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Nuclear weapons and Israel
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Israel is widely believed to be the sixth country in the world to develop nuclear weapons and to be one of four nuclear-armed countries not recognized as a Nuclear Weapons State by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the others being India, Pakistan and North Korea. International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei regards Israel as a state possessing nuclear weapons, but Israel maintains a policy known as "nuclear ambiguity" (also known as "nuclear opacity"). Israel has never officially admitted to having nuclear weapons, instead repeating over the years that it would not be the first country to "introduce" nuclear weapons to the Middle East, leaving ambiguous whether it means it will not create or will not use the weapons.
Israel began investigating the nuclear field just one year after its 1948 founding and with French support secretly began building a nuclear reactor and reprocessing plant in the late 1950s.
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Israel is widely believed to be the sixth country in the world to develop nuclear weapons and to be one of four nuclear-armed countries not recognized as a Nuclear Weapons State by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the others being India, Pakistan and North Korea. International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohamed ElBaradei regards Israel as a state possessing nuclear weapons, but Israel maintains a policy known as "nuclear ambiguity" (also known as "nuclear opacity"). Israel has never officially admitted to having nuclear weapons, instead repeating over the years that it would not be the first country to "introduce" nuclear weapons to the Middle East, leaving ambiguous whether it means it will not create or will not use the weapons.
Israel began investigating the nuclear field just one year after its 1948 founding and with French support secretly began building a nuclear reactor and reprocessing plant in the late 1950s. Although Israel first built a nuclear weapon in 1967-68 it was not publicly confirmed from the inside until Mordechai Vanunu, a former Israeli nuclear technician, revealed details of the program to the British press in 1986. Israel is currently believed to possess between 75 and 200 nuclear warheads with the ability to deliver them by ground, aircraft, and submarine.
Development history
Pre-Dimona 1949-1956
Israel first showed interest in procuring nuclear materials in 1949, when a unit of the Israel Defense Forces Science Corps, known by the Hebrew acronym HEMED GIMMEL, carried out a two year geological survey of the Negev. While a preliminary study was initially prompted by rumors of petroleum fields, one objective of the longer two year survey was to find sources of uranium; some small recoverable amounts were found in phosphate deposits. That same year, the Science Corps (HEMED) funded six Israeli physics graduate students to study overseas, including one to go to the University of Chicago and study under Enrico Fermi, who had overseen the world's first artificial and self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
In early 1952 HEMED was moved from the IDF to the Ministry of Defense and was reorganized as the Division of Research and Infrastructure (EMET). That June, Ernst David Bergmann, the chief of research at the Defense Ministry and Prime Minister David Ben Gurion's scientific advisor, was appointed by Ben-Gurion to be the first chairman of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC). HEMED GIMMEL was renamed Machon 4 during the transfer, and was used by Bergmann as the "chief laboratory" of the IAEC; by 1953, Machon 4, working with the Department of Isotope Research at the Weizmann Institute, developed the capability to extract uranium from the phosphate in the Negev and new technique to produce indigenous heavy water. Bergmann, who was interested in increasing nuclear cooperation with the French, sold both patents to the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique (CEA) for 60 million francs. Although they were never commercialized, it was a consequential step for future French-Israeli cooperation.
At the same time Israeli scientists were also observing France's own nuclear program, and were the only foreign scientists allowed to roam "at will" at the nuclear facility at Marcoule.
After US President Dwight Eisenhower announced the Atoms for Peace initiative, Israel became the second country to sign on (following Turkey), and signed a peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement with the United States on 12 July 1955. This culminated in a public signing ceremony on 20 March 1957 to construct a "small swimming-pool research reactor in Nachal Soreq," which would be used to shroud the construction of a much larger facility with the French at Dimona.
Dimona 1956-1965
Negotiation
The French decision to help Israel build a nuclear reactor was not without precedent; in September 1955 Canada publicly announced that it would help the Indian government build a heavy-water research reactor for "peaceful purposes." When Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, France asked Israel to cross the Sinai in order to justify its and Britain's invasion of Egypt (see Suez Crisis), and Shimon Peres, sensing the opportunity on the nuclear reactor, accepted. On 17 September 1956, Peres and Bergmann reached a tentative agreement in Paris for the CEA to sell Israel a small research reactor. This was reaffirmed by Peres at the Protocol of Sèvres conference in late October for the sale of a reactor to be built near Dimona and for a supply of uranium fuel. After the Suez Crisis led to the threat of Soviet intervention and the British and French were being forced to withdraw under pressure from the US, Ben-Gurion sent Peres and Golda Meir to France. During their discussions the groundwork was laid for France to build a larger nuclear reactor and chemical reprocessing plant, and French Prime Minister Guy Mollet, ashamed at having abandoned his commitment to fellow socialists in Israel, supposedly told an aide, "I owe the bomb to them."
