Zionist Israel's Thermonuclear Blackmail Of America

 


Zionist Israel's Thermonuclear
Blackmail Of America
From Lili
2-26-3


Jeff - These are paragraphs of 'special interest' I wish to highlight from the 
long and detailed USAF report that follows...my comments are in all caps:
 
 
 
 
ISRAEL BLACKMAILS US
 
One other purpose of Israeli nuclear weapons, not often stated, but obvious, is 
their "use" on the United States. America does not want Israel's nuclear profile 
raised.[144] They have been used in the past to ensure America does not desert 
Israel under increased Arab, or oil embargo, pressure and have forced the United 
States to support Israel diplomatically against the Soviet Union. Israel used 
their existence to guarantee a continuing supply of American conventional 
weapons, a policy likely to continue.[145]
 
 
ISRAEL DICTATES TO US AND WE CONCEDE TO ISRAEL
 
Israel went on full-scale nuclear alert again on the first day of Desert Storm, 
18 January 1991. Seven SCUD missiles were fired against the cities of Tel Aviv 
and Haifa by Iraq (only two actually hit Tel Aviv and one hit Haifa). This alert 
lasted for the duration of the war, 43 days. Over the course of the war, Iraq 
launched around 40 missiles in 17 separate attacks at Israel. There was little 
loss of life: two killed directly, 11 indirectly, with many structures damaged 
and life disrupted.[98] Several supposedly landed near Dimona, one of them a 
close miss.[99] Threats of retaliation by the Shamir government if the Iraqis 
used chemical warheads were interpreted to mean that Israel intended to launch a 
nuclear strike if gas attacks occurred.
 
One Israeli commentator recommended that Israel should signal Iraq that "any 
Iraqi action against Israeli civilian populations, with or without gas, may 
leave Iraq without Baghdad."[100] Shortly before the end of the war the Israelis 
tested a "nuclear capable" missile which prompted the United States into 
intensifying its SCUD hunting in western Iraq to prevent any Israeli 
response.[101] The Israeli Air Force set up dummy SCUD sites in the Negev for 
pilots to practice on"they found it no easy task.[102] American government 
concessions to Israel for not attacking (in addition to Israeli Patriot missile 
batteries) were:
 
* Allowing Israel to designate 100 targets inside Iraq for the coalition to 
destroy,
 
* Satellite downlink to increase warning time on the SCUD attacks (present and 
future),
 
* Technical parity with Saudi jet fighters in perpetuity.[103]
 
JFK demanded Israel allow inspectors to see Dimona, three months later he was 
assassinated and pro-Israel Johnson is President:
 
The Israelis aggressively pursued an aircraft delivery system from the United 
States. President Johnson was less emphatic about nonproliferation than 
President Kennedy-or perhaps had more pressing concerns, such as Vietnam. He had 
a long history of both Jewish friends and pressing political contributors 
coupled with some first hand experience of the Holocaust, having toured 
concentration camps at the end of World War II.[51] Israel pressed him hard for 
aircraft (A-4E Skyhawks initially and F-4E Phantoms later) and obtained 
agreement in 1966 under the condition that the aircraft would not be used to 
deliver nuclear weapons. The State Department attempted to link the aircraft 
purchases to continued inspection visits. President Johnson overruled the State 
Department concerning Dimona inspections.[52] Although denied at the time, 
America delivered the F-4Es, on September 5, 1969, with nuclear capable hardware 
intact.[53]
 
JONATHAN POLLARD
 
Not only were the Israelis interested in American nuclear weapons development 
data, they were interested in targeting data from U.S. intelligence. Israel 
discovered that they were on the Soviet target list. American-born Israeli spy 
Jonathan Pollard obtained satellite-imaging data of the Soviet Union, allowing 
Israel to target accurately Soviet cities. This showed Israel's intention to use 
its nuclear arsenal as a deterrent political lever, or retaliatory capability 
against the Soviet Union itself. Israel also used American satellite imagery to 
plan the 7 June 1981 attack on the Tammuz-1 reactor at Osiraq, Iraq. This daring 
attack, carried out by eight F-16s accompanied by six F-15s punched a hole in 
the concrete reactor dome before the reactor began operation (and just days 
before an Israeli election). It delivered 15 delay-fused 2000 pound bombs deep 
into the reactor structure (the 16th bomb hit a nearby hall). The blasts 
shredded the reactor and blew out the dome foundations, causing it to collapse 
on the rubble. This was the world's first attack on a nuclear reactor.[91]
 
(PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THAT RUSSIA WAS ABLE TO PURGE THE JEWISH BOLSHEVIK 
COMMUNISTS FROM THE KREMLIN STARTING IN THE LATE '30's UNDER STALIN, 
SUBSEQUENTLY THE JEWISH POWER WAS GIVEN TOP POSITIONS IN THE U.S.)
 
VERY SCARY
 
Another speculative area concerns Israeli nuclear security and possible misuse. 
What is the chain of decision and control of Israel's weapons? How susceptible 
are they to misuse or theft? With no open, frank, public debate on nuclear 
issues, there has accordingly been no debate or information on existing 
safeguards. This has led to accusations of "monolithic views and sinister 
intentions."[1360] Would a right wing military government decide to employ 
nuclear weapons recklessly? Ariel Sharon, an outspoken proponent of "Greater 
Israel" was quoted as saying, "Arabs may have the oil, but we have the 
matches."[137] Could the Gush Emunim, a right wing religious organization, or 
others, hijack a nuclear device to "liberate" the Temple Mount for the building 
of the third temple? Chances are small but could increase as radicals decry the 
peace process.[138] A 1997 article reviewing the Israeli Defense Force 
repeatedly stressed the possibilities of, and the need to guard against, a 
religious, right wing military coup, especially as the proportion of religious 
in the military increases.[139 ]
 
 
 
THE THIRD TEMPLE'S HOLY OF HOLIES - 
ISRAEL'S NUCLEAR WEAPONS

By Warner D. Farr, LTC, U.S. Army
The Counterproliferation Papers
Future Warfare Series No. 2

USAF Counterproliferation Center
Air War College - Air University
Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama
September 1999
 
The Counterproliferation Papers Series was established by the USAF 
Counterproliferation Center to provide information and analysis to U.S. national 
security policy-makers and USAF officers to assist them in countering the threat 
posed by adversaries equipped with weapons of mass destruction. Copies of papers 
in this series are available from the USAF Counterproliferation Center, 325 
Chennault Circle, Maxwell AFB AL 36112-6427. The fax number is (334) 953-7538; 
phone (334) 953-7538.
 
The internet address for the USAF Counterproliferation Center is:
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/awc-cps.htm
 
Contents:
 
Page
Disclaimer i
The Author ii
Acknowledgments iii
Abstract iv
 
I. Introduction 1
II. 1948-1962: With French Cooperation 3
III. 1963-1973: Seeing the Project Through to Completion 9
IV. 1974-1999: Bringing the Bomb Up the Basement Stairs 15
 
Appendix: Estimates of the Israeli Nuclear Arsenal 23
Notes 25
Disclaimer
 
The views expressed in this publication are those solely of the author and are 
not a statement of official policy or position of the U.S. Government, the 
Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, or the USAF Counterproliferation Center.
 
The Author
 
Colonel Warner D. "Rocky" Farr, Medical Corps, Master Flight Surgeon, U.S. Army, 
graduated from the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama before 
becoming the Command Surgeon, U.S. Army Special Operations Command at Fort 
Bragg, North Carolina. He also serves as the Surgeon for the U.S. Army Special 
Forces Command, U.S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command, 
and the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School. With 
thirty-three years of military service, he holds an Associate of Arts from the 
State University of New York, Bachelor of Science from Northeast Louisiana 
University, Doctor of Medicine from the Uniformed Services University of the 
Health Sciences, Masters of Public Health from the University of Texas, and has 
completed medical residencies in aerospace medicine, and anatomic and clinical 
pathology. He is the only army officer to be board certified in these three 
specialties. Solo qualified in the TH-55A Army helicopter, he received flight 
training in the T-37 and T-38 aircraft as part of his USAF School of Aerospace 
Medicine residency.
 
