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Rebecca Johnson warns, “The terrifying prospects of an eroded NPT and potential nuclear free-for-all, starting in the Middle East, have undoubtedly contributed to the new found enthusiasm of many born-again nuclear abolitionists.”[186]
Conclusion
Placing the issue of Israeli nuclear weapons directly and honestly on the table would achieve several salutary effects. First, it would highlight a primary destabilizing dynamic compelling the region’s states to each seek a deterrent. Second, it would expose a perceived double standard, which sees the U.S. and Europe on the one hand condemning Iran and Syria for developing weapons of mass destruction, while simultaneously protecting and enabling Israel. Third, acknowledging Israel’s nuclear program would focus international public attention on the necessity of a MENWFZ agreement. Finally, a Nuclear Free Middle East would make a comprehensive regional peace agreement much more likely. George Perkovitch writing for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote, “Our aim should be to create a security environment, and you can’t do that if you don’t recognize publicly that Israel has nuclear weapons,”[187]
Unless and until Israel begins to negotiations about ending its covert nuclear program, it is unlikely that there will be any meaningful resolution of the Israeli/Arab conflict. Joseph Cirincione, director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace points out,
“The world does well to remember that most Middle East weapons programs began as a response to Israel’s nuclear weapons. Everyone already knows about Israel’s bombs in the closet, Bringing them out into the open and putting them on the table as part of a regional deal may be the only way to prevent others from building their own bombs in their basements. It should be obvious that Israelis are better off in a region where no one has nuclear weapons than in one where many nations have them,”[188]
[1] Walter Pincus, Push for Nuclear-Free Middle East Resurfaces, Washington Post, March 6, 2005. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10418-2005Mar5.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[2] Seymour Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. New York: Random House, 1991, 319 (A brilliant and prophetic work with much original research)
[3] Former weapons inspector Blix says Olmert’s nuclear comment unlikely to spark Arab backlash, 2006. International Herald Tribune, December 13 2006. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/13/europe/EU_GEN_Netherlands_Blix_Nuclear.php (accessed December 20, 2008)
[4] Ted Flaherty, Nuclear Database: Israel’s Possible Nuclear Delivery Systems, Center for Defense Information, 1997. http://www.cdi.org/nuclear/database/isnukes.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[5] Joseph Cirincione, Jon B. Wolfsthal, Miriam Rajkumar, Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats, Washington:Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006, 265
[6] Aluf Benn, Israel: Censoring the Past, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 2001,17-19. http://www.bsos.umd.edu/pgsd/people/staffpubs/Avner-BASreport7-01.htm (accessed December 20, 2008) (The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 by dissident Manhattan Project scientists. It is considered an authoritative source on nuclear issues)
[7] Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, New York: Columbia University Press,1998, 10
[8] Ibid, 15-16
[9] Ibid, 16
[10] Ibid, 13
[11] Avner Cohen & William Burr, The Untold Story of Israel’s Bomb, Washington Post, Sunday, April 30, 2006, B-01. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/28/AR2006042801326_pf.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[12] Cirincione et al, 265
[13] Ella Habiba Shohat, Reflections by an Arab Jew, Bint Jbeil, April 17, 1999. http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/arab_jew.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[14] Demographics of Israel, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel (accessed December 20, 2008)
[15] Ibid.
[16] Uri Avnery, Sorry, Wrong Continent, Gush Shalom, Uri Avnery’s Column, December 23, 2006. http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1166960371 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[16] Ibid.
[17] Charlotte Halle, Foreign Ministry slams envoy’s comments about ‘yellow race’, Haaretz, October 24, 2006. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/774471.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[18] Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God, 2000, New York, Alfred A Knopf, 1991, 278-309
[19] Shibley Telhami (Principal Investigator), 2008 Annual Arab Public Opinion Poll,
Survey of the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland (with Zogby International), 2008, http://www.brookings.edu/topics/~/media/Files/events/2008/0414_middle_east/0414_middle_east_telhami.pdf (accessed December 20, 2008)
(Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were surveyed)
[20] Geneva Initiative, New Survey of Israeli Public Opinion, Prospects for Peace, 2007. http://www.prospectsforpeace.com/2007/07/new_survey_of_israeli_public_o.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[21] Israel Nuclear Overview, Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), August 2008. http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Israel/Nuclear/index.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[22] U.S. Army Lt. Col. Warner D. Farr, The Third Temple Holy of Holies; Israel’s Nuclear Weapons, USAF Counterproliferation Center, Air War College Sept 1999. www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/farr,htm (Perhaps the best single condensed history of the Israeli nuclear program) (accessed December 20, 2008)
[23] Peter Hounam, Woman From Mossad: The Torment of Mordechai Vanunu, London: Vision Paperbacks, 1999. 34-35 (The most complete and up to date account of the Vanunu story by the Sunday London Times reporter who broke the story.)
[24] Israel Nuclear Overview, NTI
[25] Hounam, 36
[26] Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, 187
[27] Farr
[28] Michael Karpin, The Bomb In The Basement: How Israel Went Nuclear and What It Means for the World, New York:Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 268-269
[29] Benjamin Pincus, Atomic Power to Israel’s Rescue: French-Israeli Nuclear Cooperation 1949-1957, Israel Studies – Volume 7, Number 1, Spring 2002, 104-138. http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/israel_studies/v007/7.1pinkus.html.http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Israel/Nuclear/index.html. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[30] Cohen, 273-274
[31] Hersh,131
[32] Mark Gaffney, Dimona the Third Temple: The Story Behind the Vanunu Revelation, Brattleboro:Amana Books, 1989, 68-69
[33] Uranium: The Israeli Connection, Time Magazine, May 30, 1977, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914952,00.html. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[34] Hersh, 242-257
[35] Israel: Uranium Processing and Enrichment, Wisconsin Project On Nuclear Arms Control, The Risk Report, Vol. 2, # 4, 1996 http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/israel/uranium.html. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[36] Gary Milholland, a Heavy Water Whitewash, Arbeiderbladet (Oslo), April 20, 1988
http://www.wisconsinproject.org/pubs/editorials/1988/heavywaterwhitewash.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[37] Farr, 8
[38] Hersh, 271-283
[39] Farr, 12
[40] South Africa’s Nuclear Autopsy, Wisconsin Project On Nuclear Arms Control, The Risk Report, Vol. 2, #1, 1996, 4,5,10 http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/safrica/autopsy.html. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[40] Farr, 8
[41] Jericho, Mark Wade, Encyclopedia Astronautica, http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/jericho.htm. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[42] Barbara Rogers & Zdenek Cervenka, The Nuclear Axis: The Secret Collaboration Between West Germany and South Africa, New York:Times Books, 1978, 325-328. (the definitive history of the Apartheid Bomb)
[43] Gaffney, 34
[44] Israel Profile: Nuclear Overview, Nuclear Threat Initiative, http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Israel/Nuclear/index.html. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[45] Cohen, 336-338
[46] Ibid, 323
[47] Stephen Zunes, The Release of Mordechai Vanunu and U.S. Complicity in the Development of Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal, Foreign Policy In Focus, April 21, 2004, http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/1134. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[48] Hounan,155-168
[49] Hersh, 213
[50] Hersh, 3-17
[51] Israel Gets U.S. Supercomputer for Secret Military Site, Wisconsin Project On Nuclear Arms Control, The Risk Report, Vol. 2, #3, 1996
http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/israel/israelgets.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[52] Gerard C. Smith & Helen Cobban, A Blind Eye to Nuclear Proliferation, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1989, 59-63, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19890601faessay5960/gerard-c-smith-helena-cobban/a-blind-eye-to-nuclear-proliferation.html. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[53] Farr, 11
[54] Hersh, 290-291
[55] Peter Hounan, Mordechai Vanunu, the Sunday Times Articles, April 21, 2004, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article830147.ece. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[56] Hounan, 35-45
[57] Ibid, p. 45
[58] Hersh, 197
[59] Eileen Fleming, The Vanunu Saga 2008, Counter Currents, January 22, 2008
< http://www.countercurrents.org/fleming220108.htm> (accessed December 20, 2008)
[60] Hounman,189-203
[61] U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, The Effects of the Atomic Bombs On Hirishima and Nagasaki, Washington:US Government Printing Office, 1946, 9-14
[62] Fredrick Solomon and Robert Q, Marston, The Medical Implications of Nuclear War, Washington:National Academy of Science Press, 1986, 211-213
[63] Hersh,199-200
[64] Hersh, 312
[65] John Pike, Israel Special Weapons Guide Website, Federation of American Scientists http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/index.html. (accessed December 20, 2008) (An invaluable internet resource)
[66] Usi Mahnaimi and Peter Conradi, Fears of New Arms Race as Israel Tests Cruise Missiles, London Sunday Times, June 18, 2000, http://www.fas.org/news/israel/e20000619fearsof.htm. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[67] Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Weapons of Mass Destruction In the Middle East, 2006, < http://cns.miis.edu/research/wmdme/israel.htm>
[68] Ibid.
[69] John Pike, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Jericho 1, Global Security, 2008
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/jericho-1.htm. (accessed December 20, 2008) (Global Security is the most up-to-date, authoritative source for information about weapons of mass destruction worldwide.)
[70] Anthony Cordesman, Israeli Weapons of Mass Destruction: An Overview (working draft), Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2008
http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/080602_israeliwmd.pdf. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[71] Israel Profile: Missile Overview, Nuclear Threat Initiative,
http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Israel/Missile/index.html. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[72] Serge Schmemann, Israel Clings to its ‘Nuclear Ambiguity’, New York Times, June 21, 1998, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Israel+Clings+to+its+‘Nuclear+Ambiguity&btnG=Google+Search. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[73] Mark Wade, Jericho, 2008 Encyclopedia Astronautica, http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/jericho.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
(According to the Encyclopedia Astronautica, much of what we know about Israel’s ballistic missile program has been gleaned from examining the official South African records of its missile program.)
[74] Cordesman, 5 (Cordesman is referencing the authoritative Jane’s Intelligence Review)
[75] Yaakov Katz, Israel Test-Fires Long-Range Ballistic Missile, Jerusalem Post, July 17, 2008, http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1200475902683&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[76] Michael Barletta & Erik Jorgensen, Weapons of Mass Destruction In the Middle East, Center for Non-Proliferation Studies, http://cns.miis.edu/research/wmdme/ (accessed December 20, 2008)
[77] STRATFOR, Military: A New Ballistic Missile for Israel?, January 17, 2008
http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/military_new_ballistic_missile_israel. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[78] Barletta & Jorgensen.
[79] John Pike, Military: F-4E Phantom II, GlobalSecurity.Org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-4e.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[80] Ibid.
[81] Flaherty
[82] McDonnell Douglas F4 Phantom, Israeli Airforce:The Official Website
http://www.iaf.org.il/Templates/Aircraft/Aircraft.IN.aspx?lang=EN&lobbyID=69&folderID=78&subfolderID=184&docfolderID=184&docID=18176 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[83] Flaherty
[84] Peter Beaumont, Was Israeli Raid a Dry Run for an Attack On Iran?, The London Observer, September 16, 2007 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/sep/16/iran.israel (accessed December 20, 2008)
[85] John Pike, F-15I Ra’am (Thunder), GlobalSecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/israel/f-15i.htm18176 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[86] Ibid.
[87] George Friedman, Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch, Jewish World Review, June 25, 2008 http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/mediterranean_flyover_telegraphing_israeli_punch 18176 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[88] John Pike, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Dolphin, GlobalSecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/sub.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[89] Nuclear Threat Initiative, Submarine Proliferation: Israel Current Capabilities, 2008
http://www.nti.org/db/submarines/israel/index.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[90] Uzi Mahnaimi and Matthew Campbell, Israel Makes Waves With Submarine Missile Test, London Sunday Times, June 18, 2000, http://www.fas.org/news/israel/e20000619israelmakes.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[91] Pike
[92] Marineforce International, Submarines: Dolphin, http://www.marineforce.net/dolphin.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[93] Jim Dunnigan, Israel Gets Super Subs, Strategy Page, August 27, 2006, http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsub/articles/20060827.aspx (accessed December 20, 2008)
[94] SSK Dolphin Class Submarine, Israel, 2008, Naval-Technology.com,
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/dolphin/ (accessed December 20, 2008)
[95]Pike
[96] Cirincione et al, 261
[97] Usi Mahnaimi, Israeli Jets Equipped for Chemical Warfare, London Sunday Times, October 4, 1998. article posted on the MER website at http://www.middleeast.org/archives/1998_11_08.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[98] Avner Cohen, Israel and Chemical/Biological Weapons: History, Deterrence, and Arms Control, The Nonproliferation Review, Fall-Winter 2001, http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/livres3/Cohen.pdf (accessed December 20, 2008)
[99] Israel Profile: Chemical Overview, Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) 2008, http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Israel/Chemical/index.html
[100] Israel Profile: Biological Overview, Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) 2008, http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Israel/Biological/index.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[101] Strategic Israel: The Secret Arsenal of the Jewish State, MSNBC.Com, http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/israel/strategic/index.shtml (accessed December 20, 2008) (A remarkable interactive map of Israel’s nuclear facilities. No longer stored at the MSNBC website, it is archived at the Sweet Liberty site.)