This deal was finalized on 3 October 1957 in two agreements: one political that declared the project to be for peaceful purposes and specified other legal obligations, and one technical that described a 24 megawatt EL-102 reactor. The one to actually be built was to be two to three times as large and be able to produce 22 kilograms of plutonium a year.
Excavation
Before construction began it was determined that the scope of the project would be too large for the EMET and IAEC team, so Shimon Peres recruited Colonel Manes Pratt, then Israeli military attaché in Burma, to be the project leader. Building began in late 1957 or early 1958, bringing hundreds of French engineers and technicians to the Beersheba and Dimona area. In addition, thousands of newly immigrated Sephardic Jews were recruited to do digging; to circumvent strict labor laws, they were hired in increments of 59 days, separated by one day off.
Rupture with France
When Charles de Gaulle became French President in late 1958 he wanted to end French-Israeli nuclear cooperation, and said that he would not supply Israel with uranium unless the plant was opened to international inspectors, declared peaceful, and no plutonium was reprocessed. Through an extended series of negotiations, Shimon Peres finally reached a compromise with Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville over two years later, in which French companies would be able to continue to fulfill their contract obligations and Israel would declare the project peaceful. Because of this, French assistance did not end until 1966.
In 1959 Israel bought 20 tons of heavy water from the United Kingdom, with the Norwegian company Noratom acting as a broker (it was originally bought by the UK from Norsk Hydro, but found to be surplus), and the nuclear reactor at Dimona went critical in 1962. By 1965 the Israeli reprocessing plant was completed and ready to convert the reactor's fuel rods into weapons grade plutonium.
Costs
The exact cost for the construction of the Israeli nuclear program are unknown, though Peres later said that the reactor cost $80 million in 1960 dollars, half of which was raised by foreign Jewish donors, including many American Jews. Some of these donors were given a tour of the Dimona complex in 1968.
Weapons production 1967-present
Israel is believed to have begun full scale production of nuclear weapons following the 1967 Six-Day War, although it may have had bomb parts earlier. A CIA report from early 1967 stated that Israel had the materials to construct a bomb in six to eight weeks and some authors suggest that Israel had two crude bombs ready for use during the war. According to US journalist Seymour Hersh, everything was ready for production at this time save an official order to do so. Moshe Dayan, then Defense Minister, convinced the Labor Party's economic boss Pinchas Sapir of the value of commencing the program by giving him a tour of the Dimona site in early 1968, and soon after Dayan decided that he had the authority to order the start of full production of 4 to 5 nuclear warheads a year. Hersh stated that it is widely believed that the words "Never Again" were welded, in English and Hebrew, onto the first warhead.
In order to produce plutonium the Israelis needed a large supply of uranium ore, some of which was procured by the Mossad on the pretense of buying it for an Italian chemical company in Milan. Once the uranium was shipped from Antwerp it was transferred to an Israeli freighter at sea and brought to Israel. The orchestrated disappearance of the uranium, named Operation Plumbat, became the subject of the 1978 book The Plumbat Affair.
Estimates as to how many warheads Israel has built since the late 1960s have varied, mainly based on the amount of fissile material that could have been produced and on the revelations of Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu. The CIA believed that the number of Israeli nuclear weapons stayed from 10 to 20 from 1974 through the early 1980s. Vanunu's information in October 1986 said that based on a reactor operating at 150 megawatts and a production of 40 kg of plutonium per year, Israel had 100 to 200 nuclear devices. Furthermore, Vanunu revealed that between 1980-1986 Israel attained the ability to build thermonuclear weapons. By the mid 2000s estimates of Israel's arsenal ranged from 75 to 200 nuclear warheads.
Several reports have surfaced claiming that Israel has some uranium enrichment capability at Dimona. Vanunu asserted that gas centrifuges were operating in Machon 8, and that a laser enrichment plant was being operated in Machon 9 (Israel holds a 1973 patent on laser isotope separation). According to Vanunu, the production-scale plant has been operating since 1979-80. The scale of a centrifuge operation would necessarily be limited due to space constraints. Laser isotope separation, however, if developed to operational status, could be quite compact. If highly enriched uranium is being produced in substantial quantities, then Israel's nuclear arsenal could be much larger than estimated solely from plutonium production.
