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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://mondoweiss.net/2026/04/a-brief-history-of-the-israeli-nuclear-program-the-open-secret-at-the-heart-of-the-iran-war/?ml_recipient=184000856790664279&ml_link=184000836172514469&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2026-04-06&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation+-+8am">mondoweiss.net</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">A brief history of the Israeli nuclear program, the open secret at the heart of the Iran war</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Anna Illing</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time">April 5, 2026</div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><img src="cid:ii_mnn7r8oc0" alt="image.png" width="477" height="358"><br><p>
<font size="1">Negev Nuclear Research Center at Dimona, photographed by American
reconnaissance satellite KH-4 CORONA on November 11, 1968. (Image:
Wikimedia) </font></p><p>
The current U.S.-Israeli w
ar is the second war in less than a year
declared by Israel and the USA, allegedly on the grounds of dismantling
Iran\u2019s nuclear capabilities. </p>
<p>While there is no documented evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapon
or is close to developing one, there is another state in the Middle East
whose nuclear arsenal exists as an open secret. That state is, of
course, Israel, and its nuclear arsenal, although not officially
recognized or confirmed, stands as one of the leading drivers of unrest
throughout the region.</p>
<p>Israel\u2019s history with nuclear weapons unfolded between secrecy,
public tacit knowledge, and support, both materially and diplomatically,
from the West, creating a playbook of strategic ambiguity around it
still in place today.</p>
<p>At some point in the 1950s \u2013 it is impossible to pinpoint an exact date \u2013 David Ben Gurion, Israel\u2019s first prime minister, <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/explainers/what-do-we-know-about-israels-nuclear-weapons">launched</a> the country\u2019s nuclear project. </p>
<p>In the Negev desert, 152 kilometers from Tel Aviv and 90 kilometers
from Jerusalem, out of indiscreet sight, the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear
Research Center, commonly referred to simply as \u201cDimona\u201d complex, was
built. Seventy years later, the facility is considered the most
important pillar of Israel\u2019s nuclear program, while <a href="https://armscontrolcenter.org/countries/israel/">officially</a> it is a 26-megawatt thermal reactor. </p>
<p>To Israel\u2019s aid in this mission came France who, according to
historians, was seeking an alliance against Gamal Abdel Nasser, Egypt\u2019s
then-president.</p>
<p>Except for the French partner, everyone was kept in the dark about Dimona, including the USA. In December 1960 Ben Gurion <a href="https://en.majalla.com/node/324252/documents-memoirs/how-israel-deceived-us-and-built-bomb">reported</a> to the Israeli Knesset that the Dimona reactor was <em>\u201ca research reactor\u201d</em> which would serve <em>\u201cindustry, agriculture, health and science\u201d</em>.</p>
<p>Washington did repeatedly question the nature of Israel\u2019s actions in
Dimona, and US officials even inspected the site on eight occasions
between 1961 and 1969. </p>
<p>What they found was Israel\u2019s articulated and well-designed propaganda
stage: some sections of the nuclear plant were concealed, others were
carefully disguised, hiding their real purpose. </p>
<p>But in the meantime, it is believed \u2013 impossible to claim certainty \u2013
that Israel finished building its underground separation plant by 1965,
that it was producing weapons-grade plutonium by 1966 and assembling a
nuclear weapon before the 1967 six-days war. It is also believed that in
September 1979 Israel and apartheid era-South Africa conducted a joint
nuclear test, known as the <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/revisiting-1979-vela-mystery-report-critical-oral-history-conference">\u201cVela incident\u201d</a> from the US VELA 6911 satellite that detected a common sign of nuclear blast: an unexplained double flash of light. </p>
<p>Beliefs turned into facts in 1986. <a href="https://rightlivelihood.org/the-change-makers/find-a-laureate/mordechai-vanunu/">Mordechai Vanunu</a>,
a former Israeli nuclear technician, had been an employee at Dimona for
eight years when he disclosed to the Sunday Times details and
photographs of the nuclear research center. From this evidence, it was
discovered that Israel ranked as the world\u2019s sixth nuclear power and
possessed as many as 200 atomic warheads. For his act of
whistle-blowing, Mordechai Vanunu was imprisoned for 18 years, 11 of
which he spent in solitary confinement. He was released in 2004, but he
is still banned from travelling or speaking to foreign journalists. </p>
<p>There was, however, someone who was not caught by surprise: the U.S.
and UK governments, and, of course, France. In 1969, the then U.S.
president, Richard Nixon, and Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir,
reached a <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/2006-04-30/ty-article/declassified-article-shows-how-nixon-okayed-israels-nuclear-ambiguity/0000017f-e47f-d75c-a7ff-fcfff56a0000">\u201cnuclear understanding</a>\u201c:
questions would not be asked if Israel maintained silence and vagueness
around its capabilities and avoided testing its nuclear weapons.
Explained in Henry Kissinger\u2019s, then national security adviser, own <a href="https://publicintegrity.org/national-security/the-47-year-old-nuclear-elephant-in-the-room/">words</a>:
\u201cWhile we might ideally like to halt actual Israeli possession, what we
really want at a minimum may be just to keep Israeli possession from
becoming an established international fact.\u201d</p>
<p>It took an extra twenty years for the rest of the world to know the
extent of Israel\u2019s nuclear programs, and another extra twenty, until
2006, for the documents exposing the agreement between Nixon and Meir to
be declassified. Still, in 2009, when <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2009/2/10/headlines/obama_ducks_question_on_israeli_nukes">asked</a>
whether any countries in the Middle East possessed nuclear weapons,
Barack Obama, who was serving his first term as president of the USA,
said he would not speculate. </p>
<p>Similarly, in 2005, a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2005/aug/04/energy.past">BBC</a>
investigation revealed that Britain had secretly supplied 20 tons of
heavy water to Israel almost half a century before. Heavy water is so
called because it goes through a laborious electrolysis process, which
results in the water containing extra neutrons. At the time of the sale,
this type of water was fundamental to the nuclear reactor Israel was
building with French help. </p>
<p>One of the world\u2019s \u201cworst-kept secrets\u201d, as it has been called by
some scholars, that for Israel results in the ability to maintain its
military standing in the Middle East and simultaneously avoid scrutiny.