[102] John Pike, Special weapons Facilities-Israel, Globalsecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/facility.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[103] Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), Israel Nuclear Facilities, http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Israel/Nuclear/3583.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[104] Greenpeace International, An Overview of Nuclear Facilities In Iran, Israel and Turkey, February, 2007, http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/mediterranean/reports/an-overview-of-nuclear-facilit.pdf (accessed December 20, 2008) (Greenpeace issues the following disclaimer: “Due to the highly secretive nature of the Israeli nuclear programme and the complete lack of official information, the chapter on Israeli nuclear facilities was written based upon the best available informative yet unofficial sources”- this disclaimer doesn’t apply to Turkey or Iran)
[105] Pike, Special weapons Facilities-Israel,
[106] Ibid
[107] Dominic Duran, Mideast Atomic Moves: The UAE and Egypt make significant moves to develop a nuclear capacity, as Israel drops reactor plans, Center for Security Studies, April 4, 2008, http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/layout/set/print/content/view/full/73?lng=en&id=54151 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[108] Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Israel: Nuclear Infrastructure, 1998 http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/Tracking_israelmap.pdf (accessed December 20, 2008)
[109] Greenpeace International
[110] Michael Adler, Israel’s Soreq nuclear reactor — the one they show to journalists, Agence France Press, July 18, 2004, http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2004/040718-israel-soreq.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[111] John Pike, Soreq Nuclear Research Center, Global Security.Com, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/soreq.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[112] Duran
[113] Yael Ivri-Darel, Soreq Nuclear Research Center’s reactor to shut down in 8 years, Ynetnews, April 3, 2008, http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3514334,00.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[114] Peter Hounan, Revealed – the secrets of Israel’s nuclear arsenal/ Atomic technician Mordechai Vanunu reveals secret weapons production, Sunday London Times, October 5, 1986 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article830147.ece(accessed December 20, 2008)
[115] John Pike, Dimona Negev Nuclear Research Center, GlobalSecurity.org, 2008, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/dimona.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[116] John Pike, Negev Nuclear Research Center, GlobalSecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/dimona.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[117] Janes Intelligence Review, Israel Reviews its Nuclear Deterrent, November 1, 1998 http://www.janes.com/extract/jir98/jir00807.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[118] Brian Whitaker & Richard Norton-Taylor, Revealed: Israel’s Nuclear Site, London Guardian, August 23, 2000, http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2000/aug/23/news.israel (accessed December 20, 2008)
[119] John Pike, Plutonium Production, GlobalSecurity.org, 2008 http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/pu-prod.htm(accessed December 20, 2008)
[120] Arjun Makhijani, Howard Hu, Katherine Yih, Eds, Nuclear Wastelands: A Global Guide to Nuclear Weapons Production and Its Health & Environmental Effects, Cambridge, MIT Press 2000. (To date, the most comprehensive and authoritative overview of the environmental and health consequences of nuclear weapons production.)
[121] Jonathon Broder, A Challenge To Israel’s Nuclear Blind Spot, The Washington Post, Sunday, March 11, 2001; Page B02
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/pgsd/people/staffpubs/Avner-WashPost3-11-01.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[122] Bennett Ramberg, Should Israel Close Dimona? The Radiological Consequences of a Military Strike on Israel’s Plutonium-Production Reactor, Arms Control Today, May 2008, http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2008_05/Dimona(accessed December 20, 2008)
[123] Janes Information Group, Israel Reviews Its Nuclear Deterrent, Janes Intelligence Review, November 1, 1998, http://www.janes.com/extract/jir98/jir00807.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[124] Arabs Against Discrimination, Employees at Nuclear Reactors Demand Compensation, April 17, 2005, http://www.aad-online.org/2005/English/8-August/13-18/13-8/aad20/1.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[125] Liat Collins, Family of nuclear cancer victim awarded NIS 2.5m., Jerusalem Post, October 13, 1997,http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Israel/Dimonanews.txt (accessed December 20, 2008)
[126] Rayna Moss, Israel: Dimona Death Factory Exposed, WISE Nuclear Monitor, February 1, 2002, http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/index.html?http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/beyondbomb/3-3.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[127] Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Dimona Reactor…a Mystery Threatening Middle East, PNA Press Release, Thursday, September 18, 2003, http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0309/S00228.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[128] Arabic News, Jordanian Fears Over Israeli Dimona Nuclear Reactor, April 28, 2005, http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/050428/2005042832.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[129] Ibid.
[130] Yuval Azoulay, Deputy CEO of Negev Nuclear Center: Dimona Reactor is Safe, Haaretz, August 23, 2007, http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/896676.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[131] Janes Information Group, Israel Reviews Its Nuclear Deterrent
[132] IsraelWire, Sunday Times: Close Dimona nuclear facility, IsraelWire 2/7 Wire Service, February 7, 2000, http://www.fas.org/news/israel/000207-israel1.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[133] Aluf Benn, Israel: Censoring the Past, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 2001, http://www.bsos.umd.edu/pgsd/people/staffpubs/Avner-BASreport7-01.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[134] BBC World Service, BBC Transcript of Israel’s Secret Weapon, Electric Intifada, March 17, 2003, http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1665.shtml (accessed December 20, 2008)
[135] Ibid.
[136] Ibid.
[137] Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, 12-14
[138] Israel Shahak, Open Secrets: Israeli Nuclear and Foreign Policies, London:Pluto Press, 1997, 40 (For many years Shahak translated news from the Hebrew Language press. This volume contains many such examples)
[139] Hersh, 319
[140] Gaffney, 163
[141] C R Jayachandran, Pak Fears Joint Indo-Israel Strikes. Times of India, October 14, 2003 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/232733.cms (accessed December 20, 2008)
[142] History of Lebanon, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lebanon#Israeli_invasion_and_international_intervention:_1982.E2.80.9384(accessed December 20, 2008)
[143] Chris Hedges, Israel’s ‘Crime Against Humanity’, TruthDig.com, December 15, 2008, http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081215_israels_crime_against_humanity/ (accessed December 20, 2008)
[144] James A Russell, Nuclear Strategy and the Modern Middle East, Middle East Council Journal, Fall 2004, http://www.mepc.org/journal_vol11/0409_russell.asp (accessed December 20, 2008)
[145] Ibid.
[146] Gaffney, 131
[147] Avner Cohen, Did Nukes Nudge the PLO?, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, December, 1993, pp. 11-13
[148] Robert W. Tucker, Israel & the US: From Dependence to Nuclear Weapons?, Commentary, November 1975 pp41-42 http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/israel-and-the-united-states-from-dependence-to-nuclear-weapons-5582 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[149] Ibid.
[150] Wisconsin Project On Nuclear Arms Control, Israel’s Nuclear Weapon Capability: An Overview, The Risk Report, July-August 1996, http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/israel/nuke.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[151] Gaffney, 147
[152] Ibid, 153
[153] Wikipedia, Israel-United States Military Relations, Wikipedia, December 10, 2008, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel-United_States_military_relations (accessed December 20, 2008)
[154] Shahak, 39-40
[155] Ido Kanter, Changing nuclear equation: Should nuclear arms be used in response to powerful conventional attacks?, Israel Opinion, September 4, 2006, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3299440,00.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[156] Hersh, 19
[157] Aronson, Geoffrey, “Hidden Agenda: US-Israeli Relations and the Nuclear Question,” Middle East Journal, (Autumn 1992), 619-630. http://www.mideasti.org/middle-east-journal/volume-46/4/hidden-agenda-us-israeli-relations-and-nuclear-question (accessed December 20, 2008)
[158] Jonathan Schell & Martin Sherwin, Israel, Iran and the Bomb, The Nation, August 8, 2008, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/schell_sherwin (accessed December 20, 2008)
[159] . Shahak, 150
[160] Norman Soloman, Israel’s Future Leader? (Benjamin Netanyahu) Alternet, January 6, 2006, http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Israel/Benjamin_Netanyahu.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[161] Hersh, 319
[162] Ibid, 149
[163] Ibid, 153
[164] Hersh, 285-305
[165] John Pike, Israel: Strategic Doctrine, Globalsecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/doctrine.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[166] Gaffney, 194
[167] Greenpeace Briefing, Conditions for a Nuclear Free Middle East, February, 2007,http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/mediterranean/reports/conditions-for-NFME.pdf (accessed December 20, 2008)
[168] Michael Donovan, Iran, Israel and Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, Center for Defense Information Terrorism Project, February 14, 2002, http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/menukes.cfm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[169] Shahak, 34
[170] The Avalon Project, United National Security Resolution 487, Yale Law School, http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/un487.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[171] Amy Goodman & Juan Gonzalez, Former Chief UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix on the US Rush to War in Iraq, the Threat of an Attack on Iran, and the Need for a Global Nuclear Ban to Avoid Further Catastrophe, Democracy Now, May 21, 2008, http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/21/former_chief_un_weapons_inspector_hans (accessed December 20, 2008)
[172] Avner Cohen and Marvin Miller, Country Perspectives on the Challenges to a Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty, International Panel on Fissile Materials, Israel, 2008 pp27-34 http://www.ipfmlibrary.org/gfmr08cv.pdf (accessed December 20, 2008)
[173] Yossi Melman, Report suggests Obama Press Israel Over Nuke Program, Haaretz, November 17, 2008, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1037558.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[174] AP Staff Report, Arab League Vows to Drop Out of NPT if Israel Admits It has Nuclear Weapons, AP Wire, March 5, 2008, http://www.2020visioncampaign.org/pages/351/Arab_League_vows_to_drop_out_of_NPT_if_Israel_admits_it_has_nuclear_weapons(accessed December 20, 2008)
[175] International Pugwash, A Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone, Pugwash Online, June, 2008 http://www.pugwash.org/reports/rc/me/middle-east-WMDFZ.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[176] Glen Kessler, In 2003, U.S. Spurned Iran’s Offer of Dialogue: Some Officials Lament Lost Opportunity, Washington Post, June 18, 2006, A-16, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/06/17/AR2006061700727.html(accessed December 20, 2008)
[177] Gareth Porter, Iran Proposal to U.S. Offered Peace with Israel, Inter Press Service, May 24, 2006, http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33348 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[178] Gershom Gorenberg and Hiam Watzman, Is Hamas Looking For a Two-State Solution? Should We Listen?, South Jerusalem, April 10, 2008, http://southjerusalem.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/is-hamas-looking-for-a-two-state-solution-should-we-listen/ (accessed December 20, 2008)
[179] Yossi Verter, Poll: Most Israelis back direct talks with Hamas on Shalit, Haaretz, February 27, 2008, http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/958473.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[180] Barak Ravid, Aluf Benn and Assaf Uni, Israel, PA agree to strive for deal by end of 2008, Haaretz, November 27, 2007, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=928637 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[181] Tom Allard, Israeli Nukes A Key to Peace, The Sydney Morning Herald, November 9 2004, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/11/08/1099781324113.html?from=storylhs (accessed December 20, 2008)
[182] Andrew Tulley, Radio Free Europe U.S.: Bush Signals New Interpretation Of Nonproliferation Treaty, Radio Free Europe U.S., March 16, 2005
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/usa/2005/usa-050316-rferl01.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[183] Bernd Debusmann, Can Obama Avert an Arab-Israeli Disaster?, Reuters, December 11, 2008, http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2008/12/11/can-obama-avert-an-arab-israeli-disaster/ (accessed December 20, 2008)
[184] Jeffrey Heller, Analysis: Netanyahu on Course for Israeli Election Win-Polls, Reuters, December 10, 2008, http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed2/idUSLA371329 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[185] Business News, Arab stocks volatile on falling oil prices, global uncertainty, Duetsche Presse-Agenteur, November 28, 2008, http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1445534.php (accessed December 20, 2008)
[186] Rebecca Johnson, Is the NPT Being Overtaken by Events?, Disarmament Diplomacy, Spring 2008, http://www.acronym.org.uk/dd/dd87/87npt.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[187] Pincus
[188] Haider Rizvi, Israeli Arsenal Vexes Nuclear Negotiators, Inter Press Service, Inter Press Service, May 20, 2005 (accessed December 20, 2008) http://www.antiwar.com/ips/rizvi.php?articleid=6033 (accessed December 20, 2008)
Abstract
Discussion of the status of nuclear energy in Israel of necessity must focus principally on its nuclear weapons program. When nuclear proliferation is discussed in international forums, the issue of Israel’s substantial nuclear arsenal is too often ignored or downplayed. Despite a maintaining a forty-year plus policy of neither confirming nor denying possession of nuclear weapons, with some 200 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, Israel is now the world’s fifth largest nuclear power. Substantial assistance from France, South Africa, the United States and others, enabled Israel to clandestinely develop a sophisticated nuclear weapons arsenal, which includes miniaturized fusion-boosted fission bombs, neutron bombs and, possibly, thermonuclear bombs. Israel’s nuclear weapons delivery system of ballistic and cruise missiles, nuclear-capable fighter-bombers, submarines, and nuclear artillery and land mines places the entire Middle East, Europe and much of Asia and Africa within range.