Uranium enrichment could also be used to re-enrich reprocessed uranium into reactor fuel to more efficiently use Israel's uranium supply.
In 1991 alone, as the Soviet Union dissolved, nearly 20 Jewish top Soviet scientists reportedly emigrated to Israel, some of whom had been involved in operating nuclear power plants and planning for the next generation of Soviet reactors. In September 1992, German intelligence was quoted in the press as estimating that 40 Soviet nuclear scientists had emigrated to Israel since 1989.
Nuclear testing
On 2 November 1966, Israel may have carried out a non-nuclear test, speculated to be zero yield or implosion in nature. The only suspected nuclear test conducted by Israel has become known as the Vela Incident. On 22 September 1979, a US Vela satellite, built in the 1960s to detect nuclear tests, reported a flash resembling a nuclear detonation in the southern Indian Ocean. In response the Carter administration set up a panel led by MIT professor Jack Ruina to analyze the reliability of the Vela detection; they concluded in July 1980 that the flash "was probably not from a nuclear explosion," although the original intelligence community estimate was that it was 90% likely to be a nuclear test and a secret study by the Nuclear Intelligence Panel agreed with that initial finding. According to journalist Seymour Hersh, the detection was actually the third joint Israeli-South African nuclear test in the Indian Ocean, and the Israelis had sent two IDF ships and "a contingent of Israeli military men and nuclear experts" for the test.
Revelations
Dimona
The Israeli nuclear program was first revealed publicly on 13 December 1960 in a small Time article, which said that a non-Communist non-NATO country had made an "atomic development." On December 16, the Daily Express revealed this country to be Israel, and on December 18, US Atomic Energy Commission chairman John McCone appeared on Meet the Press to officially confirm the Israeli construction of a nuclear reactor and announce his resignation. The following day The New York Times, with the help of McCone, revealed that France was assisting Israel.
This flurry of media reporting led Ben-Gurion to make the only statement ever by an Israeli Prime Minister about Dimona. On December 21 he announced in front of the Knesset that they were building a 24 megawatt reactor "which will serve the needs of industry, agriculture, health, and science," and that it "is designed exclusively for peaceful purposes."
Weapons production
The first public revelation of Israel's nuclear capability (as opposed to development program) came from NBC News, which reported in January 1969 that Israel decided "to embark on a crash course program to produce a nuclear weapon" two years previously, and that they possessed or would soon be in possession of such a device. This was initially dismissed by Israeli and US officials, as well as in an article in The New York Times. Just one year later on July 18, The New York Times made public for the first time that the US government believed Israel to possess nuclear weapons or to have the "capacity to assemble atomic bombs on short notice."
The first extensive details of the weapons program came in the London based Sunday Times on 5 October 1986, which printed information provided by Mordechai Vanunu, a technician formerly employed at the Negev Nuclear Research Center near Dimona. For publication of state secrets Vanunu was kidnapped by the Mossad in Rome, brought back to Israel, and sentenced to 18 years in prison for treason and espionage. Although there had been much speculation prior to Vanunu's revelations that the Dimona site was creating nuclear weapons, Vanunu's information indicated that Israel had also built thermonuclear weapons.
Stockpile
The State of Israel has never made public any details of its nuclear capability or arsenal. The following is a history of estimates by many different reputable sources on the size and strength of Israel's nuclear arsenal.
- 1967 (Six Day War)- 2 bombs; 13 bombs
- 1969- 5-6 bombs of 19 kilotons yield each
- 1974- 3 capable artillery battalions each with 12 175 mm tubes and a total of 108 warheads; 10 bombs
- 1976- 10-20 nuclear weapons
- 1984- 12-31 atomic bombs; 31 plutonium bombs and 10 uranium bombs
- 1985- at least 100 nuclear bombs
- 1986- 100 to 200 fission bombs and a number of fusion bombs
- 1992- more than 200 bombs
- 1994- 64-112 bombs (5 kg/warhead); 50 nuclear tipped Jericho missiles, 200 total
- 1995- 66-116 bombs (at 5 kg/warhead); 70-80 bombs; "A complete Repertoire" (neutron bombs, nuclear mines, suitcase bombs, submarine-borne)
- 1996- 60-80 plutonium weapons, maybe more than 100 assembled, ER variants, varitable yields
- 1997- More than 400 deliverable thermonuclear and nuclear weapons (an intentionally high estimate)
- 2002– Between 75 and 200 weapons
- 2008- 150 or more nuclear weapons,
Delivery systems
Israeli military forces possess land, air, and sea based methods for deploying their nuclear weapons, thus forming a rudimentary nuclear triad, although it should be noted that the Israeli triad is mainly short to medium ranged, the backbone of which is submarine launched cruise missiles and medium ranged ballistic missiles, with Israeli Air Force tactical aircraft fulfilling the role normally played by strategic bombers in the Russian and American strategic deterrent.