Colonel Farr was a Master Sergeant Special Forces medic prior to receiving a 
direct commission to second lieutenant. He is now the senior Special Forces 
medical officer in the U.S. Army with prior assignments in the 5th, 7th, and 
10th Special Forces Groups (Airborne), 1st Special Forces, in Vietnam, the 
United States, and Germany. He has advised the 12th and 20th Special Forces 
Groups (Airborne) in the reserves and national guard, served as Division 
Surgeon, 10th Mountain Division (Light Infantry), and as the Deputy Commander of 
the U.S. Army Aeromedical Center, Fort Rucker, Alabama.
 
Acknowledgments
 
I would like to acknowledge the assistance, guidance and encouragement from my 
Air War College (AWC) faculty research advisor, Dr. Andrew Terrill, instructor 
of the Air War College Arab-Israeli Wars course. Thanks are also due to the 
great aid of the Air University librarians. The author is also indebted to 
Captain J. R. Saunders, USN and Colonel Robert Sutton, USAF. Who also offered 
helpful suggestions.
 
Abstract
 
This paper is a history of the Israeli nuclear weapons program drawn from a 
review of unclassified sources. Israel began its search for nuclear weapons at 
the inception of the state in 1948. As payment for Israeli participation in the 
Suez Crisis of 1956, France provided nuclear expertise and constructed a reactor 
complex for Israel at Dimona capable of large-scale plutonium production and 
reprocessing. The United States discovered the facility by 1958 and it was a 
subject of continual discussions between American presidents and Israeli prime 
ministers. Israel used delay and deception to at first keep the United States at 
bay, and later used the nuclear option as a bargaining chip for a consistent 
American conventional arms supply. After French disengagement in the early 
1960s, Israel progressed on its own, including through several covert 
operations, to project completion. Before the 1967 Six-Day War, they felt their 
nuclear facility threatened and reportedly assembled several nuclear devices. By 
the 1973 Yom Kippur War Israel had a number of sophisticated nuclear bombs, 
deployed them, and considered using them. The Arabs may have limited their war 
aims because of their knowledge of the Israeli nuclear weapons. Israel has most 
probably conducted several nuclear bomb tests. They have continued to modernize 
and vertically proliferate and are now one of the world's larger nuclear powers. 
Using "bomb in the basement" nuclear opacity, Israel has been able to use its 
arsenal as a deterrent to the Arab world while not technically violating 
American nonproliferation requirements.
 
The Third Temple's Holy of Holies:
Israel's Nuclear Weapons
 
Warner D. Farr
 
I. Introduction
 
This is the end of the Third Temple.
- Attributed to Moshe Dayan
during the Yom Kippur War1
 
As Zionists in Palestine watched World War II from their distant sideshow, what 
lessons were learned? The soldiers of the Empire of Japan vowed on their 
emperor's sacred throne to fight to the death and not face the inevitability of 
an American victory. Many Jews wondered if the Arabs would try to push them into 
the Mediterranean Sea. After the devastating American nuclear attack on Japan, 
the soldier leaders of the empire reevaluated their fight to the death position. 
Did the bomb give the Japanese permission to surrender and live? It obviously 
played a military role, a political role, and a peacemaking role. How close was 
the mindset of the Samurai culture to the Islamic culture? Did David Ben-Gurion 
take note and wonder if the same would work for Israel?2 Could Israel find the 
ultimate deterrent that would convince her opponents that they could never, ever 
succeed? Was Israel's ability to cause a modern holocaust the best way to 
guarantee never having another one?
 
The use of unconventional weapons in the Middle East is not new. The British had 
used chemical artillery shells against the Turks at the second battle of Gaza in 
1917. They continued chemical shelling against the Shiites in Iraq in 1920 and 
used aerial chemicals in the 1920s and 1930s in Iraq.3
 
Israel's involvement with nuclear technology starts at the founding of the state 
in 1948. Many talented Jewish scientists immigrated to Palestine during the 
thirties and forties, in particular, Ernst David Bergmann. He would become the 
director of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission and the founder of Israel's 
efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Bergmann, a close friend and advisor of 
Israel's first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, counseled that nuclear energy 
could compensate for Israel's poor natural resources and small pool of military 
manpower. He pointed out that there was just one nuclear energy, not two, 
suggesting nuclear weapons were part of the plan.4 As early as 1948, Israeli 
scientists actively explored the Negev Desert for uranium deposits on orders 
from the Israeli Ministry of Defense. By 1950, they found low-grade deposits 
near Beersheba and Sidon and worked on a low power method of heavy water 
production.5
 
The newly created Weizmann Institute of Science actively supported nuclear 
research by 1949, with Dr. Bergmann heading the chemistry division. Promising 
students went overseas to study nuclear engineering and physics at Israeli 
government expense. Israel secretly founded its own Atomic Energy Commission in 
1952 and placed it under the control of the Defense Ministry.6 The foundations 
of a nuclear program were beginning to develop.
 
II. 1948-1962: With French Cooperation
 
It has always been our intention to develop a nuclear potential.
- Ephraim Katzir7
 
In 1949, Francis Perrin, a member of the French Atomic Energy Commission, 
nuclear physicist, and friend of Dr. Bergmann visited the Weizmann Institute. He 
invited Israeli scientists to the new French nuclear research facility at 
Saclay. A joint research effort was subsequently set up between the two nations. 
Perrin publicly stated in 1986 that French scientists working in America on the 
Manhattan Project and in Canada during World War II were told they could use 
their knowledge in France provided they kept it a secret.8 Perrin reportedly 
provided nuclear data to Israel on the same basis.9 One Israeli scientist worked 
at the U.S. Los Alamos National Laboratory and may have directly brought 
expertise home.10
 
After the Second World War, France's nuclear research capability was quite 
limited. France had been a leading research center in nuclear physics before 
World War II, but had fallen far behind the U.S., the U.S.S.R., the United 
Kingdom, and even Canada. Israel and France were at a similar level of expertise 
after the war, and Israeli scientists could make significant contributions to 
the French effort. Progress in nuclear science and technology in France and 
Israel remained closely linked throughout the early fifties. Israeli scientists 
probably helped construct the G-1 plutonium production reactor and UP-1 
reprocessing plant at Marcoule.11 France profited from two Israeli patents on 
heavy water production and low-grade uranium enrichment.12 In the 1950s and into 
the early 1960s, France and Israel had close relations in many areas. France was 
Israel's principal arms supplier, and as instability spread through French 
colonies in North Africa, Israel provided valuable intelligence obtained from 
contacts with sephardic Jews in those countries.
 
The two nations collaborated, with the United Kingdom, in planning and staging 
the Suez Canal-Sinai operation against Egypt in October 1956. The Suez Crisis 
became the real genesis of Israel's nuclear weapons production program. With the 
Czech-Egyptian arms agreement in 1955, Israel became worried. When absorbed, the 
Soviet-bloc equipment would triple Egyptian military strength. After Egypt's 
President Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran in 1953, Israeli Prime Minister 
Ben-Gurion ordered the development of chemical munitions and other 
unconventional munitions, including nuclear.13 Six weeks before the Suez Canal 
operation, Israel felt the time was right to approach France for assistance in 
building a nuclear reactor. Canada had set a precedent a year earlier when it 
had agreed to build a 40-megawatt CIRUS reactor in India. Shimon Peres, the 
Director-General of the Defense Ministry and aide to Prime Minister (and Defense 
Minister) David Ben-Gurion, and Bergmann met with members of the CEA (France's 
Atomic Energy Commission). During September 1956, they reached an initial 
understanding to provide a research reactor. The two countries concluded final 
agreements at a secret meeting outside Paris where they also finalized details 
of the Suez Canal operation.14
 
For the United Kingdom and France, the Suez operation, launched on October 29, 
1956, was a total disaster. Israel's part was a military success, allowing it to 
occupy the entire Sinai Peninsula by 4 November, but the French and British 
canal invasion on 6 November was a political failure. Their attempt to advance 
south along the Suez Canal stopped due to a cease-fire under fierce Soviet and 
U.S. pressure. Both nations pulled out, leaving Israel to face the pressure from 
the two superpowers alone. Soviet Premier Bulganin and President Khrushchev 
issued an implicit threat of nuclear attack if Israel did not withdraw from the 
Sinai.
 