Israel’s nuclear program has profound implications for the Middle East and the planet. While the initial motivation for its nuclear program was originally linked to a determination to prevent another Holocaust, the size and sophistication of its current arsenal, and public statements by Israeli leaders imply an offensive role. Israel regularly employs the nuclear threat as a coercive lever in order to maintain the status quo and to influence events to its perceived advantage, Israel’s refusal to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and its policy of Nuclear Opacity, reinforce the prospect that future conflicts in the region could rapidly escalate into a regional or global nuclear cataclysm.
“Our aim should be to create a security environment, and you can’t do that if you don’t recognize publicly that Israel has nuclear weapons,” George Perkovitch, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace[1]
“Should war break out in the Middle East again, or should any Arab nation fire missiles against Israel, as the Iraqis did, a nuclear escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now be a strong probability.” Seymour Hersh[2]
Introduction
With several hundred sophisticated weapons and a robust delivery system, Israel has quietly supplanted Britain as the World’s 5th largest nuclear power, and now rivals France and China in the size of its nuclear arsenal. Nonetheless, Israel is universally recognized a major nuclear power. According to Hans Blix, former U.N. Chief Weapons Inspector, “The whole world is fairly sure that they have about 200 weapons, and beating around the bush I think doesn’t change very much — they are part of the nuclear landscape,”[3] According to the authoritative Center for Defense Information, “In short, the Israeli nuclear weapon infrastructure is probably quite large, including the full range of strategic and tactical battlefield weapons.”[4]
While recently much attention has been lavished on the threat posed by Iranian weapons of mass destruction, the major nuclear power in the region, Israel, has been largely ignored. Possessing a sophisticated nuclear arsenal and an integrated strategy for its use in combat, Israel’s nuclear arsenal provides the major regional impetus for the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, representing an acute threat to peace and stability in the Middle East. With India and Pakistan, the other nuclear armed non-signatories to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the Israeli nuclear program imperils nuclear nonproliferation efforts. Israel’s nuclear weapons program reinforces the prospect that future conflicts in the region could rapidly escalate into a regional or global nuclear cataclysm.
For political reasons, Israel maintains a policy of nuclear ambiguity or opacity, neither confirming nor denying its nuclear program, most clearly enunciated in 1963 by Shimon Peres; “Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons in [the Middle east]”.[5] In 2001, Aluf Benn writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists discussed the policy of Israel’s Nuclear Opacity; “although everyone knows what capabilities Israel has, it remains silent about them.”[6]Because of its draconian military censorship, the world has derived most of its knowledge about the Israeli nuclear program from whistle-blowers, unguarded comments by Israeli political leadership, and analysis of evidence by scientists and arms control experts. Information contained in this paper was collected from authoritative sources and contemporary press accounts. Where possible, direct quotes from Israeli officials and commentators, and nuclear experts are used to illustrate points. When possible, primary sources are referenced. Because of its extreme nuclear secrecy, obtaining an accurate overview of Israel’s nuclear program requires careful analysis and cautious skepticism.
Background Analysis
Any meaningful discussion of Israel’s nuclear policy requires examination of the roots of Israeli attitudes leading to the development of its nuclear weapons program. First and foremost, the shadow of the Holocaust weighed heavily on the minds of David Ben-Gurion and Ernst David Bergman as they became preoccupied with the idea of an Israeli bomb. Avner Cohen writes in Israel and the Bomb, “Israel’s project was conceived in the shadow of the Holocaust, and the lessons of the Holocaust provided justification and motivation for the project.”[7] According to Shimon Perez, Bergman stated, “I am convinced…that the State of Israel needs a defense research program of its own, so that we shall never again be as lambs led to the slaughter.”[8] In 1966, Bergman wrote to Meir Ya’ari, the leader of the leftist political party MAPAM; “I cannot forget that the Holocaust came upon the Jewish people as a surprise. The Jewish people cannot allow themselves such an illusion for a second time.”[9] David Ben-Gurion in his farewell address to the Israeli Armaments Development Authority (RAFAEL), defended the nuclear project saying, “I am confident, based not only on what I heard today, that our science can provide us with the weapons that are needed to deter our enemies from waging war against us.”[10] Speculating about a meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and U. S. President Richard Nixon that laid the basis for Israel’s policy of ‘Nuclear Opacity,’ noted historian Avner Cohen wrote, “Meir may have assured Nixon that Israel thought of nuclear weapons as a last-resort option, a way to provide her Holocaust-haunted nation with a psychological sense of existential deterrence.”[11]
The question of the ‘existential threat’ posed by Israel’s small size and lack of territorial depth, in juxtaposition with size, resources and population of its Arab neighbors has been posited as a primary justification for Israel’s nuclear program.[12] This theme of defensive nuclear deterrence still resonates within Israel, but the size and sophistication of its nuclear arsenal, and statements by public officials strongly suggest that deterrence is only one aspect of a much broader and far-reaching offensive nuclear strategy.
A second major factor influencing Israel’s strategic policies is its close identification with Europe and the West. Historically, Israel’s leadership has identified closely with Europe rather than the Middle East, exacerbating already great regional tensions.[13] Ashkenazim (Jews of European ancestry), although a minority of the Israeli Jewish population, disproportionately occupy positions of leadership, and heavily influence opinion and policy.[14] (Mizrahim and Sephardim, Asian and Mediterranean Jews, comprise 39% of Israel’s population, compared to 37% Ashkenazim[15]) Writing for Gush Shalom, Uri Avnery, a leader of Israel’s Peace Bloc, wrote,
“In his book ‘The Jewish State’, the founding document of the Zionist movement, Theodor Herzl famously wrote: ‘For Europe we shall be (in Palestine) a part of the wall against Asia…the vanguard of culture against barbarism…’ This attitude is typical for the whole history of Zionism and the State of Israel up to the present day.”[16]
In 2007 Naftali Tamir, Israeli ambassador to Australia, is quoted in Haaretz as saying, “Israel and Australia are like sisters in Asia. We are in Asia without the characteristics of Asians. We don’t have yellow skin and slanted eyes. Asia is basically the yellow race. Australia and Israel are not – we are basically the white race.”[17] While the Israeli Foreign Office quickly repudiated Tamir, the fact that a high-ranking Israeli diplomat would assume license to make such a transparently racist comment underscores Avnery’s argument.
This century-long history of Israeli Western chauvinism and anti-Arab racism in turn generates Arab anti-Semitism, thus creating a vicious cycle of mutual suspicion and mistrust. A related complicating factor in negotiating a just and lasting Arab/Israeli peace is the emergence of radical religious movements in Israel, and the Arab world, increasingly changing the character of the confrontation from one primarily about land to one about religion.[18]
Despite these impediments to Israeli/Arab peace, majority Arab public support for “a just and lasting peace with Israel” has increased significantly since 2006.[19] A 2007 survey indicated a substantial majority of Israelis supporting a comprehensive peace agreement with the Arabs.[20] It should be noted that while majority public opinion in Israel and the Arab nations supports a comprehensive peace agreement, there remains deep skepticism within both communities about prospects for peace.
History of the Israeli Bomb
The Israeli nuclear program began in the late 1940s under the direction of Ernst David Bergmann, who established the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission in 1952. Convinced that nuclear weapons would solve Israel’s security problems, Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion and a young Shimon Perez became the principal architects and the driving force behind the nascent Israeli program.[21]
France provided the bulk of early nuclear cooperation with Israel, culminating in construction of a heavy water moderated, natural uranium reactor and plutonium-reprocessing factory situated near Beersheba in the Negev Desert. Originally designed as a 24 Megawatt (MW) facility, the Dimona reactor was built with a cooling system three times larger that needed and numerous sources suggest that in fact Israel did enlarge its capacity significantly.[22] Because of the lack of any electrical generation capacity and the inclusion of a plutonium-reprocessing facility, it is clear that from the beginning that the French understood that they were providing Israeli with nuclear weapons.[23]
The aftermath of the 1956 Suez Crisis precipitated top-secret talks that cemented and accelerated the Israeli-French nuclear collaboration. From its inception in the 1950s, Israeli scientists were active partners in the French nuclear weapons program, including development and testing, and providing critical nuclear expertise. The current Israeli nuclear program should be understood largely as an extension of this earlier collaboration.
The United States became aware of the Dimona construction in late 1960 and the outgoing Eisenhower administration demanded an explanation. The official response was that Dimona was for “peaceful purposes,” including scientific, industrial and medical.[24] In reality, the sole purpose of the Dimona plant was to produce nuclear bombs.[25] After several years of delay were caused by Charles de Gaulle’s decision in 1960 to end official French involvement in Dimona’s construction, Dimona finally went on line in 1964 and plutonium reprocessing began shortly thereafter. [26] Despite various Israeli claims that Dimona was a manganese plant or a textile factory, extreme security measures employed told a far different story. In 1967, Israel shot down one of their own Mirage fighters that approached too close to Dimona and in 1973 shot down a Libyan civilian airliner which strayed off course, killing 104.[27]
According to Michael Karpin, author of The Bomb In the Basement, In November 16, 1966, Israel, which had by then separated enough plutonium for a primitive nuclear weapon, successfully carried out a sophisticated laboratory test that established the viability of its nuclear bomb.[28] There is substantial reporting from credible sources that Israel participated as full partners in the Algerian French nuclear tests, and thus had no need to actually test a nuclear weapon.[29] According to Avner Cohen, during the 1967 war Israel assembled “two deliverable nuclear explosive devices.”[30]By the time of the 1973 war, Israel possessed an arsenal of perhaps several dozen deliverable atomic bombs, and reportedly went on full nuclear alert.[31]
Possessing advanced nuclear technology and “world class” nuclear scientists, Israel was confronted early with a major problem- how to obtain the necessary uranium and heavy water to operate the Dimona reactor. Israel’s own uranium source, phosphate deposits in the Negev, were inadequate to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding program. During the early 1960s, France had supplied Israel with relatively small quantities of uranium but as Israeli/French relations cooled a larger source was needed. The short-term answer in 1968 was to collaborate with West Germany in the Plumbat affair, successfully diverting 200 tons of yellowcake (uranium oxide).[32] The West German authorities subsequently covered up their role in this clandestine operation.[33] Allegations that a U.S. corporation called Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) diverted hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium to Israel from the mid-50s to the mid-60s, are disputed by investigative Journalist Seymour Hersh.[34] In the late 1960s, Israel solved the uranium problem by developing close ties with South Africa in a quid pro quo arrangement whereby Israel supplied the technology and tritium for the ‘Apartheid Bomb,’ while South Africa provided as much as 600 tons of uranium.[35]
Heavy water was needed as a moderator for the natural uranium reactor at Dimona and Israel solved this problem by purchasing 20 tons from Norway. With the assurance that it would be used strictly for peaceful purposes, the agreement gave Norway the right to inspect the heavy water for thirty-two years but Israel refused to permit meaningful inspections. Israel agreed in 1990 to return half of the heavy water to Norway.[36] As of 1990 Israel had reportedly used two tons of heavy water and retained approximately eight more for future use.[37]
In 1977, the Soviet Union warned the U.S. that satellite photos indicated South Africa was planning a nuclear test in the Kalahari Desert but the Apartheid regime backed down under pressure. On September 22, 1979, a U.S. satellite detected an atmospheric test of a small nuclear explosion in the Indian Ocean off South Africa. Apparently because of Israel’s possible involvement, a carefully selected scientific panel kept in the dark about important details issued a report questioning the accuracy of the Vela satellite. Later it was learned through Israeli sources that the Indian Ocean was actually the last of three carefully guarded tests of miniaturized Israeli 155mm nuclear artillery shells.[38]/[39]
The Israeli/South African collaboration did not end with the bomb testing, but continued until the fall of Apartheid, especially with the developing and testing of ballistic missiles during the 1970s and 1980s.[40] The RSA series of South African ballistic missiles appear to be virtually identical to Israel’s Jericho series.[41] Israel and South Africa conducted numerous joint missile tests at the Overberg Test Range. In addition to uranium and test facilities, South Africa provided Israel with large amounts of investment capital; while Israel provided a major trade outlet, enabling the Apartheid state to avoid international economic sanctions.[42] The Israeli-South Africa nuclear collaboration officially ended in 1989.
