I am posting this here because I am not sure it has a GQ style answer. If wrong feel free to move it.
I hear it commonly thrown out the Israel has nuclear weapons. While Israel admits to no such thing (that I am aware of) everyone just “knows” it.
Well…how does everyone know? Is there proof somewhere that Israel simply refuses to acknowledge?
I admit that I believe if any country wanted a nuke and sought to get one Israelis would top the list in ability to manage it. They certainly have the technical smarts for them and if any country could pull off covertly finding some nuclear fuel I think they could. It also would not surprise me in the least if the US quietly just handed a bunch to them at some point.
Nevertheless is there any proof of any of this? If there is why do Israelis not declare themselves a nuclear state?
First they are unsure if it was indeed a nuclear explosion.
Second it does not explain why they think it was the Israelis conducting the test.
Third, isn’t it just a generally bad idea for countries to test nukes these days above ground without telling other countries they are going to do it? In a twitchy world seeing unaccounted for nukes going off I think gets people a bit agitated.
Finally, I cannot help but think of the scene in Dr. Strangelove where they are getting mad at the Soviet ambassador for not telling anyone about their doomsday weapon that will destroy the world if they are nuked. The exchange between the characters amounting to why the hell would you have a deterrent and NOT tell anyone about it?
This seems a good policy if you actually do not have any nuclear weapons but hope to enjoy the deterrent effect they possess. When surrounded by enemies who want to wipe you off the planet letting them think you will obliterate them back even if you cannot has a certain attraction.
Mordechai Vanunu was gaoled by Israel revealing details of Israel’s nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. He spent 18 years in prison, 11 of which were in solitary confinement.
He was an Israeli nuclear technician.
Lots of bibliography in the above linked wiki article.
The question remains (in my mind anyway) why the Israelis remain quiet on having nukes. It seems to me most of the point of having them is for their deterrent effect.
If they confirm their posession of nukes then the surrounding nations who, as stated before want to wipe Israel off the map, could potentially redouble their efforts to acquire nukes.
Not that I think the surrounding nations are not trying to acquire nukes, I’m just offering a possible line of thought.
Not really. As wackamole pointed out, if you have a deterent, the point is to make it as clear to would be agressors that it really exists as possible.
And in anycase, I don’t think Israel has really kept anyone guessing about whether they have nukes. It’s pretty much been an open secret for decades
Its a good policy if you have them to. If you deny having them you can keep those pesky I.A.E.A inspectors off your back. Lets face it if Isreal does in fact have nukes then they got them from the U.S. Not that Isreal could not develope the technology, but they could not do it without the rest of the world finding out. But if they do have them and we gave them to them then neither the U.S. or Isreal wants the rest of the world to know. So Isreal’s coy maybe we have them, maybe we don’t is a win win situation.
Aren’t there provisions in US law which prevent the sale of certain goods to nuclear powers and require suspension of certain types of aid? My guess is the Israelis don’t want to trigger a big political brou-ha-ha in the US.
I also thought Israel was an NPT signatory, which would bar them from having nukes?
Maybe they deny it for political reasons. They avoid the political complications that would ensue from admitting to having nukes.
Sure they will just throw them together in Goldsteins garage. Everybody knows that Nukes are simple and can be made in a couple of days out of spare parts just lying around.
First of all, it is nearly certain that the US neither provided Israel with complete nuclear weapons nor components thereof. To have done so would be in complete contradiction to decades of US policy regarding nuclear proliferation, both open and then-classified. The US has a vested interest in maintaining predominence in nuclear arsenals. The only nation with which we’ve (openly) shared nuclear weapon technology with is Great Britian, and that because much of the original work with “tube alloys” were done by scientists working in England. We repeatedly and strenuously objected to nuclear weapon development by nominal ally France. And if the US were known to have actively helped supply nuclear weapons or capability to Israel it would have destroyed what little credibility we retain with nations like Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
This isn’t to say that groups sympathetic to Israel or operatives from Israel haven’t acquired material surrepitously; in The Sum Of All Fears Tom Clancy alludes to a large MUF (material unaccounted for) at Savanah River in 1968, and there is speculation–as far as I know entirely unfounded–that the missing material was somehow stolen by and transported to Israel. I find it unlikely but not beyond the realm of possibility. More likely is that Israel collaborated with another nation, like France or South America, in producing and separating their own material, and in fact both nations are known to have assisted Israel in building facilities in the Negev for the purpose of breeding or enriching material. Whether it is, as openly claimed, material for power generation and scientific use, or (likely) for weapon fabrication, the fact is that Israel has the capability and technology to have produced weapons-grade material. Israel also has some mature, well-tested, and very effective delivery systems that are ideal for medium to large “tactical” nuclear weapons–so ideal for that purpose that, in fact, they were probably developed with that goal in mind, whether Israel actually possessed nukes or not.
The smart money is on Israel having nuclear weapons. So why not boast of it, parade it around like the US, the Soviet Union, China, and France have? Because Israel is a small country–practially the equivilent of a large Texas county–surrounded by opponents who would like to see it removed from the face of the Earth. Its enemies, with the proper backing from one of those big countries to the north and east, could follow through on that threat if they had sufficient reason to do so, nuclear capability or no. For Israel to acknowledge the possession of nukes would give those other nations reasons to either hand over technology (unlikely) or maintain an arsenal in one of those nations as well as a defensive posture.
This, of course, would be like a man choosing to sit on a dead-man switch connected to a land-mine; the Mid-East has been terribly unstable since European incursion, and while all parties want access and control over that region’s major resource (oil), neither wants to take the irrevokable step of placing nuclear weapons there. You’ll recall the mess we all got into about placing nukes in Turkey and Cuba, and no one wants a repeat of that situation. So everybody pretends that Israel is harmless, and everybody, including the Israelis, know that a conflageration in the Mid-East that results in a use of even so-called tactical nuclear weapons by Israel will result in the utter annihilation of Israel. The Israelis, hopefully somewhat less willing than Castro to “pull the Temple down on our heads”[sup]*[/sup], along with (likely) tacit pressure by the US not to publically proliferate, opted not to publicize their capability.
However, it is a well-known, if publically unverified, assumption that Israel has both a substantial nuclear arsenal and delivery methods for the same. It would be bad policy for them to publicize this after decades of secrecy, and bad PR for the US, as their major supporter, to have to acknowledge and accept proliferation in our ally while we vehmenantly protest the attempt to gain nuclear capability by other nations. It is in the US’s best interest to limit proliferation, even among allies, and barring that, to have plausible deniability toward the possession of nuclear capability by allies.
Israel is one of the three countries that has not signed the NPT.
Why would the IAEA investigate a non NPT participant that admited to having nuclear weapons. They aren’t investigating Pakistan or India, what would be the point?
The rest of the world did find out. People have already given cites above, but some quick googling will give you more. Again, its an open secert. The US did in fact try to prevent (sort of) the Isrealis nuclear program, here’s a FAS site giving a history of the program with details of other countries involvement. It has some links to more sources (which I haven’t read) at the bottom.
I would think if Israel uses nukes it is because they are faced with an immediate threat of annhilation. At that point I doubt they’d care that their use would bring about their annhilation.
I never understand the ability of countries/politicians to “pretend”. If everyone “knows” Israel has nukes how does maintaining the fiction that they don’t help matters? That this seems to be political reality I am not disputing but it just seems like a load of crap to me. It’d be like having a wife who you saw flirting outrageously with other guys and finding used condoms and mens clothes in your bedroom on numerous occasions but as long as you never actually caught her in the act you maintain the fiction that nothing is happening and your wife is faithful.