On 7 November 1956, a secret meeting was held between Israeli foreign minister 
Golda Meir, Shimon Peres, and French foreign and defense ministers Christian 
Pineau and Maurice Bourges-Manoury. The French, embarrassed by their failure to 
support their ally in the operation, found the Israelis deeply concerned about a 
Soviet threat. In this meeting, they substantially modified the initial 
understanding beyond a research reactor. Peres secured an agreement from France 
to assist Israel in developing a nuclear deterrent. After further months of 
negotiation, agreement was reached for an 18-megawatt (thermal) research reactor 
of the EL-3 type, along with plutonium separation technology. France and Israel 
signed the agreement in October 1957.15 Later the reactor was officially 
upgraded to 24 megawatts, but the actual specifications issued to engineers 
provided for core cooling ducts sufficient for up to three times this power 
level, along with a plutonium plant of similar capacity. Data from insider 
reports revealed in 1986 would estimate the power level at 125-150 megawatts.16 
The reactor, not connected to turbines for power production, needed this 
increase in size only to increase its plutonium production. How this upgrade 
came about remains unknown, but Bourges-Maunoury, replacing Mollet as French 
prime minister, may have contributed to it.17 Shimon Peres, the guiding hand in 
the Israeli nuclear program, had a close relationship with Bourges-Maunoury and 
probably helped him politically.18
 
Why was France so eager to help Israel? DeMollet and then de Gaulle had a place 
for Israel within their strategic vision. A nuclear Israel could be a 
counterforce against Egypt in France's fight in Algeria. Egypt was openly aiding 
the rebel forces there. France also wanted to obtain the bomb itself. The United 
States had embargoed certain nuclear enabling computer technology from France. 
Israel could get the technology from America and pass it through to France. The 
U.S. furnished Israel heavy water, under the Atoms for Peace program, for the 
small research reactor at Soreq. France could use this heavy water. Since France 
was some years away from nuclear testing and success, Israeli science was an 
insurance policy in case of technical problems in France's own program.19 The 
Israeli intelligence community's knowledge of past French (especially Vichy) 
anti-Semitic transgressions and the continued presence of former Nazi 
collaborators in French intelligence provided the Israelis with some blackmail 
opportunities.20 The cooperation was so close that Israel worked with France on 
the preproduction design of early Mirage jet aircraft, designed to be capable of 
delivering nuclear bombs.21
 
French experts secretly built the Israeli reactor underground at Dimona, in the 
Negev desert of southern Israel near Beersheba. Hundreds of French engineers and 
technicians filled Beersheba, the biggest town in the Negev. Many of the same 
contractors who built Marcoule were involved. SON (a French firm) built the 
plutonium separation plants in both France and Israel. The ground was broken for 
the EL-102 reactor (as it was known to France) in early 1958.
 
Israel used many subterfuges to conceal activity at Dimona. It called the plant 
a manganese plant, and rarely, a textile plant. The United States by the end of 
1958 had taken pictures of the project from U-2 spy planes, and identified the 
site as a probable reactor complex. The concentration of Frenchmen was also 
impossible to hide from ground observers. In 1960, before the reactor was 
operating, France, now under the leadership of de Gaulle, reconsidered and 
decided to suspend the project. After several months of negotiation, they 
reached an agreement in November that allowed the reactor to proceed if Israel 
promised not to make nuclear weapons and to announce the project to the world. 
Work on the plutonium reprocessing plant halted. On 2 December 1960, before 
Israel could make announcements, the U.S. State Department issued a statement 
that Israel had a secret nuclear installation. By 16 December, this became 
public knowledge with its appearance in the New York Times. On 21 December, 
Ben-Gurion announced that Israel was building a 24-megawatt reactor "for 
peaceful purposes."22
 
Over the next year, relations between the U.S. and Israel became strained over 
the Dimona reactor. The U.S. accepted Israel's assertions at face value 
publicly, but exerted pressure privately. Although Israel allowed a cursory 
inspection by well known American physicists Eugene Wigner and I. I. Rabi, Prime 
Minister Ben-Gurion consistently refused to allow regular international 
inspections. The final resolution between the U.S. and Israel was a commitment 
from Israel to use the facility for peaceful purposes, and to admit an U.S. 
inspection team twice a year. These inspections began in 1962 and continued 
until 1969. Inspectors saw only the above ground part of the buildings, not the 
many levels underground and the visit frequency was never more than once a year. 
The above ground areas had simulated control rooms, and access to the 
underground areas was kept hidden while the inspectors were present. Elevators 
leading to the secret underground plutonium reprocessing plant were actually 
bricked over.23 Much of the information on these inspections and the political 
maneuvering around it has just been declassified.24
 
One interpretation of Ben-Gurion's "peaceful purposes" pledge given to America 
is that he interpreted it to mean that nuclear weapon development was not 
excluded if used strictly for defensive, and not offensive purposes. Israel's 
security position in the late fifties and early sixties was far more precarious 
than now. After three wars, with a robust domestic arms industry and a reliable 
defense supply line from the U.S., Israel felt much more secure. During the 
fifties and early sixties a number of attempts by Israel to obtain security 
guarantees from the U.S. to place Israel under the U.S. nuclear umbrella like 
NATO or Japan, were unsuccessful. If the U.S. had conducted a forward-looking 
policy to restrain Israel's proliferation, along with a sure defense agreement, 
we could have prevented the development of Israel's nuclear arsenal.
 
One common discussion in the literature concerns testing of Israeli nuclear 
devices. In the early phases, the amount of collaboration between the French and 
Israeli nuclear weapons design programs made testing unnecessary. In addition, 
although their main efforts were with plutonium, the Israelis may have amassed 
enough uranium for gun-assembled type bombs which, like the Hiroshima bomb, 
require no testing. One expert postulated, based on unnamed sources, that the 
French nuclear test in 1960 made two nuclear powers not one"such was the depth 
of collaboration.25 There were several Israeli observers at the French nuclear 
tests and the Israelis had "unrestricted access to French nuclear test explosion 
data."26 Israel also supplied essential technology and hardware.27 The French 
reportedly shipped reprocessed plutonium back to Israel as part of their 
repayment for Israeli scientific help.
 
However, this constant, decade long, French cooperation and support was soon to 
end and Israel would have to go it alone.
 
 
III. 1963-1973: Seeing the Project to Completion
 
Israel would soon need its own, independent, capabilities to complete its 
nuclear program. Only five countries had facilities for uranium enrichment: the 
United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, and China. The 
Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation, or NUMEC, in Apollo, Pennsylvania 
was a small fuel rod fabrication plant. In 1965, the U.S. government accused Dr. 
Zalman Shapiro, the corporation president, of "losing" 200 pounds of highly 
enriched uranium. Although investigated by the Atomic Energy Commission, the 
Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and other 
government agencies and inquiring reporters, no answers were available in what 
was termed the Apollo Affair.29 Many remain convinced that the Israelis received 
200 pounds of enriched uranium sometime before 1965.30 One source links Rafi 
Eitan, an Israeli Mossad agent and later the handler of spy Jonathan Pollard, 
with NUMEC.31 In the 1990s when the NUMEC plant was disassembled, the Nuclear 
Regulatory Commission found over 100 kilograms of plutonium in the structural 
components of the contaminated plant, casting doubt on 200 pounds going to 
Israel.32
 
The joint venture with France gave Israel several ingredients for nuclear 
weapons construction: a production reactor, a factory to extract plutonium from 
the spent fuel, and the design. In 1962, the Dimona reactor went critical; the 
French resumed work on the underground plutonium reprocessing plant, and 
completed it in 1964 or 1965. The acquisition of this reactor and related 
technologies was clearly intended for military purposes from the outset (not 
"dual-use"), as the reactor has no other function. The security at Dimona 
(officially the Negev Nuclear Research Center) was particularly stringent. For 
straying into Dimona's airspace, the Israelis shot down one of their own Mirage 
fighters during the Six-Day War. The Israelis also shot down a Libyan airliner 
with 104 passengers, in 1973, which had strayed over the Sinai.33 There is 
little doubt that some time in the late sixties Israel became the sixth nation 
to manufacture nuclear weapons. Other things they needed were extra uranium and 
extra heavy water to run the reactor at a higher rate. Norway, France, and the 
United States provided the heavy water and "Operation Plumbat" provided the 
uranium.
 