Although the French and South Africans were primarily responsible for the Israeli nuclear program, the U.S. shares responsibility. Investigative journalist Mark Gaffney wrote, [the Israeli nuclear program] “was possible only because of calculated deception on the part of Israel, and willing complicity on the part of the U.S.”[43] Israel was the second nation to sign on to Eisenhower’s ‘Atoms for Peace’ program, and became the recipient of a 5MW highly enriched uranium research reactor at Nahal Soreq which went online in 1960. This reactor later became the centerpiece of much of Israel’s basic nuclear research, and the training nuclear scientists and technicians.
President Kennedy, concerned about the Israeli nuclear program, insisted that U.S. scientists be allowed to inspect the under construction Dimona reactor to ensure that it was, as Israel claimed, strictly for peaceful purposes.[44] The Israeli’s went to extremes to prevent the inspectors from discovering the existence of a nuclear weapons program. Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon Johnson, had a more ambivalent attitude toward nuclear proliferation and a more pro-Israeli viewpoint. Shortly after his election, President Richard Nixon and Israeli President Golda Meir met in 1969. Nixon agreed to end the Dimona inspections and remove U.S. pressure on Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).[45] In retrospect, the Meir-Nixon understanding set the stage of Israel’s ongoing policy of Nuclear Ambiguity. Nixon formally ended the Dimona inspections in 1970.[46]
From its inception, the U.S. was heavily involved in the Israeli nuclear program. Israeli scientists were largely trained at U.S. universities and were generally welcomed at the nuclear weapons labs.[47] In the early 1960s, the controls for the Dimona reactor were obtained clandestinely from a company called Tracer Lab, the main supplier of U.S. military reactor control panels, purchased through a Belgian subsidiary, apparently with the acquiescence of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the CIA.[48] In 1971, the Nixon administration approved the sale to Israel of hundreds of krytons, a type of high speed switch necessary to the development of sophisticated nuclear bombs.[49] In 1979, President Carter provided ultra high-resolution photos from a KH-11 spy satellite, used 2 years later to bomb the Iraqi Osirak Reactor.[50]
Throughout the Nixon and Carter administrations and accelerating dramatically under Ronald Reagan, U.S. advanced technology transfers to Israel have continued unabated to the present, most recently including ‘supercomputers’ capable of being used to design advanced nuclear weapons and missiles.[51] It has been widely argued that illegal acquisition of U. S. technology essential to nuclear weapons production facilitated the Israeli nuclear program.[52]
Following the 1973 war, Israel intensified its nuclear program while continuing its policy of deliberate nuclear ambiguity. By 1976, the U.S. Central intelligence agency (CIA) estimated that Israel possessed an arsenal of 10-20 plutonium bombs.[53] According to Seymour Hersh, in 1981, five years prior to the Vanunu revelations, an Israeli scientific defector provided Washington with photographic evidence that Israel possessed an arsenal of more than one hundred thermonuclear weapons. A senior intelligence official said, “Why do they need a thermonuclear device? Israel was more advanced and better than any of our people had presumed it to be- clean bombs, better warheads.”[54] Despite this information, until the mid-1980s, most U.S. intelligence estimates of the Israeli nuclear arsenal remained on the order of two-dozen weapons. In 1986, the explosive revelations of Mordechai Vanunu, a nuclear technician working in the Dimona plutonium reprocessing plant, changed everything overnight.
The Vanunu Revelations
A leftist supporter of Palestine, Mordechai Vanunu believed that it was his moral obligation to expose Israel’s nuclear program. He managed to smuggle dozens of photos and valuable scientific data about the operation out of Israel and in 1986 his story was published in the London Sunday Times.[55] Rigorous scientific scrutiny of the Vanunu revelations by nuclear scientists including bomb designers Theodore Taylor and Frank Barnaby, led to the disclosure that Israel possessed as many as 200 highly sophisticated nuclear bombs. The revelations indicated that the Dimona reactor’s capacity had been expanded several fold and that Israel was producing enough plutonium to make ten to twelve bombs per year. Vanunu proved unequivocally that Israel operated a large nuclear bomb production project that included plutonium-reprocessing, uranium enrichment, fuel rod fabrication, depleted uranium munitions fabrication and lithium 6, tritium and deuterium production (used in advanced nuclear weapon design).[56] After closely interrogating Vanunu for several days, Barnaby concluded, “The acquisition by Israel of lithium deuteride implies that it has become a thermonuclear-weapon power – a manufacturer of hydrogen bombs… Israel has the ability to turn out the weapons with a yield of 200-250 kilotons.”[57] Upon examining the Vanunu evidence, a ‘senior U.S. intelligence analyst’ said of the Vanunu data, “The scope of this is much more extensive than we thought. This is an enormous operation.”[58]
Just prior to publication of his information Vanunu, lured to Rome by a female Mossad spy, was beaten, drugged and kidnapped to Israel. Following a campaign of disinformation and vilification in the Israeli press, Vanunu was convicted of treason by a secret security court and sentenced to 18 years in prison. He served over 11 years in solitary confinement in a 6 by 9 foot cell. Vanunu was released from prison in 2004, but has since been held under virtual house arrest under draconian 1945 British Mandate Emergency Regulations. [59] The world press, especially in the United States, has largely ignored The Vanunu revelations and Israel continues to affect an ambiguous nuclear posture.[60]
Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal
Today, estimates of the Israeli nuclear arsenal range from 100 to a maximum of over 400 bombs. Given the magnitude of destruction caused by even the smallest nuclear weapons, the size of Israel’s nuclear arsenal. whether100 or 500 bombs, is irrelevant. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, primitive and small by modern standards, utterly destroyed two major cities. Within a 2km radius of the Hiroshima epicenter there was total destruction of all buildings and massive mortality.[61]/[62] Regardless, there is little doubt that Israeli nuclear weapons are among the world’s most sophisticated, and largely designed for war fighting. According to various sources, the Israeli nuclear arsenal includes boosted fission weapons and small neutron bombs, designed to maximize deadly gamma radiation while minimizing blast effects and long-term radiation- in essence designed to kill people while leaving property intact.[63] Other weapons include ballistic missiles capable of reaching Moscow, Nuclear capable fighter aircraft, cruise missiles, land mines[64], and artillery shells with a range of 45 miles.[65] In June 2000 an Israeli submarine launched a cruise missile that hit a target 950 miles away, making Israel only the third nation after the U.S. and Russia with that capability. Israel currently deploys 3 of these virtually impregnable submarines, each carrying at least 4 cruise missiles.[66] The Israeli nuclear arsenal clearly dwarfs the actual or potential arsenal of all other Middle Eastern states combined and is vastly greater than any conceivable need for defensive deterrence.
Like the major nuclear powers, Israel bases its strategic nuclear threat on a ‘triad’ of delivery systems- planes, land-based ballistic missiles and submarine-based cruise missiles with which it can threaten the entire Middle East and beyond. While numerous Israeli planes have nuclear capability,[67] three primary strategic aircraft are designed specifically to deliver nuclear weapons. Additionally, Israel’s tactical arsenal is widely understood to include nuclear artillery shells, nuclear capable short-range and cruise missiles, and nuclear land mines.[68]
• Jericho 1
The Jericho 1 short-range ballistic missile was developed during the 1960s with assistance from France. Deployed in 1973, the Jericho 1 is designed to carry nuclear, chemical and conventional warheads, and reportedly has a 500KG payload with a range of 480-750 kilometers. Approximately 100 Jericho missiles are deployed about 20 km east of Jerusalem at the Sedot Mikha launch site near the Tef Nor airbase. The Jericho 1 can reach Cairo and Damascus. There are also reports that the Jericho 1 can be deployed using mobile launchers.[69] Some reports claim that the Jericho 1 is no longer operational.[70]
• Jericho 2
The Jericho 2 is a 2-stage nuclear-capable intermediate range ballistic missile with a generally reported range of 1,500-3,500 km.[71] According to Janes Intelligence Review, the extended range of the Jericho 2 is 5,000km, with a payload of 2,500kg.[72] Developed and flight tested in collaboration with South Africa, the Jericho 2, apparently identical to the South African RSA 2, was deployed sometime in the late 1980s or early 1990s.[73] With its extended range and sophisticated inertial and terminal guidance system, the Jericho 2 targets virtually the entire Middle East. Approximately 50 Jericho 2 missiles are reportedly deployed at a facility named Zachariah (Hebrew for God remembers with a vengeance.)[74]
• Jericho 3 (Shavit)
On January 17, 2008, Israel launched a long-range ballistic missile from the Palmahim Air Base, Israel’s satellite launch site.[75] There is speculation that this was a test launch of the Jericho 3 missile. The Jericho 3, which reportedly closely resembles the South African RSA 3 ballistic missile, is designed with a range of up to 4,000 km carrying a payload of 1,000 kg.[76] According to the Israeli Defense Ministry, the missile is capable of carrying “an unconventional” payload.[77] Although apparently not yet currently deployed, cities like Moscow, Islamabad and far beyond will be within range of the Jericho 3.
• Other potential Nuclear-Capable Missiles
Lance MGM-52 short-range missiles (130 km range); Gabriel-4 cruise missiles (200 km range); Harpoon Cruise Missile (120 km range); Popeye Turbo air/sea launched cruise missile (300 km rang); and Popeye 1 & 3 cruise missiles (100 & 300 km ranges).[78]
• F-4E-2000 Phantom (Kurnas-2000- Sledge-Hammer)
In 1968 the U.S. agreed to sell Israel the F-4E, at that time considered to be “the most advanced airplane in service, anywhere.”[79] Approximately fifty planes were upgraded and deployed beginning in 1989. Modifications include reinforced skin and fuel cells, rewiring, advanced APG-76 radar, new J-79-GE-17 turbojet engines, air-to-air Sparrow, Sidewinder or Python missiles, and guided bombs.[80] [81] [82] With a carrying capacity of 7,200 kg and a relatively long range of 1,600 km, the F-4E was reportedly placed on nuclear alert during the 1973 war and may still be allocated for a nuclear role.[83]
•F-15I (Raam- Thunder)
The F15I, the largest plane in the Israeli Air force, has a range of 4,450 KM, enough to reach Tehran and return without refueling. Detachable conformal fuel tanks such as those found jettisoned in Turkey following the 2007 raid on Syria permit the F-15I a greatly expanded range.[84] In 2003, Israel demonstrated its range of by flying three F15-Es one-way from Israel to Poland without refueling, a distance of 1,600 km, approximately the same as Tehran.[85] According to John Pike, “The 25 F-15Is operational since 1999 [and the 100 F-16Is] were procured first and foremost to deal with the Iranian threat”[86]
•F-16I Sufa (Storm)
The F-16I is the most recent and advanced addition to the Israeli nuclear arsenal. A total of 102 planes have been purchased. The F-16I has a comparable range and capability to the F-15E. Both planes took part in the massive military exercise that took place in June 2008 over the Mediterranean and Greece, widely seen as a direct threat to Iran. Over 100 F15s & F-16s participated.[87] The F-15I and F-16I are nuclear capable.
•Submarines:
Three Dolphin class submarines, with “ the most advanced sailing and combat systems in the world,” complete the third and potentially most important leg of Israel’s nuclear ‘triad’.[88] The first three Dolphin submarines were delivered and deployed in the late 1990s, and have since undergone retrofitting. The Dolphin has six 533mm and four 650mm torpedo tubes. Built by the German shipyard HDW, it has been widely reported that the submarines have been modified to carry nuclear-tipped cruise missiles.[89]
According to press reports, in 2000 Israel conducted a successful test of a submarine-launched cruise missile that hit a target 900 miles away.[90] Among the cruise missiles suspected of being modified to carry a nuclear warhead are the Harpoon with a range of 130km, a modified Popeye Turbo with a range of 320km, a modified Gabriel 4LR with a range of 200km, as well as a new indigenously designed missile with a longer range.
Dolphin submarines are designed to patrol the Mediterranean Sea, and the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. The Dolphin has range of 4,500 miles and can remain on patrol for more than a month at a time.[91]/[92] In addition to the current submarine fleet, in 2005 Israel purchased two more advanced Dolphin submarines from Germany. The new submarines feature a larger fuel capacity, extending the range to over 10,000 km and operational endurance to approximately fifty days, thus permitting deployment to the Persian Gulf without refueling.[93] The new submarines, scheduled for delivery in 2010, will be equipped with a super quiet new Air-Independent, fuel-cell-based propulsion system (AIP) which will enable them to stay submerged for extended periods.[94] Israel is also in the process of retrofitting two of its older Gall Class submarines to accommodate the new weapons. With a fleet of seven near invulnerable nuclear-capable submarines, Israel will soon have the capability of targeting the whole of Europe, the Middle East, and most of Africa and Asia.