Missiles
Ernst David Bergmann was the first to seriously began thinking about a ballistic missile capability and Israel test-fired its first Shavit II missile in July 1961. It was not until 1963 when Israel actually put a large-scale project into motion, spending $100 million to jointly develop and build 25 medium-range missiles with the French aerospace company Dassault. The Israeli project, codenamed Project 700, also included the construction of a missile field at Hirbat Zacharia, a site west of Jerusalem. The missiles that were first developed with France became the Jericho I system, first operational in 1971; they were updated to Jericho II in the mid 1980s and Jericho III in the mid 2000s.
Aircraft
Marine
In 2003 it was reported that Israel's three Dolphin class submarines were armed with US Harpoon missiles and tipped with nuclear warheads, giving Israel a secure second strike capability.
Other
Seymour Hersh reports that Israel developed the ability to miniaturize warheads small enough to fit in a suitcase by the year 1973.
Policy
Israel’s refusal to admit it has nuclear weapons or to state its policy on use of them make it necessary to gather details from other sources, including unauthorized statements by its political and military leaders.
Possession
Although Israel has officially acknowledged the existence of Dimona since Ben-Gurion's speech to the Knesset in December 1960, Israel has never officially acknowledged its construction or possession of nuclear weapons. In addition to this policy, on 18 May 1966 Prime Minister Levi Eshkol told the Knesset that "Israel has no atomic weapons and will not be the first to introduce them into our region," a policy first articulated by Shimon Peres to US President John F. Kennedy in April 1963. In the late 1960s, Israeli Ambassador to the US Yitzhak Rabin informed the United States State Department that its understanding of "introducing" such weapons meant that they would be tested and publicly declared, while merely possessing the weapons did not constitute "introducing" them. Avner Cohen defines this initial posture as "nuclear ambiguity," but he defines the stage after it became clear by 1970 that Israel possessed nuclear weapons as a policy of "nuclear opacity."
In a December 2006 interview, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert came close to breaking with Israel's policy of nuclear opacity, saying that Iran aspires "to have a nuclear weapon as America, France, Israel and Russia." Olmert's office later said that the quote was taken out of context; in other parts of the interview, Olmert refused to confirm or deny Israel's nuclear weapon status.
Doctrine
Israel's nuclear doctrine is shaped by its lack of strategic depth: a subsonic fighter jet could cross in four minutes the from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. It additionally relies on a reservist-based military which magnifies civilian and military losses in its small population. Israel tries to compensate for these weaknesses by emphasising intelligence, manoeuverability and firepower.
As a result, its strategy is based on the premise that it cannot afford to lose a single war, and thus must prevent them by maintaining deterrence, including the option of preemption. If these steps are insufficient, it seeks to prevent escalation and determine a quick and decisive war outside of its borders.
Strategically, Israel's long-range missiles, nuclear capable aircraft, and possibly its submarines present an effective second strike deterrence against unconventional and conventional attack, and if Israel's defences fail and its population centres be threatened, the Samson Option, an all out attack against an adversary, would be employed. Its nuclear arsenal can also be used tactically.
Although nuclear weapons are viewed as the ultimate guarantor of Israeli security, as early as the 1960s the country has avoided building its military around them, instead pursuing absolute conventional superiority so as to forestall a last resort nuclear engagement.
According to historian Avner Cohen, Israel first articulated an official policy on the use of nuclear weapons in 1966, which revolved around four "red lines" that could lead to a nuclear response:
1. A successful Arab military penetration into populated areas within Israel's post-1949 (pre-1967) borders.
2. The destruction of the Israeli Air Force.
3. The exposure of Israeli cities to massive and devastating air attacks or to possible chemical or biological attacks.
4. The use of nuclear weapons against Israeli territory.
Use
On 8 October 1973 just after the start of the Yom Kippur War, Golda Meir and her closest aides decided to put eight nuclear armed F-4s at Tel Nof Airbase on 24 hour alert and as many nuclear missile launchers at Sedot Mikha Airbase operational as possible. Seymour Hersh adds that the initial target list that night "included the Egyptian and Syrian military headquarters near Cairo and Damascus." This nuclear alert was meant not only as a means of precaution, but to push the Soviets to restrain the Arab offensive and to convince the US to begin sending supplies. One later report said that a Soviet intelligence officer did warn the Egyptian chief of staff, and colleagues of US National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger said that the threat of a nuclear exchange caused him to urge for a massive Israeli resupply. Hersh points out that before Israel obtained its own satellite capability, it engaged in espionage against the United States to obtain nuclear targeting information on Soviet targets.