After the 1967 war, France stopped supplies of uranium to Israel. These supplies 
were from former French colonies of Gabon, Niger, and the Central Africa 
Republic.34 Israel had small amounts of uranium from Negev phosphate mines and 
had bought some from Argentina and South Africa, but not in the large quantities 
supplied by the French. Through a complicated undercover operation, the Israelis 
obtained uranium oxide, known as yellow cake, held in a stockpile in Antwerp. 
Using a West German front company and a high seas transfer from one ship to 
another in the Mediterranean, they obtained 200 tons of yellow cake. The 
smugglers labeled the 560 sealed oil drums "Plumbat," which means lead, hence 
"Operation Plumbat."35 The West German government may have been involved 
directly but remained undercover to avoid antagonizing the Soviets or Arabs.36 
Israeli intelligence information on the Nazi past of some West German officials 
may have provided the motivation.37
 
Norway sold 20 tons of heavy water to Israel in 1959 for use in an experimental 
power reactor. Norway insisted on the right to inspect the heavy water for 32 
years, but did so only once, in April 1961, while it was still in storage 
barrels at Dimona. Israel simply promised that the heavy water was for peaceful 
purposes. In addition, quantities much more than what would be required for the 
peaceful purpose reactors were imported. Norway either colluded or at the least 
was very slow to ask to inspect as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) 
rules required.38 Norway and Israel concluded an agreement in 1990 for Israel to 
sell back 10.5 tons of the heavy water to Norway. Recent calculations reveal 
that Israel has used two tons and will retain eight tons more.39
 
Author Seymour Hersh, writing in the Samson Option says Prime Minister Levi 
Eshkol delayed starting weapons production even after Dimona was finished.40 The 
reactor operated and the plutonium collected, but remained unseparated. The 
first extraction of plutonium probably occurred in late 1965. By 1966, enough 
plutonium was on hand to develop a weapon in time for the Six-Day War in 1967. 
Some type of non-nuclear test, perhaps a zero yield or implosion test, occurred 
on November 2, 1966. After this time, considerable collaboration between Israel 
and South Africa developed and continued through the 1970s and 1980s. South 
Africa became Israel's primary supplier of uranium for Dimona. A Center for 
Nonproliferation Studies report lists four separate Israel-South Africa 
"clandestine nuclear deals." Three concerned yellowcake and one was tritium.41 
Other sources of yellowcake may have included Portugal.42
 
Egypt attempted unsuccessfully to obtain nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union 
both before and after the Six-Day War. President Nasser received from the Soviet 
Union a questionable nuclear guarantee instead and declared that Egypt would 
develop its own nuclear program.43 His rhetoric of 1965 and 1966 about 
preventive war and Israeli nuclear weapons coupled with overflights of the 
Dimona rector contributed to the tensions that led to war. The Egyptian Air 
Force claims to have first overflown Dimona and recognized the existence of a 
nuclear reactor in 1965.44 Of the 50 American HAWK antiaircraft missiles in 
Israeli hands, half ringed Dimona by 1965.45 Israel considered the Egyptian 
overflights of May 16, 1967 as possible pre-strike reconnaissance. One source 
lists such Egyptian overflights, along with United Nations peacekeeper 
withdrawal and Egyptian troop movements into the Sinai, as one of the three 
"tripwires" which would drive Israel to war.46 There was an Egyptian military 
plan to attack Dimona at the start of any war but Nasser vetoed it.47 He 
believed Israel would have the bomb in 1968.48 Israel assembled two nuclear 
bombs and ten days later went to war.49 Nasser's plan, if he had one, may have 
been to gain and consolidate territorial gains before Israel had a nuclear 
option.50 He was two weeks too late.
 
The Israelis aggressively pursued an aircraft delivery system from the United 
States. President Johnson was less emphatic about nonproliferation than 
President Kennedy-or perhaps had more pressing concerns, such as Vietnam. He had 
a long history of both Jewish friends and pressing political contributors 
coupled with some first hand experience of the Holocaust, having toured 
concentration camps at the end of World War II.51 Israel pressed him hard for 
aircraft (A-4E Skyhawks initially and F-4E Phantoms later) and obtained 
agreement in 1966 under the condition that the aircraft would not be used to 
deliver nuclear weapons. The State Department attempted to link the aircraft 
purchases to continued inspection visits. President Johnson overruled the State 
Department concerning Dimona inspections.52 Although denied at the time, America 
delivered the F-4Es, on September 5, 1969, with nuclear capable hardware 
intact.53
 
The Samson Option states that Moshe Dayan gave the go-ahead for starting weapon 
production in early 1968, putting the plutonium separation plant into full 
operation. Israel began producing three to five bombs a year. The book Critical 
Mass asserts that Israel had two bombs in 1967, and that Prime Minister Eshkol 
ordered them armed in Israel's first nuclear alert during the Six-Day War.54 
Avner Cohen in his recent book, Israel and the Bomb, agrees that Israel had a 
deliverable nuclear capability in the 1967 war. He quotes Munya Mardor, leader 
of Rafael, the Armament Development Authority, and other unnamed sources, that 
Israel "cobbled together" two deliverable devices.55
 
Having the bomb meant articulating, even if secretly, a use doctrine. In 
addition to the "Samson Option" of last resort, other triggers for nuclear use 
may have included successful Arab penetration of populated areas, destruction of 
the Israeli Air Force, massive air strikes or chemical/biological strikes on 
Israeli cities, and Arab use of nuclear weapons.56
 
In 1971, Israel began purchasing krytrons, ultra high-speed electronic switching 
tubes that are "dual-use," having both industrial and nuclear weapons 
applications as detonators. In the 1980s, the United States charged an American, 
Richard Smith (or Smyth), with smuggling 810 krytrons to Israel.57 He vanished 
before trial and reportedly lives outside Tel Aviv. The Israelis apologized for 
the action saying that the krytrons were for medical research.58 Israel returned 
469 of the krytrons but the rest, they declared, had been destroyed in testing 
conventional weapons. Some believe they went to South Africa.59 Smyth has also 
been reported to have been involved in a 1972 smuggling operation to obtain 
solid rocket fuel binder compounds for the Jericho II missile and guidance 
component hardware.60 Observers point to the Jericho missile itself as proof of 
a nuclear capability as it is not suited to the delivery of conventional 
munitions.61
 
On the afternoon of 6 October 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel in a 
coordinated surprise attack, beginning the Yom Kippur War. Caught with only 
regular forces on duty, augmented by reservists with a low readiness level, 
Israeli front lines crumbled. By early afternoon on 7 October, no effective 
forces were in the southern Golan Heights and Syrian forces had reached the edge 
of the plateau, overlooking the Jordan River. This crisis brought Israel to its 
second nuclear alert.
 
Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, obviously not at his best at a press briefing, 
was, according to Time magazine, rattled enough to later tell the prime minister 
that "this is the end of the third temple," referring to an impending collapse 
of the state of Israel. "Temple" was also the code word for nuclear weapons. 
Prime Minister Golda Meir and her "kitchen cabinet" made the decision on the 
night of 8 October. The Israelis assembled 13 twenty-kiloton atomic bombs. The 
number and in fact the entire story was later leaked by the Israelis as a great 
psychological warfare tool. Although most probably plutonium devices, one source 
reports they were enriched uranium bombs. The Jericho missiles at Hirbat 
Zachariah and the nuclear strike F-4s at Tel Nof were armed and prepared for 
action against Syrian and Egyptian targets. They also targeted Damascus with 
nuclear capable long-range artillery although it is not certain they had nuclear 
artillery shells.62
 
U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was notified of the alert several hours 
later on the morning of 9 October. The U.S. decided to open an aerial resupply 
pipeline to Israel, and Israeli aircraft began picking up supplies that day. 
Although stockpile depletion remained a concern, the military situation 
stabilized on October 8th and 9th as Israeli reserves poured into the battle and 
averted disaster. Well before significant American resupply had reached Israeli 
forces, the Israelis counterattacked and turned the tide on both fronts.
 