Israel reportedly also possesses and can readily deploy a comprehensive arsenal of chemical and biological weapons.[95]Like its nuclear program, much of what is known is based on conjecture and analysis.[96] According to the London Sunday Times, Israel has produced both chemical and biological weapons with a sophisticated delivery system, quoting a senior Israeli intelligence official, “There is hardly a single known or unknown form of chemical or biological weapon . . .which is not manufactured at the Nes Tziyona Biological Institute.”)[97] The same report described F-16 fighter jets specially designed for chemical and biological payloads, with crews trained to load the weapons on a moments notice. In an effort to recruit East European Jewish Scientists, David Ben-Gurion as saying in 1948, “either increase the capacity to kill the masses or to cure the masses; both are important.”[98]
Israel signed the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in 1993, but has since refused to ratify it. While chemical weapons research probably continues, “It is unlikely that this offensive CW program exists today.”[99] It has never signed the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). The current status of Israel’s biological weapons status is unclear, however, “For all practical purposes, Israel acts as if it maintains a policy of biological ambiguity.”[100]
Nuclear Weapons Complex[101]
Israel’s major nuclear weapons complex facilities are the Nahal Soreq Nuclear Research Center, the Negev Nuclear Research Center (Dimona). Other facilities include:
• Eliabun storage facility for tactical nuclear artillery shells, nuclear landmines and other tactical nuclear weapons;
• Haifa Rafael-Israel Armament Development Authority, “Reportedly the location of a nuclear weapons design laboratory (Division 20), a missile design development laboratory (Division 48) and a weapons assembly plant.”[102]
• Haifa Port, the main Israeli Navy base and homeport of Israel’s submarines;
• Mishor Neger Phosphates Chemical Company (uranium mining).[103] [104]
• Yodefat nuclear weapons assembly facility. According to Vanunu, plutonium is transported from Dimona to Yodefat;[105]
• Triosh strategic weapons storage facility;
• Beit Zekhary Sedot Mikha Jericho IRBM base missile launch facility;
• Palachim Airbase missile test range and space launch facility;
• Be’er Yaakov research and missile assembly facility;
• Rehovot Heavy Water Production Plant;
• Tel Nof air base and reportedly location of a strategic nuclear weapons storage bunker;
• Nevatim Air Base and site of an underground strategic air command center.[106]
• Nahal Soreq Nuclear Research Center:
The Nahal Soreq is centered on a 5 megawatt highly enriched uranium research reactor provided by the U. S. as part of the Atoms for Peace program. The reactor went online in 1960. The International Atomic Energy Agency has announced that the Nahel Soreq reactor will be shutdown and replaced by a particle accelerator.[107] Despite IAEA oversight of the research reactor to ensure that it operates only for peaceful purposes, Nahel Soreq is widely reported to be a major nuclear weapons research and production facility involved in plutonium reprocessing, and nuclear weapons research and design, and should be considered analogous to Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos Labs in the U.S.,[108]/[109] According to John Pike, the Soreq facility is “the functional equivalent of the US Livermore or Los Alamos national weapons laboratories. It is responsible for nuclear weapons research, design and fabrication.”[110] Nahel Soreq is also involved in commercial nuclear research.[111] It is likely that Nahal Soreq is a contaminated site with serious radiation containment problems.[112] The reactor, scheduled to be decommissioned in eight years, will be replaced with a super-fast particle accelerator purchased from West Germany.[113]
• Negev Nuclear Research Center (Dimona)
Located in the Negev Desert, the Dimona complex is the largest nuclear site in Israel comprising a wide array of nuclear facilities. Mordechai Vanunu, the Dimona whistle-blower provided much of the information available about Dimona. The Dimona Complex is an enormous enterprise buried six stories deep in the Negev Desert. According to Vanunu, when U.S. scientists inspected Dimona in the 1960s, the elevator shaft was bricked over so the inspectors were completely unaware of the underground operation.[114] Dimona’s centerpiece, the heavy water moderated natural uranium plutonium production reactor was originally rated at 24MW, but is understood to have been expanded to between 70 and 150 MW.[115] In the mid-60s, a plutonium reprocessing plant was completed. Reportedly, Dimona can produce between 40-60kg of Plutonium each year, enough for approximately 5-10 nuclear bombs.[116] The reactor has been operated nearly continually for nearly 45 years and is at the end of its operational life. According to the authoritative Janes Intelligence Review, “However, after about 35 years in operation, there is growing concern even within the Israeli Government that Dimona is no longer able to meet the needs of an expanding nuclear arsenal. According to internal Dimona reports, the nuclear reactor there is suffering severe damage from 35 years of operation.”[117]
The operations of Dimona are broken down into individual facilities called Machons. Machon 1 is the plutonium production reactor and also produces tritium for ‘boosted’ fission bombs. Machon 2 is the top-secret lab, six floors deep, where plutonium is reprocessed and where lithium-6 deuteride, used to boost fission bombs, is separated. Machon 3 processes natural uranium for reactor use and converts lithium deuteride into solids. Machon 4 treats high and low level wastes. High-level waste is stored and low-level waste is mixed with tar and buried. Machon 5 is a fuel rod assembly plant. Machon 6 is an operations service center for the other facilities. Machon 8 is a uranium enrichment facility and experimental laboratory. Machon 9 is a laser uranium separation and plutonium enrichment facility. Machon 10 manufactures depleted uranium munitions. In addition to the nine Machons, satellite photos show dozens of buildings and suggest a radioactive waste burial site nearby.[118]
Radiological Environmental and Health Concerns
The plutonium isotope 239 used in a nuclear bomb is produced when neutrons in the core of a nuclear reactor bombard Uranium 238. Weapons grade plutonium generally consists of approximately 93% Plutonium 239 and 7% Plutonium 240. Dedicated Plutonium reactors, such as Dimona, require that the irradiated uranium be removed every few weeks to prevent the buildup of undesirable isotopes.[119] The process of producing, separating, processing and weaponizing plutonium is extremely complex generating large amounts of extremely high-level radioactive wastes and even more low-level radioactive waste. Given the well-documented history of the failure of the world’s other nuclear nations to manage their own nuclear waste issues, despite its secrecy blanket, it is unlikely that Israel has fared any better.[120] Writing in the Washington Post, Jonathon Broder pointed out, “It took the end of the Cold War for the United States to begin addressing environmental disasters like the Hanford nuclear waste site in Washington state. In their tiny, crowded country, Israelis don’t have the luxury of waiting until peace permits such environmental issues to be discussed.”[121]
The Dimona reactor has been operating nearly continually for forty-five years, making it one of the oldest reactors in the world.[122] Reports in the Israeli and international media suggest that the Dimona reactor, which is nearing or at the end of its operational life, has suffered significant deterioration and represents a serious radiological threat.[123] Employees at Dimona have complained about workplace radiation exposure and ensuing cancer and other health effects, and several have filed and won lawsuits against the Israeli government.[124]/[125] In 2002, Israel Television broadcast a special report detailing first hand the dangers Dimona poses to plant workers and the surrounding environment. [126]
The Palestinian Authority has expressed concerns about radiation exposure from Dimona, and documents increased cancer rates among nearby populations.[127] Jordan also has expressed concern about radiation dangers posed by the Dimona facility. Sufian al-Tell, a Jordanian environmental specialist, calculates that the Dimona reactor may have produced as much as four thousand tons of nuclear waste. [128] Others claim that low-level waste is buried in the nearby Negev. Israel, to the extent that it addresses these concerns at all, claims that Dimona poses no threat to workers or the environment. According to Elehanan Azoulay, Deputy Director of the Negev Nuclear Research Center, “We stop the reactor, check the systems and renovate them… Israeli citizens, apart from being assured that the reactor is safe, can sleep more soundly because this reactor is working.”[129] In 2004, the Israeli military distributed potassium iodide pills to some Dimona residents, apparently to protect them in case of radiation leakage.[130]
After forty-five years of operation, it becomes problematic whether even the most comprehensive overhaul of a nuclear reactor can address inherent safety issues, particularly brittleness in the reactor vessel itself caused by intense neutron bombardment. Janes Intelligence Review reported,
“According to internal Dimona reports, the nuclear reactor there is suffering severe damage from 35 years of operation. This damage has come from the neutron radiation from the reactor core, and this bombardment has changed the reactor structure at the atomic level. Metal supports have become brittle and warped as the neutrons have created gas bubbles in the metal itself.”[131]
Israeli nuclear scientists have called on Israel to shut down Dimona, citing environmental concerns and pointing out that Israel has no need of further plutonium production. The Sunday London Times reported that Professor Uzi Eben, a former senior official in Israel’s nuclear program, called for Dimona’s shutdown to “avert a catastrophe.”[132]
Radiological Concerns and Censorship
Like every other aspect of Israel’s nuclear policy, the issue of health and environmental concern posed by Dimona and the research reactor at Nahal Soreq is tightly censored and seldom mentioned by either the government or by the Israeli press. Due to censorship concerns, much about what is known about Israel’s nuclear program has been gleaned indirectly. Avner Cohen published his groundbreaking work, Israel and the Bomb, in the U.S. to evade censorship, but was prevented for several years from returning to Israel because of arrest threats.[133]
An example dealing specifically with censorship about Dimona’s radiological hazards concerned Israeli retaliation against the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) for broadcasting a March 2003 documentary.[134] In the program, the BBC features five Dimona workers who appeared on Israeli Television Channel 2, discussing the health and environmental consequences of their work. BBC attempted to get them to testify again on camera but was told about threats to punish them like Vanunu if they cooperated. Ariel Speiler, one of the Dimona workers interviewed on Israeli TV refused to talk about his experience working at Dimona saying, “The Secret Service silenced me. They’ve silenced me completely. They told me not to say one word. What can I do? What can I do? They told me; “You’ll end up like Vanunu”. How long has he been in prison? 15 years? Do you want me to go to jail? I really wanted to talk. I asked the others but they refused. Nobody wants to talk.”[135]
The BBC went on to interview Israeli investigative journalist, Ronen Bergman about Yehil Horev, Israeli Ministry of Defense chief censor. Bergman recounted the story of how he interviewed Brigadier-General Yitzhak Yaakov, former chief weapons scientist of the IDF, about his fictional memoir. When Bergman submitted his story to Horev’s censors, Yaakov, was publicly vilified as a traitor and forced to spend two years in prison. On camera Bergman stated,
“Horev was afraid that veterans of the Israeli army, the Israeli intelligence, the Israeli nuclear effort, would try to maintain their footprint in the history of Israel and tell their story. And he wanted to frighten them. In this sense he was successful.”