Israeli military and nuclear doctrine increasingly focused on preemptive war against any possible attack with conventional, chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, or even a potential conventional attack on Israel's weapons of mass destruction.
Louis René Beres, who contributed to Project Daniel, urges that Israel continue and improve these policies, in concert with the increasingly preemptive nuclear policies of the United States, as revealed in the Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations.
After Iraq attacked Israel with Scud missiles during the 1991 First Gulf War, Israel went on full-scale nuclear alert and mobile nuclear missile launchers were deployed. In the build up to the United States 2003 invasion of Iraq, there were concerns that Iraq would launch an unconventional weapons attack on Israel. After discussions with President George W. Bush then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warned "If our citizens are attacked seriously - by a weapon of mass destruction, chemical, biological or by some mega-terror attack act - and suffer casualties, then Israel will respond." Israeli officials interpreted President Bush's stance as allowing a nuclear Israeli retaliation on Iraq, but only if Iraq struck before the US military invasion.
Maintaining a Nuclear Monopoly
Alone or with other nations, Israel has used diplomatic and military efforts as well as covert action to prevent other Middle Eastern countries from acquiring nuclear capabilities.
On 7 June 1981, Israel launched a preemptive air strike against Saddam Hussein's breeder reactor in Osirak, Iraq, in Operation Opera. The Mossad is also said to have assassinated professor Gerald Bull, an artillery expert, who was allegedly building a massive cannon or "super gun" for Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, which was capable of delivering a tactical nuclear payload.
On 6 September 2007, Israel launched an air strike dubbed Operation Orchard against a target in the Deir ez-Zor region of Syria. While Israel refused to comment, unnamed US officials said Israel had shared intelligence with them that North Korea was cooperating with Syria on some sort of nuclear facility. Both Syria and North Korea denied the allegation and Syria filed a formal complaint with the United Nations.
Journalist Seymour Hersh speculates that this air strike may have been intended as a trial run for striking alleged Iranian nuclear weapons facilities.
On January 7, 2007 The Sunday Times reported that Israel had drawn up plans to destroy three Iranian nuclear facilities with low-yield nuclear bunker-busters that would be launched by aircraft through "tunnels" created by conventional laser-guided bombs. These tactical nuclear weapons would then explode underground to reduce radioactive fallout. Israel denied the specific allegation. However, its military leaders admit that it rules out no option. The death of the Iranian physicist Ardeshir Hassanpour, who may have been involved in the nuclear program, has been reported by the intelligence group Stratfor to have been a Mossad assassination.
Iran is currently conducting atomic research that Israel fears is aimed at building a nuclear weapon. Israel has pressed for United Nations economic sanctions against Iran, and has repeatedly threatened to launch a military strike on Iran if the United States does not do so first.
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and United Nations’ Resolutions
Israel was originally expected to sign the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and on 12 June 1968 Israel voted in favor of the treaty in the UN General Assembly. But when the invasion of Czechoslovakia in August by the Soviet Union delayed ratification around the world, Israel's internal division and hesitation over the treaty became public. The Johnson administration attempted to use the sale of 50 F-4 Phantoms to pressure Israel to sign the treaty that fall, culminating in a personal letter from Lyndon Johnson to Israeli PM Levi Eshkol. But by November Johnson had backed away from tying the F-4 sale with the NPT after a stalemate in negotiations, and Israel would neither sign nor ratify the treaty. After the series of negotiations, US assistant secretary of defense for international security Paul Warnke was convinced that Israel already possessed nuclear weapons. In 2007 Israel sought an exemption to non-proliferation rules in order to import atomic material legally.
In 1996 the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the region of the Middle East. Arab nations and annual conferences of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) repeatedly have called for application of IAEA safeguards and the creation of a nuclear-free Middle East. Arab nations have expressed their disgust that the United States practices a double standard in criticizing Iran's nuclear program while ignoring Israel's possession of nuclear weapons. According to a statement by the Arab League, Arab states will withdraw from the NPT if Israel acknowledges having nuclear weapons and then does not open its facilities to international inspection and destroy its arsenal.
See also
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