On 11 October, a counterattack on the Golan broke the back of Syria's offensive, 
and on 15 and 16 October, Israel launched a surprise crossing of the Suez Canal 
into Africa. Soon the Israelis encircled the Egyptian Third Army and it was 
faced with annihilation on the east bank of the Suez Canal, with no protective 
forces remaining between the Israeli Army and Cairo. The first U.S. flights 
arrived on 14 October.63 Israeli commandos flew to Fort Benning, Georgia to 
train with the new American TOW anti-tank missiles and return with a C-130 
Hercules aircraft full of them in time for the decisive Golan battle. American 
commanders in Germany depleted their stocks of missiles, at that time only 
shared with the British and West Germans, and sent them forward to Israel.64
 
Thus started the subtle, opaque use of the Israeli bomb to ensure that the 
United States kept its pledge to maintain Israel's conventional weapons edge 
over its foes.65 There is significant anecdotal evidence that Henry Kissinger 
told President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, that the reason for the U.S. airlift was 
that the Israelis were close to "going nuclear."66
 
A similar Soviet pipeline to the Arabs, equally robust, may or may not have 
included a ship with nuclear weapons on it, detected from nuclear trace 
emissions and shadowed by the Americans from the Dardanelles. The Israelis 
believe that the Soviets discovered Israeli nuclear preparations from COSMOS 
satellite photographs and decided to equalize the odds.67 The Soviet ship 
arrived in Alexandria on either 18 or 23 October (sources disagree), and 
remained, without unloading, until November 1973. The ship may have represented 
a Soviet guarantee to the Arab combatants to neutralize the Israeli nuclear 
option.68 While some others dismiss the story completely, the best-written 
review article concludes that the answer is "obscure." Soviet premier Leonid 
Brezhnev threatened, on 24 October, to airlift Soviet airborne troops to 
reinforce the Egyptians cut off on the eastern side of the Suez Canal and put 
seven Soviet airborne divisions on alert.69 Recent evidence indicates that the 
Soviets sent nuclear missile submarines also.70 Aviation Week and Space 
Technology magazine claimed that the two Soviet SCUD brigades deployed in Egypt 
each had a nuclear warhead. American satellite photos seemed to confirm this. 
The U.S. passed to Israel images of trucks, of the type used to transport 
nuclear warheads, parked near the launchers.71 President Nixon's response was to 
bring the U.S. to worldwide nuclear alert the next day, whereupon Israel went to 
nuclear alert a third time.72 This sudden crisis quickly faded as Prime Minister 
Meir agreed to a cease-fire, relieving the pressure on the Egyptian Third Army.
 
Shimon Peres had argued for a pre-war nuclear demonstration to deter the Arabs. 
Arab strategies and war aims in 1967 may have been restricted because of a fear 
of the Israeli "bomb in the basement," the undeclared nuclear option. The 
Egyptians planned to capture an eastern strip next to the Suez Canal and then 
hold. The Syrians did not aggressively commit more forces to battle or attempt 
to drive through the 1948 Jordan River border to the Israeli center. Both 
countries seemed not to violate Israel proper and avoided triggering one of the 
unstated Israeli reasons to employ nuclear weapons.73 Others discount any Arab 
planning based on nuclear capabilities.74 Peres also credits Dimona with 
bringing Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem to make peace.75 This position was seemingly 
confirmed by Sadat in a private conversation with Israeli Defense Minister Ezer 
Weizman.76
 
At the end of the Yom Kippur War (a nation shaking experience), Israel has her 
nuclear arsenal fully functional and tested by a deployment. The arsenal, still 
opaque and unspoken, was no longer a secret, especially to the two superpowers, 
the United States and the Soviet Union.
 
 
IV. 1974-1999: Bringing the Bomb up the Basement Stairs
 
Never Again!
- Reportedly welded on the first Israeli nuclear bomb77
 
Shortly after the 1973 war, Israel allegedly fielded considerable nuclear 
artillery consisting of American 175 mm and 203 mm self-propelled artillery 
pieces, capable of firing nuclear shells. If true, this shows that Dimona had 
rapidly solved the problems of designing smaller weapons since the crude 1967 
devices. If true, these low yield, tactical nuclear artillery rounds could reach 
at least 25 miles. The Israeli Defense Force did have three battalions of the 
175mm artillery (36 tubes), reportedly with 108 nuclear shells and more for the 
203mm tubes. Some sources describe a program to extend the range to 45 miles. 
They may have offered the South Africans these low yield, miniaturized, shells 
described as, "the best stuff we got."78 By 1976, according to one unclassified 
source, the Central Intelligence Agency believed that the Israelis were using 
plutonium from Dimona and had 10 to 20 nuclear weapons available.79
 
In 1972, two Israeli scientists, Isaiah Nebenzahl and Menacehm Levin, developed 
a cheaper, faster uranium enrichment process. It used a laser beam for isotope 
separation. It could reportedly enrich seven grams of Uranium 235 sixty percent 
in one day.80 Sources later reported that Israel was using both centrifuges and 
lasers to enrich uranium.81
 
Questions remained regarding full-scale nuclear weapons tests. Primitive gun 
assembled type devices need no testing. Researchers can test non-nuclear 
components of other types separately and use extensive computer simulations. 
Israel received data from the 1960 French tests, and one source concludes that 
Israel accessed information from U.S. tests conducted in the 1950s and early 
1960s. This may have included both boosted and thermonuclear weapons data.82 
Underground testing in a hollowed out cavern is difficult to detect. A West 
Germany Army Magazine, Wehrtechnik, in June 1976, claimed that Western reports 
documented a 1963 underground test in the Negev. Other reports show a test at 
Al-Naqab, Negev in October 1966.83
 
A bright flash in the south Indian Ocean, observed by an American satellite on 
22 September 1979, is widely believed to be a South Africa-Israel joint nuclear 
test. It was, according to some, the third test of a neutron bomb. The first two 
were hidden in clouds to fool the satellite and the third was an accident"the 
weather cleared.84 Experts differ on these possible tests. Several writers 
report that the scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory believed it to have 
been a nuclear explosion while a presidential panel decided otherwise.85 
President Carter was just entering the Iran hostage nightmare and may have 
easily decided not to alter 30 years of looking the other way.86 The explosion 
was almost certainly an Israeli bomb, tested at the invitation of the South 
Africans. It was more advanced than the "gun type" bombs developed by the South 
Africans.87 One report claims it was a test of a nuclear artillery shell.88 A 
1997 Israeli newspaper quoted South African deputy foreign minister, Aziz Pahad, 
as confirming it was an Israeli test with South African logistical support.89
 
Controversy over possible nuclear testing continues to this day. In June 1998, a 
Member of the Knesset accused the government of an underground test near Eilat 
on May 28, 1998. Egyptian "nuclear experts" had made similar charges. The 
Israeli government hotly denied the claims.90
 
Not only were the Israelis interested in American nuclear weapons development 
data, they were interested in targeting data from U.S. intelligence. Israel 
discovered that they were on the Soviet target list. American-born Israeli spy 
Jonathan Pollard obtained satellite-imaging data of the Soviet Union, allowing 
Israel to target accurately Soviet cities. This showed Israel's intention to use 
its nuclear arsenal as a deterrent political lever, or retaliatory capability 
against the Soviet Union itself. Israel also used American satellite imagery to 
plan the 7 June 1981 attack on the Tammuz-1 reactor at Osiraq, Iraq. This daring 
attack, carried out by eight F-16s accompanied by six F-15s punched a hole in 
the concrete reactor dome before the reactor began operation (and just days 
before an Israeli election). It delivered 15 delay-fused 2000 pound bombs deep 
into the reactor structure (the 16th bomb hit a nearby hall). The blasts 
shredded the reactor and blew out the dome foundations, causing it to collapse 
on the rubble. This was the world's first attack on a nuclear reactor.91
 
Since 19 September 1988, Israel has worked on its own satellite recon- naissance 
system to decrease reliance on U.S. sources. On that day, they launched the 
Offeq-1 satellite on the Shavit booster, a system closely related to the 
Jericho-II missile. They launched the satellite to the west away from the Arabs 
and against the earth's rotation, requiring even more thrust. The Jericho-II 
missile is capable of sending a one ton nuclear payload 5,000 kilometers. 
Offeq-2 went up on 3 April 1990. The launch of the Offeq-3 failed on its first 
attempt on 15 September 1994, but was successful 5 April 1995.92
 
Mordechai Vanunu provided the best look at the Israeli nuclear arsenal in 1985 
complete with photographs.93 A technician from Dimona who lost his job, Vanunu 
secretly took photographs, immigrated to Australia and published some of his 
material in the London Sunday Times. He was subsequently kidnapped by Israeli 
agents, tried and imprisoned. His data shows a sophisticated nuclear program, 
over 200 bombs, with boosted devices, neutron bombs, F-16 deliverable warheads, 
and Jericho warheads.94 The boosted weapons shown in the Vanunu photographs show 
a sophistication that inferred the requirement for testing.95 He revealed for 
the first time the underground plutonium separation facility where Israel was 
producing 40 kilograms annually, several times more than previous estimates. 
Photographs showed sophisticated designs which scientific experts say enabled 
the Israelis to build bombs with as little as 4 kilograms of plutonium. These 
facts have increased the estimates of total Israeli nuclear stockpiles (see 
Appendix A).96 In the words of one American, "[the Israelis] can do anything we 
or the Soviets can do."97 Vanunu not only made the technical details of the 
Israeli program and stockpile public but in his wake, Israeli began veiled 
official acknowledgement of the potent Israeli nuclear deterrent. They began 
bringing the bomb up the basement stairs if not out of the basement.
 