After the documentary was aired, Israel announced that it was cutting off all ties and ending cooperation with the BBC.[136]
Israeli Nuclear Strategy
In popular imagination, the Israeli bomb is a “weapon of last resort,” to be used only at the last minute to avoid annihilation. At least in its early years, this articulation of David Ben-Gurion and Shimon Perez was motivated by fresh memories of the Holocaust.[137] Whatever truth this formulation may have had in the minds of the early Israeli nuclear strategists, today the Israeli nuclear arsenal is inextricably linked to and integrated with overall Israeli military and political strategy. Israeli nuclear expert Oded Brosh said in 1992, “…we need not be ashamed that the nuclear option is a major instrumentality of our defense as a deterrent against those who attack us.”[138] Seymour Hersh points out in The Sampson Option; “The Samson Option is no longer the only nuclear option available to Israel.”[139] Over the decades, Israel has made numerous veiled nuclear threats against the Arab nations and against the Soviet Union (by extension Russia since the end of the Cold War). For example Ariel Sharon, former Israeli Prime Minister is quoted as saying, “Arabs may have the oil, but we have the matches.”[140] In 1983 and again in 2003, Sharon suggested that India consider joining with Israel to attack Pakistani nuclear facilities.[141]
Possessing an overwhelming nuclear superiority allows Israel to act with impunity even in the face worldwide opposition. During the 1982 invasion of Lebanon Israel destroyed Beirut, resulting in 20,000 deaths, most civilian.[142] Despite the near destruction of a neighboring state, not to mention the utter destruction of the Syrian Air Force, Israel was able to carry out the war for months and the occupation many years at least in part due to its nuclear threat. In late 2008, Israel implemented a blockade of Gaza characterized by Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Palestinian human rights, as “a crime against humanity, a flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”[143]
The implicit U.S. nuclear umbrella enjoyed by Israel may also be a factor in encouraging Israeli adventurism. Writing in the Fall of 2004, James Russell wrote,
“It might be equally argued that the strategic umbrella provided by U.S. forces could in fact encourage Israel to act more aggressively than it otherwise would, since its actions would be backed not just by its own nuclear force but also by the thousands of warheads in the U.S. arsenal and the array of standoff conventional munitions used to great effect in Afghanistan and Iraq.” Russell continued, “The NPR (U.S. Nuclear Posture Review) implies that the defense of Israel represents a core mission for the strategic deterrent by identifying several near-term contingencies involving an attack on Israel that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons by the United States.”[144]
Israel uses its nuclear arsenal not just in the context of deterrence” or of direct war fighting, but in other more subtle but no less important ways. For example, the possession of weapons of mass destruction can be a powerful lever to maintain the status quo, or to influence events to Israel’s perceived advantage, such as to protect the so called moderate Arab states from internal insurrection, or to intervene in inter-Arab warfare.[145] In Israeli strategic jargon this concept is called ‘nonconventional compellence’, exemplified by a quote from Shimon Peres,
“acquiring a superior weapons system (nuclear) would mean the possibility of using it for compellent purposes- that is forcing the other side to accept Israeli political demands, which presumably include a demand that the traditional status quo be accepted and a peace treaty signed.”[146]
Avner Cohen quotes Peres,
“Israeli nuclear weapons were important in encouraging Arab realism… [They were] instrumental in bringing Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem in 1977 and may have been even more important in convincing other Arabs, particularly the Palestinians, to recognize that the Arab-Israeli conflict could not be resolved by the sword.”[147]
From a slightly different perspective, neo-conservative writer Robert Tucker asked, “What would prevent Israel… from pursuing a hawkish policy employing a nuclear deterrent to freeze the status quo?”[148] Discussing the Israeli Nuclear Compellence doctrine, dissident historian Israel Shahak further observes, “Israel is preparing for a war, nuclear if need be, and for the sake of averting domestic change not to its liking, if it occurs in some or any Middle Eastern states.”[149]
Another major use of the Israeli bomb is to compel the U.S. to act in Israel’s favor, even when it runs counter to its own strategic interests. As early as 1956 Francis Perrin, head of the French A-bomb project wrote “We thought the Israeli Bomb was aimed at the Americans, not to launch it at the Americans, but to say, ‘If you don’t want to help us in a critical situation we will require you to help us; otherwise we will use our nuclear bombs.'”[150] During the 1973 war, Israel used nuclear blackmail to force Kissinger and Nixon to airlift massive amounts of military hardware to Israel. The Israeli Ambassador, Simha Dinitz, is quoted as saying at the time, “If a massive airlift to Israel does not start immediately, then I will know that the U.S. is reneging on its promises and. we will have to draw very serious conclusions…”[151] Another example of this strategy was spelled out in 1987 by Amos Rubin, economic adviser to Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, who said “If left to its own Israel will have no choice but to fall back on a riskier defense which will endanger itself and the world at large… To enable Israel to abstain from dependence on nuclear arms calls for $2 to 3 billion per year in U.S. aid.”[152] Since then Israel’s nuclear arsenal has expanded exponentially, both quantitatively and qualitatively, while the U.S. currently provides Israel with approximately $3 billion in annual military aid.[153]
Regional and International Implications
During a future Middle Eastern war the possible Israeli use of nuclear weapons should not be discounted. According to Shahak, “In Israeli terminology, the launching of missiles on to Israeli territory is regarded as ‘nonconventional’ regardless of whether they are equipped with explosives or poison gas.”[154] Israeli nuclear doctrine dictates that an unconventional attack requires a nonconventional (nuclear) response; a perhaps unique exception being the Iraqi SCUD attacks during the Gulf War.[155] Seymour Hersh warns, “Should war break out in the Middle East again, or should any Arab nation fire missiles against Israel, as the Iraqis did, a nuclear escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now be a strong probability.”[156] Ezer Weizman, Israel’s current President said “The nuclear issue is gaining momentum (and the) next war will not be conventional.”[157] Jonathan Schell and Martin Sherwin argue, “Israel and the entire Middle East are approaching a stark existential choice: a nuclear holocaust or a nuclear-free Middle East… In a desperate effort to assure its local nuclear monopoly, Israel is in danger of courting national suicide.”[158]
The Israeli nuclear arsenal has profound implications for the Middle East, and global community. Israel Shahak argued, “Israel’s insistence on the independent use of its nuclear weapons can be seen as the foundation on which Israeli grand strategy rests.”[159] According to Seymour Hersh, “the size and sophistication of Israel’s nuclear arsenal allows men such as Ariel Sharon (and Benjamin Netanyahu)[160] to dream of redrawing the map of the Middle East aided by the implicit threat of nuclear force.”[161] General Amnon Shahak-Lipkin, former Israeli Chief of Staff is quoted in the Hebrew language newspaper Maariv; “It is never possible to talk to Iraq about no matter what; it is never possible to talk to Iran about no matter what. Certainly about nuclearization. With Syria we cannot really talk either.” Ze’ev Shiff, the dean of Israeli military commentators writing in Haaretz said, “Whoever believes that Israel will ever sign the UN Convention prohibiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons… is day dreaming,”[162] and Munya Mardoch, Director of the Israeli Institute for the Development of Weaponry, said in 1994, “The moral and political meaning of nuclear weapons is that states which renounce their use are acquiescing to the status of Vassal states. All those states which feel satisfied with possessing conventional weapons alone are fated to become vassal states.”[163]
Russia and before it the Soviet Union has long been an implied target of Israeli nuclear weapons. It is widely reported that the principal purpose of Jonathan Pollard’s spying for Israel was to furnish satellite images of Soviet targets and other super sensitive data relating to U.S. nuclear targeting strategy.[164] According to the widely respected security analyst John Pike, “The USSR has always been one of the primary targets of Israel’s nuclear force, as Israeli assumptions hold that no Arab nation would attack Israel without Soviet support.”[165] Since started launching its own spy satellites in 1988, Israel no longer needs U.S. spy secrets. Israeli nuclear weapons aimed at the Russian heartland seriously complicate disarmament and arms control negotiations and lower the threshold for their actual use. Investigative journalist Mark Gaffney cautions, “… if the familiar pattern (Israel refining its weapons of mass destruction with U.S. complicity) is not reversed soon- for whatever reason- the deepening Middle East conflict could trigger a world conflagration.”[166]
Prospects for a Nuclear Free Middle East
Despite the fact that all states in the region, including Israel, are on record as supporting in principle a Middle East Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone (MENWFZ), prospects for an agreement are discouraging. For its part, Israel conditions any discussions about eliminating its nuclear program upon the prior implementation of a comprehensive and lasting Israeli/Arab peace. The position of the Arab states is that “Israel’s nuclear capabilities are destabilizing and must be “addressed as a precondition to peace and security in the region.”[167] These radically polarized viewpoints give rise to an intractable problem, providing little room for negotiations. As evidenced by the 1983 destruction of the Iraqi Osirak reactor, Israel has made it abundantly clear that it will not permit any other state in the Middle East to acquire nuclear weapons.[168] General Shahak-Lipkin declared “I believe that the state of Israel should from now on use all its power and direct all its effort to preventing nuclear developments in any Arab state whatsoever. In my opinion, all or most (available) means serving that purpose are legitimate.”[169] After the 1983 raid on the Osirak reactor, the U.N. Security Council passed UN resolution 487 condemning Israel’s attack on a International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) safeguarded facility and calling on Israel to, “urgently to place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards.”[170] For the past twenty-five Israel with the complicity of the West, has ignored the resolution. This insistence on retaining a nuclear monopoly in the region motivates the Arab states to develop their own deterrence, destabilizing nonproliferation efforts in the region. According to Hans Blix, “Israel is not likely to give up its nuclear weapons until you have a peaceful settlement in the Middle East, and let’s hope that that comes sooner rather than later.”[171]
Proposals for a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (MENWFZ) began in earnest in 1974 when Iran, under the Shah, introduced a resolution in the U.N. General Assembly. This proposal and others that followed require all states in the region to forswear nuclear weapons, accept IAEA safeguards and inspections, and agree not to accept or transfer nuclear technology. Israel, which steadfastly refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or a Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty (FM(C)T), has offered conditional support for a MENWFZ, and participates actively in the Nonproliferation Treaty Organization. However, as Avner Cohen and Marvin Miller caution;
“Israel’s attitude towards an FM(C)T has now evolved into strong opposition. At the same time, Israel is attempting to “balance” this opposition and its purely rhetorical support for the establishment of a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (NWFZ) by emphasizing various actions it has taken in recent years in support of the global nonproliferation regime such as its active participation in the Comprehensive Test Ban Organization and its adherence to international norms with regard to the export of nuclear and other military technology. In this manner, it seeks to make the case that Israel is a “responsible” albeit opaque nuclear state in contrast to “rogue” states such as Iran.”[172]
David Albright, the director of the Institute for Science and International Security has urged President-Elect Barak Obama to, “make a key priority of persuading Israel to join the negotiations for a universal, verified treaty that bans the production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium for nuclear explosives, commonly called the Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT),”[173]
The Arab states, long aware of Israel’s nuclear program, bitterly resent its coercive implications, perceiving it as the paramount threat to peace in the region. In May 2008, the Arab League declared if Israel announces that it has nuclear weapons, the Arab states will withdrawal from the Nonproliferation Treaty.[174] Mohamed Elbaradei, Secretary General of the International Atomic Energy Agency forcefully repudiated the Arab League statement:
“Arab countries’ walkout is not the solution. A walkout by Arab countries will create a great deal of tension in the region that may lead to more pressures and even the use of military force against some Arab countries… We should understand that the use of nuclear weapons will be the beginning of the end of humanity. The use of nuclear weapons by any region like the Middle East – this means the destruction of the entire Middle East. The solution is that we build a strategy as to how we can reach a region free from weapons, including the weapon of the Israeli nuclear programme.”
International Pugwash concludes,
“Even after a comprehensive peace is reached, Israel will probably decide to retain a strategic deterrent capability for some period as an insurance policy against bellicose regimes coming to power in the neighboring states. Until this perception is reversed, it is difficult to foresee dramatic steps in the direction of a WMDFZ (Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone).”[175]
The existence of Israel’s nuclear monopoly in such a historically politically unstable region as the Middle East has serious implications for future arms control and disarmament negotiations, and could threaten nuclear escalation.
Changes In the Middle East Political Environment
The political environment in the Middle East has changed dramatically since the 1973 war. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) represented the Palestinian people in direct negotiations with Israel, leading to the current arrangement in the occupied territories. The Arab states have expressed the desire to normalize their relationship with Israel based on Israel’s return to 1967 borders with Jerusalem becoming the Capitol of both Israel and Palestine, most recently articulated in the 2002 Saudi (Arab) proposal. Egypt and Jordan have signed separate peace agreements with Israel. In 2003 with the support of President Mohammad Khatami and supreme religious leader Ali Khamenei, Iran proposed opening a broad dialogue with the United States, “including full cooperation on nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups.”[176] The proposal, which would have aligned Iranian policies with those of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others in the region, was summarily rejected by the Bush administration.[177]
The Palestinian Authority and Hamas have accepted in principle a two-state solution. In April, 2008, Khaleed Meshaal, the head of Hamas’ Political Bureau is quoted in the Fatah-controlled Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam, “In my heart, of course I believe all of Palestine belongs to the Palestinians. But practically speaking, our political position is a de facto two-state solution.”[178] A February 2008 Haaretz poll showed that 64% of the Israeli public supports direct talks with Hamas.[179] Following the 2007 Annapolis Conference, where the Palestinian Authority, Israel and U.S. agreed in principle to a Two-State solution, Ehud Barak, Israel’s Prime Minister was quoted in Haaretz , “I believe that there is no path other than the path of peace. I believe that there is no just solution other than the solution of two national states for two peoples,”[180]
International pressure has been mounting on Israel to acknowledge its nuclear arsenal in the context of broader nonproliferation negotiations. Mohammed Elbaredi, Secretary General of the IAEA declared, “This is not really sustainable that you have Israel sitting with nuclear weapons capability there while everyone else is part of the non-proliferation regime,” [181], Peter Kuznick, Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at the American University asks,
“Countries like Iran look at what’s happened to India and Pakistan — countries that have tested nuclear weapons recently — and they see that there’s really very little sanctions against them, and [countries like Iran ask], ‘Why is Israel allowed to have nuclear weapons without even any serious discussion about eliminating their nuclear weapons, and why can’t Iran [have the same weapons]?’ So it seems to them that there’s a lot of double standards being imposed at this point.”[182]
Although prospects for a negotiated peace in the Middle East show promise, especially hope that the election of Barack Obama will herald a more even-handed treatment, the window may swiftly close.[183] Benjamin Netanyahu, the hard-line Likud candidate who opposes the current peace process and supports turning the occupied territories into economic Bantustans, appears to be coasting to victory in Israel’s February elections.[184] In addition, the current global economic crisis and plummeting oil prices may destabilize Middle East governments, making negotiations more problematic.[185]After the debacle of the 2005 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, progress toward resolving the current standoff over Israel’s nuclear arsenal may prove critical to the success of the upcoming 2010 Conference. Referring to former nuclear proponents turned disarmament advocates such as former U.s. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Rebecca Johnson warns, “The terrifying prospects of an eroded NPT and potential nuclear free-for-all, starting in the Middle East, have undoubtedly contributed to the new found enthusiasm of many born-again nuclear abolitionists.”[186]
Conclusion
Placing the issue of Israeli nuclear weapons directly and honestly on the table would achieve several salutary effects. First, it would highlight a primary destabilizing dynamic compelling the region’s states to each seek a deterrent. Second, it would expose a perceived double standard, which sees the U.S. and Europe on the one hand condemning Iran and Syria for developing weapons of mass destruction, while simultaneously protecting and enabling Israel. Third, acknowledging Israel’s nuclear program would focus international public attention on the necessity of a MENWFZ agreement. Finally, a Nuclear Free Middle East would make a comprehensive regional peace agreement much more likely. George Perkovitch writing for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote, “Our aim should be to create a security environment, and you can’t do that if you don’t recognize publicly that Israel has nuclear weapons,”[187]
Unless and until Israel begins to negotiations about ending its covert nuclear program, it is unlikely that there will be any meaningful resolution of the Israeli/Arab conflict. Joseph Cirincione, director for nonproliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace points out,
“The world does well to remember that most Middle East weapons programs began as a response to Israel’s nuclear weapons. Everyone already knows about Israel’s bombs in the closet, Bringing them out into the open and putting them on the table as part of a regional deal may be the only way to prevent others from building their own bombs in their basements. It should be obvious that Israelis are better off in a region where no one has nuclear weapons than in one where many nations have them,”[188]
[1] Walter Pincus, Push for Nuclear-Free Middle East Resurfaces, Washington Post, March 6, 2005. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10418-2005Mar5.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[2] Seymour Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy. New York: Random House, 1991, 319 (A brilliant and prophetic work with much original research)
[3] Former weapons inspector Blix says Olmert’s nuclear comment unlikely to spark Arab backlash, 2006. International Herald Tribune, December 13 2006. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/13/europe/EU_GEN_Netherlands_Blix_Nuclear.php (accessed December 20, 2008)
[4] Ted Flaherty, Nuclear Database: Israel’s Possible Nuclear Delivery Systems, Center for Defense Information, 1997. http://www.cdi.org/nuclear/database/isnukes.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[5] Joseph Cirincione, Jon B. Wolfsthal, Miriam Rajkumar, Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats, Washington:Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006, 265
[6] Aluf Benn, Israel: Censoring the Past, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 2001,17-19. http://www.bsos.umd.edu/pgsd/people/staffpubs/Avner-BASreport7-01.htm (accessed December 20, 2008) (The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 by dissident Manhattan Project scientists. It is considered an authoritative source on nuclear issues)
[7] Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, New York: Columbia University Press,1998, 10
[8] Ibid, 15-16
[9] Ibid, 16
[10] Ibid, 13
[11] Avner Cohen & William Burr, The Untold Story of Israel’s Bomb, Washington Post, Sunday, April 30, 2006, B-01. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/28/AR2006042801326_pf.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[12] Cirincione et al, 265
[13] Ella Habiba Shohat, Reflections by an Arab Jew, Bint Jbeil, April 17, 1999. http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/arab_jew.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[14] Demographics of Israel, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Israel (accessed December 20, 2008)
[15] Ibid.