On the other side, for the West, silence on the matter is harder to
explain. Gary Samore, President Obama\u2019s top advisor on nuclear
nonproliferation from 2009 to 2013, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/09/israel-nuclear-weapons-secret-united-states/380237/">presented</a>
one reason behind the secrecy: \u201cFor the Israelis to acknowledge and
declare it, that would be seen as provocative. It could spur some of the
Arab states and Iran to produce weapons. So we like calculated
ambiguity.\u201d </p>
<p>There has been an attempt by the <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2014/12/2/un-vote-urges-israel-to-renounce-nuclear-arms">UN General Assembly</a>
to call on Israel to allow international oversight of its nuclear
facilities in December 2014. The resolution was adopted, 161 to 5, on
the premise that Israel is the only Middle Eastern country and one of
the three countries in the world that have never signed the Treaty on
the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, together with India and
Pakistan. Most importantly, of the world\u2019s nine nuclear powers \u2013 U.S.,
Russia, China, France, the UK, Pakistan, and North Korea \u2013 Israel is the
only one that does not officially admit having nuclear weapons. UN
resolutions are non-binding, so it kept being business as usual for
Israel. </p>
<p>To this day, there are <a href="https://www.nti.org/countries/israel/">estimates</a>
of Israel\u2019s nuclear capacity: 90 warheads; 750\u20131110 kg plutonium
stockpile, approximately \u2013 potentially enough for 187-277 nuclear
weapons; 6 Dolphin-I and Dolphin II-class submarines believed capable of
launching nuclear-armed cruise missiles; and Jericho III
intermediate-range ballistic missiles with a potential range of 4,800 \u2013
6,500 km. </p>
<p>Globally, these numbers would make Israel the <a href="https://armscontrolcenter.org/israeli-nuclear-weapons-at-the-heart-of-a-strategic-taboo/">second-smallest nuclear power</a>
after North Korea, but just as seventy years ago when Israel began
building nuclear weapons, it remains impossible to know anything for a
fact. </p>
<p>As events unfolded through the decades, the Israeli government
maintained its stance of neither confirming nor denying its nuclear
efforts, with some key rhetorical strategies that stayed the same. In
the \u201960s, Israel pledged \u201cnot to be the first country to introduce
nuclear weapons into the Middle East\u201d, an often-repeated line, also by
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in <a href="https://www.cfr.org/articles/israels-nuclear-weapons-program-and-lessons-iran">2011</a>.
Again in the \u201860 the expression \u201cthe Samson Option\u201d was coined, a
principle by which Israel would resort to nuclear retaliation in defence
from an existential threat. In fact, although they never admitted the
existence of a nuclear program, Israeli leaders have affirmed that
nuclear weapons could be used if necessary. </p>
<p>That was the case of the 1973 war, when Egypt and Syria mounted a
surprise attack. Anver Cohen, Israeli-American historian, professors and
author, among others, of <em>Israel and the Bomb</em>, and other
researchers have claimed that on that occasion Israel considered the
nuclear option. More recently and less covertly, in 2016, Netanyahu <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-president-turn-out-to-welcome-israels-newest-submarine/">claimed</a>: <em>\u201cour
submarine fleet acts as a deterrent to our enemies. They need to know
that Israel can attack, with great might, anyone who tries to harm it\u201d</em>. And in November 2023, <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-05/ty-article-live/u-s-efforts-for-a-ceasefire-increase-as-israeli-forces-make-their-way-deeper-into-gaza/0000018b-9d1a-d27d-a9fb-dfbbfcc60000?liveBlogItemId=1380721973#1380721973">Haaretz</a>
reported that Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu said in a radio
interview that dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip was <em>\u201can option\u201d</em>. </p>
<p>This long history and well-established narrative of secrecy and the
avoidance of international inspection have succeeded to the extent that
they remain in place today. Nonetheless, it is precisely because of
Israel\u2019s ambiguity that the <a href="https://armscontrolcenter.org/countries/israel/">Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation</a> reads on its website that <em>\u201cthe
lack of clarity surrounding an Israeli nuclear weapons program is a key
obstacle to establishing a weapons of mass destruction free zone in the
Middle East\u201d. </em></p>
<p>One of the many, often contradicting, motivations given by Trump to
justify its joint attack with Israel on Iran was the danger represented
by Iran\u2019s weapons of mass destruction, for the sake of the region\u2019s and
the world\u2019s safety. In his first <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i03vW40EDI8">statement</a> on the war on February 28 he warned: <em>\u201cJust
imagine how emboldened this regime would be if they ever had, and
actually were armed with nuclear weapons as a means to deliver their
message\u201d</em>. No imagination is needed. We have seen through the 70
years of Israel\u2019s nuclear program what this threat looks like. And if
the goal is to secure a nuclear-free region, then it is long overdue
that we start talking about Israel\u2019s nuclear arsenal. </p>
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