Israel went on full-scale nuclear alert again on the first day of Desert Storm, 
18 January 1991. Seven SCUD missiles were fired against the cities of Tel Aviv 
and Haifa by Iraq (only two actually hit Tel Aviv and one hit Haifa). This alert 
lasted for the duration of the war, 43 days. Over the course of the war, Iraq 
launched around 40 missiles in 17 separate attacks at Israel. There was little 
loss of life: two killed directly, 11 indirectly, with many structures damaged 
and life disrupted.98 Several supposedly landed near Dimona, one of them a close 
miss.99 Threats of retaliation by the Shamir government if the Iraqis used 
chemical warheads were interpreted to mean that Israel intended to launch a 
nuclear strike if gas attacks occurred. One Israeli commentator recommended that 
Israel should signal Iraq that "any Iraqi action against Israeli civilian 
populations, with or without gas, may leave Iraq without Baghdad."100 Shortly 
before the end of the war the Israelis tested a "nuclear capable" missile which 
prompted the United States into intensifying its SCUD hunting in western Iraq to 
prevent any Israeli response.101 The Israeli Air Force set up dummy SCUD sites 
in the Negev for pilots to practice on"they found it no easy task.102 American 
government concessions to Israel for not attacking (in addition to Israeli 
Patriot missile batteries) were:
 
Allowing Israel to designate 100 targets inside Iraq for the coalition to 
destroy,
Satellite downlink to increase warning time on the SCUD attacks (present and 
future),
"Technical parity with Saudi jet fighters in perpetuity."103
All of this validated the nuclear arsenal in the minds of the Israelis. In 
particular the confirmed capability of Arab states without a border with Israel, 
the so-called "second tier" states, to reach out and touch Israel with ballistic 
missiles confirmed Israel's need for a robust first strike capability.104 
Current military contacts between Israel and India, another nuclear power, bring 
up questions of nuclear cooperation.105 Pakistani sources have already voiced 
concerns over a possible joint Israeli-Indian attack on Pakistan's nuclear 
facilities.106 A recent Parameters article speculated on Israel's willingness to 
furnish nuclear capabilities or assistance to certain states, such as Turkey.107 
A retired Israeli Defense Force Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Amnon Shahak, 
has declared, "all methods are acceptable in withholding nuclear capabilities 
from an Arab state."108
 
As the Israeli bomb comes out of the basement, open discussion, even in Israel, 
is occurring on why the Israelis feel they need an arsenal not used in at least 
two if not three wars. Avner Cohen states: "It [Israel] must be in a position to 
threaten another Hiroshima to prevent another holocaust."109 In July 1998 Shimon 
Peres was quoted in the Jordan Times as saying, "We have built a nuclear option, 
not in order to have a Hiroshima, but to have an Oslo,"110 referring to the 
peace process.
 
One list of current reasons for an Israeli nuclear capability is:
 
To deter a large conventional attack,
To deter all levels of unconventional (chemical, biological, nuclear) attacks,
To preempt enemy nuclear attacks,
To support conventional preemption against enemy nuclear assets,
To support conventional preemption against enemy non-nuclear (conventional, 
chemical, biological) assets,
For nuclear warfighting,
The "Samson Option" (last resort destruction).111
 
The most alarming of these is the nuclear warfighting. The Israelis have 
developed, by several accounts, low yield neutron bombs able to destroy troops 
with minimal damage to property.112 In 1990, during the Second Gulf War, an 
Israeli reserve major general recommended to America that it "use 
non-contaminating tactical nuclear weapons" against Iraq.113 Some have 
speculated that the Israelis will update their nuclear arsenal to "micronukes" 
and "tinynukes" which would be very useful to attack point targets and other 
tactical or barrier (mining) uses.114 These would be very useful for hardened 
deeply buried command and control facilities and for airfield destruction 
without exposing Israeli pilots to combat.115 Authors have made the point that 
Israeli professional military schools do not teach nuclear tactics and would not 
use them in the close quarters of Israel. Many Israeli officers have attended 
American military schools where they learned tactical use in crowded Europe.116
 
However, Jane's Intelligence Review has recently reported an Israeli review of 
nuclear strategy with a shift from tactical nuclear warheads to long range 
missiles.117 Israel always has favored the long reach, whether to Argentina for 
Adolph Eichmann, to Iraq to strike a reactor, Entebbe for hostages, Tunisia to 
hit the PLO, or by targeting the Soviet Union's cities. An esteemed Israeli 
military author has speculated that Israel is pursuing an R&D program to provide 
MIRVs (multiple independent reentry vehicles) on their missiles.118
 
The government of Israel recently ordered three German Dolphin Class 800 
submarine, to be delivered in late 1999. Israel will then have a second strike 
capability with nuclear cruise missiles, and this capability could well change 
the nuclear arms race in the Middle East.119 Israeli rhetoric on the new 
submarines labels them "national deterrent" assets. Projected capabilities 
include a submarine-launched nuclear missile with a 350-kilometer range.120 
Israel has been working on sea launch capability for missiles since the 
1960s.121 The first basing options for the new second-strike force of nuclear 
missile capable submarines include Oman, an Arab nation with unofficial Israeli 
relations, located strategically near Iran.122 A report indicates that the 
Israel Defense Ministry has formally gone to the government with a request to 
authorize a retaliatory nuclear strike if Israel was hit with first strike 
nuclear weapons. This report comes in the wake of a recent Iran Shihab-3 missile 
test and indications to Israel that Iran is two to three years from a nuclear 
warhead.123 Israeli statements stress that Iran's nuclear potential would be 
problem to all and would require "American leadership, with serious 
participation of the G-7 . . . ."124
 
A recent study highlighted Israel's extreme vulnerability to a first strike and 
an accompanying vulnerability even to a false alarm.125 Syria's entire defense 
against Israel seems to rest on chemical weapons and warheads.126 One scenario 
involves Syria making a quick incursion into the Golan and then threatening 
chemical strikes, perhaps with a new, more lethal (protective-mask-penetrable) 
Russian nerve gas if Israel resists.127 Their use would drive Israel to nuclear 
use. Israeli development of an anti- missile defense, the Arrow, a fully fielded 
(30-50128) Jericho II ballistic missile, and the soon-to-arrive strategic 
submarine force, seems to have produced a coming change in defense force 
structure. The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, quotes the Israeli Chief of Staff 
discussing the establishment of a "strategic command to . . . prepare an 
adequate response to the long term threats. . . "129
 
The 1994 accord with Jordan, allowing limited Israeli military presence in 
Jordanian skies, could make the flying distance to several potential adversaries 
considerably shorter.130 Israel is concerned about Iran's desire to obtain 
nuclear weapons and become a regional leader, coupled with large numbers of 
Shiite Moslems in southern Lebanon. The Israeli Air Force commanding general 
issued a statement saying Israel would "consider an attack" if any country gets 
"close to achieving a nuclear capability."131 The Israelis are obviously 
considering actions capable of stopping such programs and are buying aircraft 
such as the F-15I with sufficient operational range. At the first delivery of 
these 4,000 kilometer range fighters, the Israeli comment was, "the aircraft 
would help counter a growing nuclear threat."132 They consider such regional 
nation nuclear programs to be a sufficient cause for war. Their record of 
accomplishment is clear: having hit the early Iraqi nuclear effort, they feel 
vindicated by Desert Storm. They also feel that only the American and Israeli 
nuclear weapons kept Iraq's Saddam Hussein from using chemical or biological 
weapons against Israel.133
 
Israel, like Iran, has desires of regional power. The 1956 alliance with France 
and Britain might have been a first attempt at regional hegemony. Current debate 
in the Israeli press considers offering Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, and perhaps Syria 
(after a peace agreement) an Israeli nuclear umbrella of protection.134 A 
nuclear Iran or Iraq might use its nuclear weapons to protect some states in the 
region, threaten others, and attempt to control oil prices.135
 