[16] Uri Avnery, Sorry, Wrong Continent, Gush Shalom, Uri Avnery’s Column, December 23, 2006. http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1166960371 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[16] Ibid.
[17] Charlotte Halle, Foreign Ministry slams envoy’s comments about ‘yellow race’, Haaretz, October 24, 2006. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/774471.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[18] Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God, 2000, New York, Alfred A Knopf, 1991, 278-309
[19] Shibley Telhami (Principal Investigator), 2008 Annual Arab Public Opinion Poll,
Survey of the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland (with Zogby International), 2008, http://www.brookings.edu/topics/~/media/Files/events/2008/0414_middle_east/0414_middle_east_telhami.pdf (accessed December 20, 2008)
(Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were surveyed)
[20] Geneva Initiative, New Survey of Israeli Public Opinion, Prospects for Peace, 2007. http://www.prospectsforpeace.com/2007/07/new_survey_of_israeli_public_o.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[21] Israel Nuclear Overview, Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), August 2008. http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Israel/Nuclear/index.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[22] U.S. Army Lt. Col. Warner D. Farr, The Third Temple Holy of Holies; Israel’s Nuclear Weapons, USAF Counterproliferation Center, Air War College Sept 1999. www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/farr,htm (Perhaps the best single condensed history of the Israeli nuclear program) (accessed December 20, 2008)
[23] Peter Hounam, Woman From Mossad: The Torment of Mordechai Vanunu, London: Vision Paperbacks, 1999. 34-35 (The most complete and up to date account of the Vanunu story by the Sunday London Times reporter who broke the story.)
[24] Israel Nuclear Overview, NTI
[25] Hounam, 36
[26] Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, 187
[27] Farr
[28] Michael Karpin, The Bomb In The Basement: How Israel Went Nuclear and What It Means for the World, New York:Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 268-269
[29] Benjamin Pincus, Atomic Power to Israel’s Rescue: French-Israeli Nuclear Cooperation 1949-1957, Israel Studies – Volume 7, Number 1, Spring 2002, 104-138. http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/israel_studies/v007/7.1pinkus.html.http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Israel/Nuclear/index.html. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[30] Cohen, 273-274
[31] Hersh,131
[32] Mark Gaffney, Dimona the Third Temple: The Story Behind the Vanunu Revelation, Brattleboro:Amana Books, 1989, 68-69
[33] Uranium: The Israeli Connection, Time Magazine, May 30, 1977, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,914952,00.html. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[34] Hersh, 242-257
[35] Israel: Uranium Processing and Enrichment, Wisconsin Project On Nuclear Arms Control, The Risk Report, Vol. 2, # 4, 1996 http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/israel/uranium.html. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[36] Gary Milholland, a Heavy Water Whitewash, Arbeiderbladet (Oslo), April 20, 1988
http://www.wisconsinproject.org/pubs/editorials/1988/heavywaterwhitewash.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[37] Farr, 8
[38] Hersh, 271-283
[39] Farr, 12
[40] South Africa’s Nuclear Autopsy, Wisconsin Project On Nuclear Arms Control, The Risk Report, Vol. 2, #1, 1996, 4,5,10 http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/safrica/autopsy.html. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[40] Farr, 8
[41] Jericho, Mark Wade, Encyclopedia Astronautica, http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/jericho.htm. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[42] Barbara Rogers & Zdenek Cervenka, The Nuclear Axis: The Secret Collaboration Between West Germany and South Africa, New York:Times Books, 1978, 325-328. (the definitive history of the Apartheid Bomb)
[43] Gaffney, 34
[44] Israel Profile: Nuclear Overview, Nuclear Threat Initiative, http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Israel/Nuclear/index.html. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[45] Cohen, 336-338
[46] Ibid, 323
[47] Stephen Zunes, The Release of Mordechai Vanunu and U.S. Complicity in the Development of Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal, Foreign Policy In Focus, April 21, 2004, http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/1134. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[48] Hounan,155-168
[49] Hersh, 213
[50] Hersh, 3-17
[51] Israel Gets U.S. Supercomputer for Secret Military Site, Wisconsin Project On Nuclear Arms Control, The Risk Report, Vol. 2, #3, 1996
http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/israel/israelgets.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[52] Gerard C. Smith & Helen Cobban, A Blind Eye to Nuclear Proliferation, Foreign Affairs, Summer 1989, 59-63, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19890601faessay5960/gerard-c-smith-helena-cobban/a-blind-eye-to-nuclear-proliferation.html. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[53] Farr, 11
[54] Hersh, 290-291
[55] Peter Hounan, Mordechai Vanunu, the Sunday Times Articles, April 21, 2004, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article830147.ece. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[56] Hounan, 35-45
[57] Ibid, p. 45
[58] Hersh, 197
[59] Eileen Fleming, The Vanunu Saga 2008, Counter Currents, January 22, 2008
< http://www.countercurrents.org/fleming220108.htm> (accessed December 20, 2008)
[60] Hounman,189-203
[61] U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, The Effects of the Atomic Bombs On Hirishima and Nagasaki, Washington:US Government Printing Office, 1946, 9-14
[62] Fredrick Solomon and Robert Q, Marston, The Medical Implications of Nuclear War, Washington:National Academy of Science Press, 1986, 211-213
[63] Hersh,199-200
[64] Hersh, 312
[65] John Pike, Israel Special Weapons Guide Website, Federation of American Scientists http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/index.html. (accessed December 20, 2008) (An invaluable internet resource)
[66] Usi Mahnaimi and Peter Conradi, Fears of New Arms Race as Israel Tests Cruise Missiles, London Sunday Times, June 18, 2000, http://www.fas.org/news/israel/e20000619fearsof.htm. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[67] Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Weapons of Mass Destruction In the Middle East, 2006, < http://cns.miis.edu/research/wmdme/israel.htm>
[68] Ibid.
[69] John Pike, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Jericho 1, Global Security, 2008
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/jericho-1.htm. (accessed December 20, 2008) (Global Security is the most up-to-date, authoritative source for information about weapons of mass destruction worldwide.)
[70] Anthony Cordesman, Israeli Weapons of Mass Destruction: An Overview (working draft), Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2008
http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/080602_israeliwmd.pdf. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[71] Israel Profile: Missile Overview, Nuclear Threat Initiative,
http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Israel/Missile/index.html. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[72] Serge Schmemann, Israel Clings to its ‘Nuclear Ambiguity’, New York Times, June 21, 1998, http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Israel+Clings+to+its+‘Nuclear+Ambiguity&btnG=Google+Search. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[73] Mark Wade, Jericho, 2008 Encyclopedia Astronautica, http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/jericho.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
(According to the Encyclopedia Astronautica, much of what we know about Israel’s ballistic missile program has been gleaned from examining the official South African records of its missile program.)
[74] Cordesman, 5 (Cordesman is referencing the authoritative Jane’s Intelligence Review)
[75] Yaakov Katz, Israel Test-Fires Long-Range Ballistic Missile, Jerusalem Post, July 17, 2008, http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1200475902683&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[76] Michael Barletta & Erik Jorgensen, Weapons of Mass Destruction In the Middle East, Center for Non-Proliferation Studies, http://cns.miis.edu/research/wmdme/ (accessed December 20, 2008)
[77] STRATFOR, Military: A New Ballistic Missile for Israel?, January 17, 2008
http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/military_new_ballistic_missile_israel. (accessed December 20, 2008)
[78] Barletta & Jorgensen.
[79] John Pike, Military: F-4E Phantom II, GlobalSecurity.Org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/f-4e.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[80] Ibid.
[81] Flaherty
[82] McDonnell Douglas F4 Phantom, Israeli Airforce:The Official Website
http://www.iaf.org.il/Templates/Aircraft/Aircraft.IN.aspx?lang=EN&lobbyID=69&folderID=78&subfolderID=184&docfolderID=184&docID=18176 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[83] Flaherty
[84] Peter Beaumont, Was Israeli Raid a Dry Run for an Attack On Iran?, The London Observer, September 16, 2007 http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/sep/16/iran.israel (accessed December 20, 2008)
[85] John Pike, F-15I Ra’am (Thunder), GlobalSecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/israel/f-15i.htm18176 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[86] Ibid.
[87] George Friedman, Mediterranean Flyover: Telegraphing an Israeli Punch, Jewish World Review, June 25, 2008 http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/mediterranean_flyover_telegraphing_israeli_punch 18176 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[88] John Pike, Weapons of Mass Destruction: Dolphin, GlobalSecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/sub.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[89] Nuclear Threat Initiative, Submarine Proliferation: Israel Current Capabilities, 2008
http://www.nti.org/db/submarines/israel/index.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[90] Uzi Mahnaimi and Matthew Campbell, Israel Makes Waves With Submarine Missile Test, London Sunday Times, June 18, 2000, http://www.fas.org/news/israel/e20000619israelmakes.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[91] Pike
[92] Marineforce International, Submarines: Dolphin, http://www.marineforce.net/dolphin.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[93] Jim Dunnigan, Israel Gets Super Subs, Strategy Page, August 27, 2006, http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsub/articles/20060827.aspx (accessed December 20, 2008)
[94] SSK Dolphin Class Submarine, Israel, 2008, Naval-Technology.com,
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/dolphin/ (accessed December 20, 2008)
[95]Pike
[96] Cirincione et al, 261
[97] Usi Mahnaimi, Israeli Jets Equipped for Chemical Warfare, London Sunday Times, October 4, 1998. article posted on the MER website at http://www.middleeast.org/archives/1998_11_08.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[98] Avner Cohen, Israel and Chemical/Biological Weapons: History, Deterrence, and Arms Control, The Nonproliferation Review, Fall-Winter 2001, http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/livres3/Cohen.pdf (accessed December 20, 2008)
[99] Israel Profile: Chemical Overview, Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) 2008, http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Israel/Chemical/index.html
[100] Israel Profile: Biological Overview, Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) 2008, http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Israel/Biological/index.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[101] Strategic Israel: The Secret Arsenal of the Jewish State, MSNBC.Com, http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/israel/strategic/index.shtml (accessed December 20, 2008) (A remarkable interactive map of Israel’s nuclear facilities. No longer stored at the MSNBC website, it is archived at the Sweet Liberty site.)