Another speculative area concerns Israeli nuclear security and possible misuse. 
What is the chain of decision and control of Israel's weapons? How susceptible 
are they to misuse or theft? With no open, frank, public debate on nuclear 
issues, there has accordingly been no debate or information on existing 
safeguards. This has led to accusations of "monolithic views and sinister 
intentions."1360 Would a right wing military government decide to employ nuclear 
weapons recklessly? Ariel Sharon, an outspoken proponent of "Greater Israel" was 
quoted as saying, "Arabs may have the oil, but we have the matches."137 Could 
the Gush Emunim, a right wing religious organization, or others, hijack a 
nuclear device to "liberate" the Temple Mount for the building of the third 
temple? Chances are small but could increase as radicals decry the peace 
process.138 A 1997 article reviewing the Israeli Defense Force repeatedly 
stressed the possibilities of, and the need to guard against, a religious, right 
wing military coup, especially as the proportion of religious in the military 
increases.139
 
Israel is a nation with a state religion, but its top leaders are not religious 
Jews. The intricacies of Jewish religious politics and rabbinical law do affect 
their politics and decision processes. In Jewish law, there are two types of 
war, one obligatory and mandatory (milkhemet mitzvah) and the one authorized but 
optional (milkhemet reshut).140 The labeling of Prime Minister Begin's "Peace 
for Galilee" operation as a milchemet brera ("war of choice") was one of the 
factors causing it to lose support.141 Interpretation of Jewish law concerning 
nuclear weapons does not permit their use for mutual assured destruction. 
However, it does allow possession and threatening their use, even if actual use 
is not justifiable under the law. Interpretations of the law allow tactical use 
on the battlefield, but only after warning the enemy and attempting to make 
peace. How much these intricacies affect Israeli nuclear strategy decisions is 
unknown.142
 
The secret nature of the Israeli nuclear program has hidden the increasing 
problems of the aging Dimona reactor and adverse worker health effects. 
Information is only now public as former workers sue the government. This issue 
is now linked to continued tritium production for the boosted anti-tank and 
anti-missile nuclear warheads that Israeli continues to need. Israel is 
attempting to obtain a new, more efficient, tritium production technology 
developed in India.143
 
One other purpose of Israeli nuclear weapons, not often stated, but obvious, is 
their "use" on the United States. America does not want Israel's nuclear profile 
raised.144 They have been used in the past to ensure America does not desert 
Israel under increased Arab, or oil embargo, pressure and have forced the United 
States to support Israeli diplomatically against the Soviet Union. Israel used 
their existence to guarantee a continuing supply of American conventional 
weapons, a policy likely to continue.145
 
Regardless of the true types and numbers (see Appendix A) of Israeli nuclear 
weapons, they have developed a sophisticated system, by myriad methods, and are 
a nuclear power to be reckoned with. Their nuclear ambiguity has served their 
purposes well but Israel is entering a different phase of visibility even as 
their nuclear capability is entering a new phase. This new visibility may not be 
in America's interest.146 Many are predicting the Israeli nuclear arsenal will 
become less useful "out of the basement" and possibly spur a regional arms race. 
If so, Israel has a 5-10 year lead time at present before mutual assured 
destruction, Middle East style, will set in. Would regional mutual second strike 
capability, easier to acquire than superpower mutual second strike capability, 
result in regional stability? Some think so.147 Current Israeli President Ezer 
Weizman has stated "the nuclear issue is gaining momentum [and the] next war 
will not be conventional.148
 
Appendix A
 
Estimates of the Israeli Nuclear Arsenal
 
 
Notes
 
1. Hersh, Seymour M., The Samson Option. Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American 
Foreign Policy (New York: Random House, 1991), 223.
 
2. Aronson, Slomo and Brosh, Oded, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons 
in the Middle East, the Opacity Theory, and Reality, 1960-1991-An Israeli 
Perspective (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1992), 20.
 
3. Karsh, Efraim, Between War and Peace: Dilemmas of Israeli Security (London, 
England: Frank Cass, 1996), 82.
 
4. Cohen, Avner, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 
1998), 16.
 
5. Cordesman, Anthony, Perilous Prospects: The Peace Process and the 
Arab-Israeli Military Balance (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1996), 118.
 
6. Pry, Peter, Israel's Nuclear Arsenal (Boulder, Colorado: Westview, 1984), 
5-6.
 
7. Quoted in Weissman, Steve and Krosney, Herbert. The Islamic Bomb: The Nuclear 
Threat to Israel and the Middle East. (New York, New York: Times Books, 1981), 
105.
 
8. "Former Official Says France Helped Build Israel's Dimona Complex." 
Nucleonics Week October 16, 1986, 6.
 
9. Milhollin, Gary, "Heavy Water Cheaters." Foreign Policy (1987-88): 101-102.
 
10. Cordesman, 1991, 127.
 
11. Federation of American Scientists, "Israel's Nuclear Weapons Program." 10 
December 1997, n.p. On-line. Internet, 27 October 1998. Available from 
http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Israel/Isrhist.html.
 
12. Nashif, Taysir N., Nuclear Weapons in Israel (New Delhi: S. B. Nangia Books, 
1996), 3.
 
13. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, 48-49.
 
14. Bennett, Jeremy, The Suez Crisis. BBC Video. n.d. Videocassette and Raviv, 
Dan and Melman, Yossi. Every Spy a Prince. The Complete History of Israel's 
Intelligence Community. (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990), 
63-69.
 
15. Weissman and Krosney, 112.
 
16. "Revealed: The Secrets of Israel's Nuclear Arsenal" (London) Sunday Times 
No. 8,461, 5 October 1986, 1, 4-5.
 
17. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, 57-59.
 
18. Peres, Shimon, Battling for Peace. A Memoir (New York, New York: Random 
House, 1995), 122.
 
19. Pry, 10.
 
20. Loftus, John and Aarons, Mark, The Secret War Against the Jews. How Western 
Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People (New York, New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 
1994), 287-303.
 
21. Green, Stephen, Taking Sides. America's Secret Relations with a Militant 
Israel (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1984), 152.
 
22. Cohen, Avner, "Most Favored Nation." The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. 
51, no. 1 (January-February 1995): 44-53.
 
23. Hersh, The Samson Option, 196.
 
24. See Cohen, Avner, "Israel's Nuclear History: The Untold Kennedy-Eshkol 
Dimona Correspondence." Journal of Israeli History, 1995 16, no. 2, 159-194 and 
Cohen, Avner, Comp. "Recently Declassified 1963 Correspondence between President 
Kennedy and Prime Ministers Ben-Gurion and Eshkol." Journal of Israeli History, 
1995 16, no. 2, 195-207. Much of the documentation has been posted to 
http:\\www.seas.gwu.edu/nsarchive/israel.
 
25. Weissman and Krosney, op. cit.,114-117
 
26. Cohen, op. cit., Israel and the Bomb, 82-83.
 
27. Spector, Leonard S., The Undeclared Bomb (Cambridge, Massachusetts: 
Ballinger Publishers, 1988), 387 (n.22).
 
28. Quoted in Stevens, Elizabeth. "Israel's Nuclear Weapons"A Case Study." 14 
pages. On line. Internet, 23 October 1998. Available from
http://infomanage.com/nonproliferation/najournal/israelinucs.html.
 
29. Green, Taking Sides, 148-179 and Raviv, Dan and Melman, Yossi, 1990, 
197-198.
 
30. Weissman and Krosney, 119-124.
 
31. Black, Ian and Morris, Benny, Israel's Secret Wars. A history of Israel's 
Intelligence Services (New York, New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991), 418-419.
 
32. Hersh, 257.
 
33. Green, Stephen, Living by the Sword: America and Israel in the Middle East, 
1968-1987 (London: Faber, 1988), 63-80.
 
34. Cordesman, 1991, 120.
 
35. Weissman and Krosney, 124-128 and Raviv, Dan and Melman, Yossi, 1990, 
198-199.
 
36. Spector, The Undeclared Bomb, 395(n. 57).98-199
 
37. Raviv, Dan and Melman, Yossi, 1990, 58.
 
38. Milhollin, 100-119.
 
39. Stanghelle, Harold, "Israel to sell back 10.5 tons." Arbeiderbladet, Oslo, 
Norway, 28 June 1990 in: Center for Nonproliferation Studies, "Nuclear 
Developments," 28 June 1990, 34-35; on-line, Internet 22 November 1998, 
available from http://cns.miis.edu.
 
40. Hersh, op. cit., 139.
 
41. Center for Nonproliferation Studies. "Israeli Friends," ISIS Report, May 
1994, 4; on-line, Internet 22 November 1998, available from http://cns.miis.edu.
 