[102] John Pike, Special weapons Facilities-Israel, Globalsecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/facility.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[103] Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), Israel Nuclear Facilities, http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Israel/Nuclear/3583.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[104] Greenpeace International, An Overview of Nuclear Facilities In Iran, Israel and Turkey, February, 2007, http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/mediterranean/reports/an-overview-of-nuclear-facilit.pdf (accessed December 20, 2008) (Greenpeace issues the following disclaimer: “Due to the highly secretive nature of the Israeli nuclear programme and the complete lack of official information, the chapter on Israeli nuclear facilities was written based upon the best available informative yet unofficial sources”- this disclaimer doesn’t apply to Turkey or Iran)
[105] Pike, Special weapons Facilities-Israel,
[106] Ibid
[107] Dominic Duran, Mideast Atomic Moves: The UAE and Egypt make significant moves to develop a nuclear capacity, as Israel drops reactor plans, Center for Security Studies, April 4, 2008, http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/layout/set/print/content/view/full/73?lng=en&id=54151 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[108] Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Israel: Nuclear Infrastructure, 1998 http://www.carnegieendowment.org/files/Tracking_israelmap.pdf (accessed December 20, 2008)
[109] Greenpeace International
[110] Michael Adler, Israel’s Soreq nuclear reactor — the one they show to journalists, Agence France Press, July 18, 2004, http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2004/040718-israel-soreq.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[111] John Pike, Soreq Nuclear Research Center, Global Security.Com, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/soreq.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[112] Duran
[113] Yael Ivri-Darel, Soreq Nuclear Research Center’s reactor to shut down in 8 years, Ynetnews, April 3, 2008, http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3514334,00.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[114] Peter Hounan, Revealed – the secrets of Israel’s nuclear arsenal/ Atomic technician Mordechai Vanunu reveals secret weapons production, Sunday London Times, October 5, 1986 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article830147.ece(accessed December 20, 2008)
[115] John Pike, Dimona Negev Nuclear Research Center, GlobalSecurity.org, 2008, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/dimona.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[116] John Pike, Negev Nuclear Research Center, GlobalSecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/dimona.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[117] Janes Intelligence Review, Israel Reviews its Nuclear Deterrent, November 1, 1998 http://www.janes.com/extract/jir98/jir00807.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[118] Brian Whitaker & Richard Norton-Taylor, Revealed: Israel’s Nuclear Site, London Guardian, August 23, 2000, http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2000/aug/23/news.israel (accessed December 20, 2008)
[119] John Pike, Plutonium Production, GlobalSecurity.org, 2008 http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/intro/pu-prod.htm(accessed December 20, 2008)
[120] Arjun Makhijani, Howard Hu, Katherine Yih, Eds, Nuclear Wastelands: A Global Guide to Nuclear Weapons Production and Its Health & Environmental Effects, Cambridge, MIT Press 2000. (To date, the most comprehensive and authoritative overview of the environmental and health consequences of nuclear weapons production.)
[121] Jonathon Broder, A Challenge To Israel’s Nuclear Blind Spot, The Washington Post, Sunday, March 11, 2001; Page B02
http://www.bsos.umd.edu/pgsd/people/staffpubs/Avner-WashPost3-11-01.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[122] Bennett Ramberg, Should Israel Close Dimona? The Radiological Consequences of a Military Strike on Israel’s Plutonium-Production Reactor, Arms Control Today, May 2008, http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2008_05/Dimona(accessed December 20, 2008)
[123] Janes Information Group, Israel Reviews Its Nuclear Deterrent, Janes Intelligence Review, November 1, 1998, http://www.janes.com/extract/jir98/jir00807.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[124] Arabs Against Discrimination, Employees at Nuclear Reactors Demand Compensation, April 17, 2005, http://www.aad-online.org/2005/English/8-August/13-18/13-8/aad20/1.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[125] Liat Collins, Family of nuclear cancer victim awarded NIS 2.5m., Jerusalem Post, October 13, 1997,http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Israel/Dimonanews.txt (accessed December 20, 2008)
[126] Rayna Moss, Israel: Dimona Death Factory Exposed, WISE Nuclear Monitor, February 1, 2002, http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/index.html?http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/beyondbomb/3-3.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[127] Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Dimona Reactor…a Mystery Threatening Middle East, PNA Press Release, Thursday, September 18, 2003, http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0309/S00228.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[128] Arabic News, Jordanian Fears Over Israeli Dimona Nuclear Reactor, April 28, 2005, http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/050428/2005042832.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[129] Ibid.
[130] Yuval Azoulay, Deputy CEO of Negev Nuclear Center: Dimona Reactor is Safe, Haaretz, August 23, 2007, http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/896676.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[131] Janes Information Group, Israel Reviews Its Nuclear Deterrent
[132] IsraelWire, Sunday Times: Close Dimona nuclear facility, IsraelWire 2/7 Wire Service, February 7, 2000, http://www.fas.org/news/israel/000207-israel1.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[133] Aluf Benn, Israel: Censoring the Past, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 2001, http://www.bsos.umd.edu/pgsd/people/staffpubs/Avner-BASreport7-01.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[134] BBC World Service, BBC Transcript of Israel’s Secret Weapon, Electric Intifada, March 17, 2003, http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1665.shtml (accessed December 20, 2008)
[135] Ibid.
[136] Ibid.
[137] Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, 12-14
[138] Israel Shahak, Open Secrets: Israeli Nuclear and Foreign Policies, London:Pluto Press, 1997, 40 (For many years Shahak translated news from the Hebrew Language press. This volume contains many such examples)
[139] Hersh, 319
[140] Gaffney, 163
[141] C R Jayachandran, Pak Fears Joint Indo-Israel Strikes. Times of India, October 14, 2003 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/232733.cms (accessed December 20, 2008)
[142] History of Lebanon, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Lebanon#Israeli_invasion_and_international_intervention:_1982.E2.80.9384(accessed December 20, 2008)
[143] Chris Hedges, Israel’s ‘Crime Against Humanity’, TruthDig.com, December 15, 2008, http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081215_israels_crime_against_humanity/ (accessed December 20, 2008)
[144] James A Russell, Nuclear Strategy and the Modern Middle East, Middle East Council Journal, Fall 2004, http://www.mepc.org/journal_vol11/0409_russell.asp (accessed December 20, 2008)
[145] Ibid.
[146] Gaffney, 131
[147] Avner Cohen, Did Nukes Nudge the PLO?, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, December, 1993, pp. 11-13
[148] Robert W. Tucker, Israel & the US: From Dependence to Nuclear Weapons?, Commentary, November 1975 pp41-42 http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/israel-and-the-united-states-from-dependence-to-nuclear-weapons-5582 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[149] Ibid.
[150] Wisconsin Project On Nuclear Arms Control, Israel’s Nuclear Weapon Capability: An Overview, The Risk Report, July-August 1996, http://www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/israel/nuke.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[151] Gaffney, 147
[152] Ibid, 153
[153] Wikipedia, Israel-United States Military Relations, Wikipedia, December 10, 2008, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel-United_States_military_relations (accessed December 20, 2008)
[154] Shahak, 39-40
[155] Ido Kanter, Changing nuclear equation: Should nuclear arms be used in response to powerful conventional attacks?, Israel Opinion, September 4, 2006, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3299440,00.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[156] Hersh, 19
[157] Aronson, Geoffrey, “Hidden Agenda: US-Israeli Relations and the Nuclear Question,” Middle East Journal, (Autumn 1992), 619-630. http://www.mideasti.org/middle-east-journal/volume-46/4/hidden-agenda-us-israeli-relations-and-nuclear-question (accessed December 20, 2008)
[158] Jonathan Schell & Martin Sherwin, Israel, Iran and the Bomb, The Nation, August 8, 2008, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/schell_sherwin (accessed December 20, 2008)
[159] . Shahak, 150
[160] Norman Soloman, Israel’s Future Leader? (Benjamin Netanyahu) Alternet, January 6, 2006, http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Israel/Benjamin_Netanyahu.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[161] Hersh, 319
[162] Ibid, 149
[163] Ibid, 153
[164] Hersh, 285-305
[165] John Pike, Israel: Strategic Doctrine, Globalsecurity.org, http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/doctrine.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[166] Gaffney, 194
[167] Greenpeace Briefing, Conditions for a Nuclear Free Middle East, February, 2007,http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/mediterranean/reports/conditions-for-NFME.pdf (accessed December 20, 2008)
[168] Michael Donovan, Iran, Israel and Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East, Center for Defense Information Terrorism Project, February 14, 2002, http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/menukes.cfm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[169] Shahak, 34
[170] The Avalon Project, United National Security Resolution 487, Yale Law School, http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/un/un487.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[171] Amy Goodman & Juan Gonzalez, Former Chief UN Weapons Inspector Hans Blix on the US Rush to War in Iraq, the Threat of an Attack on Iran, and the Need for a Global Nuclear Ban to Avoid Further Catastrophe, Democracy Now, May 21, 2008, http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/21/former_chief_un_weapons_inspector_hans (accessed December 20, 2008)
[172] Avner Cohen and Marvin Miller, Country Perspectives on the Challenges to a Fissile Material (Cutoff) Treaty, International Panel on Fissile Materials, Israel, 2008 pp27-34 http://www.ipfmlibrary.org/gfmr08cv.pdf (accessed December 20, 2008)
[173] Yossi Melman, Report suggests Obama Press Israel Over Nuke Program, Haaretz, November 17, 2008, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1037558.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[174] AP Staff Report, Arab League Vows to Drop Out of NPT if Israel Admits It has Nuclear Weapons, AP Wire, March 5, 2008, http://www.2020visioncampaign.org/pages/351/Arab_League_vows_to_drop_out_of_NPT_if_Israel_admits_it_has_nuclear_weapons(accessed December 20, 2008)
[175] International Pugwash, A Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone, Pugwash Online, June, 2008 http://www.pugwash.org/reports/rc/me/middle-east-WMDFZ.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[176] Glen Kessler, In 2003, U.S. Spurned Iran’s Offer of Dialogue: Some Officials Lament Lost Opportunity, Washington Post, June 18, 2006, A-16, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2006/06/17/AR2006061700727.html(accessed December 20, 2008)
[177] Gareth Porter, Iran Proposal to U.S. Offered Peace with Israel, Inter Press Service, May 24, 2006, http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33348 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[178] Gershom Gorenberg and Hiam Watzman, Is Hamas Looking For a Two-State Solution? Should We Listen?, South Jerusalem, April 10, 2008, http://southjerusalem.wordpress.com/2008/04/10/is-hamas-looking-for-a-two-state-solution-should-we-listen/ (accessed December 20, 2008)
[179] Yossi Verter, Poll: Most Israelis back direct talks with Hamas on Shalit, Haaretz, February 27, 2008, http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/958473.html (accessed December 20, 2008)
[180] Barak Ravid, Aluf Benn and Assaf Uni, Israel, PA agree to strive for deal by end of 2008, Haaretz, November 27, 2007, http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=928637 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[181] Tom Allard, Israeli Nukes A Key to Peace, The Sydney Morning Herald, November 9 2004, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/11/08/1099781324113.html?from=storylhs (accessed December 20, 2008)
[182] Andrew Tulley, Radio Free Europe U.S.: Bush Signals New Interpretation Of Nonproliferation Treaty, Radio Free Europe U.S., March 16, 2005
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/usa/2005/usa-050316-rferl01.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[183] Bernd Debusmann, Can Obama Avert an Arab-Israeli Disaster?, Reuters, December 11, 2008, http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2008/12/11/can-obama-avert-an-arab-israeli-disaster/ (accessed December 20, 2008)
[184] Jeffrey Heller, Analysis: Netanyahu on Course for Israeli Election Win-Polls, Reuters, December 10, 2008, http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed2/idUSLA371329 (accessed December 20, 2008)
[185] Business News, Arab stocks volatile on falling oil prices, global uncertainty, Duetsche Presse-Agenteur, November 28, 2008, http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/business/news/article_1445534.php (accessed December 20, 2008)
[186] Rebecca Johnson, Is the NPT Being Overtaken by Events?, Disarmament Diplomacy, Spring 2008, http://www.acronym.org.uk/dd/dd87/87npt.htm (accessed December 20, 2008)
[187] Pincus
[188] Haider Rizvi, Israeli Arsenal Vexes Nuclear Negotiators, Inter Press Service, Inter Press Service, May 20, 2005 (accessed December 20, 2008) http://www.antiwar.com/ips/rizvi.php?articleid=6033 (accessed December 20, 2008)