42. Abecasis, Rachel, "Uranium reportedly offered to China, Israel." Radio 
Renascenca, Lisbon, 9 December 1992 quoted in Center for Nonproliferation, 
"Proliferation Issues," 23 December, 1992, 25; on-line, Internet 22 November 
1998, available from http://cns.miis.edu.
 
43. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, op. cit., 231-232 and 256-257.
 
44. Nordeen, Lon O., Nicolle, David, Phoenix over the Nile (Washington, D.C.: 
Smithsonian Institute Press, 1996), 192-193.
 
45. O'Balance, Edgar, The Third Arab-Israeli War (London: Faber and Faber, 
1972), 54.
 
46. Brecher, Michael, Decision in Crisis. Israel, 1967 and 1973 (Berkley, 
California: University of California Press, 1980), 104, 230-231.
 
47. Cohen, Avner. "Cairo, Dimona, and the June 1967 War." Middle East Journal 
50, no. 2 (Spring 1996), 190-210.
 
48. Creveld, Martin van. The Sword and the Olive. A Critical History of the 
Israeli Defense Force (New York, New York: Public Affairs, 1998), 174.
 
49. Burrows, William E. and Windrem, Robert, Critical Mass. The Dangerous Race 
for Superweapons in a Fragmenting World (New York, New York: Simon and Schuster, 
1994), 282-283.
 
50. Aronson, Shlomo, Israel's Nuclear Options, ACIS Working Paper No. 7. Los 
Angeles, California: University of California Center for Arms Control and 
International Security, 1977, 3, and Sorenson, David S., "Middle East Regional 
Studies-AY99," Air War College: Maxwell Air Force Base, AL, 542.
 
51. Hersh, op. cit., 126-128.
 
52. Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, op. cit., 210-213.
 
53. Spector, Leonard S., "Foreign-Supplied Combat Aircraft: Will They Drop the 
Third World Bomb?" Journal of International Affairs 40, no. 1(1986): 145 (n. 5) 
and Green, Living by the Sword, op. cit., 18-19.
 
54. Burrows and Windrem, op. cit., 280.
 
55. Cohen, op. cit., Israel and the Bomb, 237.
 
56. Ibid., 273-274.
 
57. Milhollin, op. cit., 103-104.
 
58. Raviv, Dan and Melman, Yossi, Friend in Deed: Inside the U.S.-Israel 
Alliance (New York New York: Hyperion, 1994), 299.
 
59. Burrows and Windrem, op. cit., 464-465 and Raviv, Dan and Melman, Yossi, op. 
cit., 1990, 304-305.
 
60. Spector, The Undeclared Bomb, op. cit., 179.
 
61. Dowty, Alan. "Israel and Nuclear Weapons." Midstream 22, no. 7 (November 
1976), 8-9.
 
62. Hersh, op. cit., 217, 222-226, and Weissman and Krosney, op. cit., 107.
 
63. Green, op. cit., Living by the Sword, 90-99.
 
64. Loftus and Aarons, op. cit., 316-317.
 
65 Smith, Gerard C. and Cobban, Helena. "A Blind Eye To Nuclear Proliferation." 
Foreign Affairs 68, no. 3(1989), 53-70.
 
66. Hersh, op. cit., 230-231.
 
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73. Creveld, 1998, op. cit., 220-221.
 
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76. Karsh, op. cit., 86.
 
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86. Hersh, op. cit., 271-275.
 
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93. Sunday Times, London, op. cit., 1,4-5.
 
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95. Green, Living by the Sword, op. cit., 134.
 
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99. Burrows and Windrem, op. cit., 278.
 
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101. Aronson and Brosh, op. cit., 276.
 
102. Raviv and Melman, op. cit., 399.
 
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104. Levran, op. cit., 8-10.
 
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112. Hersh, op. cit., 319.
 
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116. Cordesman, op. cit., 1996, 265.
 
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118. Creveld, op. cit., 1993, 105.
 
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128. Cordesman, op. cit., 1996, 243.
 
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130. Shahak, op. cit., 78-79.
 
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132. O'Sullivan, Arich, "New F-15I Warplanes Expand Israel's Reach," The 
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133. Karsh, op. cit., 9.
 
134. Shahak, op. cit., 4-5.
 
135. Garrity, op. cit., 92-111.
 
136. Dowty, op. cit., 8.
 
137. Gaffney, op. cit., 165.
 
138. Ibid., 37-38 and Friedman, Robert I. Zealots for Zion: Inside Israel's West 
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139. Blanche, Ed, "Is the Myth Fading for the Israeli Army? " Part 1." Jane's 
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(January 1997), 25-28.
 
140. Cohen, Stuart A., The Scroll or the Sword? Dilemmas of Religion and 
Military Service in Israel (Amsterdam, Netherlands: Harwood Academic Publishers, 
1997), 11-24.
 
141. Creveld, op. cit., 1998, 298.
 
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143. Hough, Harold, op. cit., 1998, 11-12 and Berger, Julian, "Court Fury At 
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144. Creveld, op. cit., 1998, 252.
 
145. Valry, Nicholas, "Israel's Silent Gamble with the Bomb," New Scientist (12 
December 1974), 807-09.
 
146. Harden, Major James D., Israeli Nuclear Weapons and War in the Middle East, 
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147. Dowdy, op. cit., 20.
 
148. Aronson, Geoffrey, "Hidden Agenda: US-Israeli Relations and the Nuclear 
Question," Middle East Journal, 46, no. 4 (Autumn 1992), 619-630.
 
149. Data from Time, 12 April 1976, quoted in Weissman and Krosney, op. cit., 
107.
 
150. Burrows and Windrem, op. cit., 280 and Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, op. 
cit., 273-274.
 
151. Tahtinen, Dale R., The Arab-Israel Military Balance Today (Washington, DC: 
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1973), 34.
 
152. "How Israel Got the Bomb." Time, 12 April 1976, 39.
 
153. Burrows and Windrem, op. cit., 302.
 
154. Kaku, op. cit., 66 and Hersh, op. cit., 216.
 
155. Valéry, op. cit., 807-09.
 
156. Data from CIA, quoted in Weissman and Krosney, op. cit., 109.
 
157. Ottenberg, Michael, "Estimating Israel's Nuclear Capabilities," Command, 30 
(October 1994), 6-8.
 
158. Pry, op. cit., 75.
 
159. Ibid., 111.
 
160. Data from NBC Nightly News, quoted in Milhollin, op. cit., 104 and Burrows 
and Windrem, op. cit., 308.
 
161. Data from Vanunu quoted in Milhollin, op. cit., 104.
 
162. Harkavy, Robert E. "After the Gulf War: The Future of the Israeli Nuclear 
Strategy," The Washington Quarterly (Summer 1991), 164.
 
163. Burrows and Windrem, op. cit., 308.
 
164. Albright, David, Berkhout, Frans and Walker, William, Plutonium and Highly 
Enriched Uranium 1996. World Inventories, Capabilities, and Policies (New York: 
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute And Oxford University Press, 
1997), 262-263.
 
165. Hough, Harold, "Israel's Nuclear Infrastructure," Jane's Intelligence 
Review 6, no. 11 (November 1994), 508.
 
166. Ibid., 262-263.
 
167. Spector, and McDonough, with Medeiros, op. cit., 135.
 
168. Burrows and Windrem, op. cit., 283-284.
 
169. Cordesman, op. cit., 1996, 234.
 
170. Ibid., 234.
 
171. Ibid., 230, 243.
 
172. Brower, Kenneth S., "A Propensity for Conflict: Potential Scenarios and 
Outcomes of War in the Middle East," Jane's Intelligence Review, Special Report 
no. 14, (February 1997), 14-15.
 
173. Albright, Berkhout, and Walker, op. cit., 262-263.
 
USAF Counterproliferation Center
 
The USAF Counterproliferation Center was established in 1998 to provide 
education and research to the present and future leaders of the USAF, and 
thereby help them better prepare to counter the threat from weapons of mass 
destruction.
 
Barry R. Schneider, Director
USAF Counterproliferation Center
325 Chennault Circle
Maxwell AFB AL 36112-6427k
 
(334) 953-7538 (DSN (493-7538)
 
Email: Barry.Schneider@maxwell,af.mil
 
USAF site location for this report:
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cpc-pubs/farr.htm
 
This report is also posted at:
http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/israel/nuke/farr.htm
 


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