Peace
will not come by itself…will not be brought about by foreign
powers…[and] will not sprout in the present political soil of
the Middle East, but Israel can bring it closer – if it
convinces the Arabs that with the help of science, we can
eliminate their chances of defeating us, not only in the present
but also in the future.1
Shimon Peres (1965)
|
| Israeli nuclear reactor Dimona (top view) |
While
Israel’s military machine is considered the most powerful in
the Middle East, its people are more vulnerable than they have
been since the 1950s.2
The current Intifada has exposed the myth of Israeli
invincibility and has restructured the meaning of power in
conflict – Israel has no deterrent for an enemy that now lies
within. However, there is a more dangerous, subtle and
often-forgotten element that played and continues to play a key
role in Middle Eastern politics – Israel’s nuclear weapons.
Given that conflict in the Middle East is volatile, and tends to
quickly engage critical interests among enemies in close
proximity, nuclear weapons, for those who posses them, are a
major source of power, but also of instability for the entire
region.
According
to many experts, Israel is estimated to possess between 100 to
200 nuclear warheads.3
Israel’s nuclear ambitions are not recent, but in fact, it is
the sixth nation in the world and the first in the Middle East
to acquire nuclear weapons.4
Israel
completed the development stage of its first nuclear weapons in
1966-67 and, on the eve of the June 1967 War, “it already had
a rudimentary nuclear weapons capability.”
5
Interestingly enough, there is evidence to suggest that during
the critical stages of the 1973 October War, Israel put its
nuclear forces on alert.6
In 1981, Israel sent its airforce to destroy Iraq’s Osiraq nuclear
reactor in order to maintain its nuclear monopoly in the region.
The
period between 1948 and 1970 is considered the formative period
of Israel’s nuclear decision-making. During that period, its
nuclear doctrine fully materialized and the most decisive steps
were taken. Three men set Israel’s nuclear project in motion:
The nation’s leader, David Ben Gurion; his chief scientist,
Ernest David Bergmann; and his chief executive officer, Shimon
Peres.
Avner
Cohen explains that “Ben Gurion believed that Israeli
scientists could provide the ultimate answer to Israel’s
security problem. Ernest David Bergmann, an organic chemist,
tutored Ben Gurion in nuclear matters for many years. Shimon
Peres exploited the international opportunity to make the dream
into reality.”7
The
Strategic Utility of Israel’s Nuclear Weapons
Israel
has a policy of nuclear ambiguity and opaque deterrence. It
always avoided any reference to the precise nature of its
nuclear capability. On a strategic level, this policy seemed to
have been designed to produce “deterrence through
uncertainty.”
Since
the Arab states were unable to rule out the possibility that
Israel might possess a nuclear capability and might use it in
retaliation, this was expected to deter them from posing a
threat to its survival and existence.8
Such a policy served it well in the past, especially from the
1960s to the 1980s. It enabled Israel to continue its nuclear
development, send implicit threats to its enemies and also
minimize international frictions, especially with the United
States and its declared nonproliferation policy. By the 1970s,
Israel’s policy of opaque deterrence had become a strategic
foundation of its national security policy.9
Israel’s
nuclear weapons should be understood within the context of its
grand strategy for the region and the position it has assigned
for itself within it. More specifically, “Israel’s
strategies are regional in their orientation, [and] their
concern with the Palestinians is secondary. In fact, the
oppression of the Palestinians does not interest the Israeli
strategists… because Israeli strategies are aimed at
establishing a hegemony over the entire Middle East conceived of
as extending from India to Mauritania.”10
Long
before the current war in Afghanistan and the accompanying shift
in international strategy, Israel perceived its struggle as a
cosmic one against all Muslims.11
In order to achieve regional supremacy and to thwart any
potential adversaries in the Islamic world, it forged alliances
with major powers (Britain, France and later on the U.S.).
Recently, Israel also established close political, military and
nuclear ties with India and it has been closely monitoring
events in Central Asia since the fall of the Soviet Union.12
Nuclear weapons worked as a symbol of power to assert Israeli
hegemony over the region and to extend power to its allies.
Israel’s
nuclear strategy is built upon an obsession with security and
fear of annihilation. Nuclear weapons are seen in this regard as
a deterrent against the state’s destruction either as a
massive retaliation utility or through the use of tactical
nuclear weapons on Arab troop concentrations.
When
Israel started to think of developing the nuclear option, there
was little evidence of Arab willingness to tolerate any
coexistence with the Jewish state. Amidst periodic references to
“pushing Israel into the sea,” Israelis seemed to conclude
that its Arab neighbors intended to duplicate the ouster of the
Crusades seven centuries ago.13
Israeli
strategists are pessimistic with regards to the durability of
peace arrangements and the ability to maintain Israel’s
conventional qualitative military superiority over the long run.
In fact, Shimon Peres believes in the necessity of establishing
a permanent Jewish presence in Palestine. In his view, Arab
quantitative superiority must be neutralized by introducing
nuclear weapons in the security equation – a new qualitative
element. Peres wrote:
The
limits of quantitative superiority, and even its end, are more
significant in the security field. The traditional strategy was
based on three factors: quantitative superiority, geographical
space, and duration of time. But these factors disappeared with
the advent of nuclear, thermonuclear weapons and guided
missiles.14
 |
| Jericho
II, Israel’s mobile nuclear missile, can reach Demascus,
Cairo, and as far as Tehran and Benghazi
|
Israel
fears that once the Arab and Islamic world overcomes its current
state of military, economic and technological backwardness, its
position in the region would be precarious. The War of Attrition
in 1968-1970, the surprise attack of the 1973 October War and
the improved performance of the Arab armies in it as well as the
growing political and economic influence of the Arab states in
the wake of the oil embargo, all indicated that the political,
economic and military trends favored the Arab states.15
Israel’s
nuclear weapons could also be perceived as a psychological
weapon. More specifically, “nuclear weapons [are intended to]
induce moderation and a revolution of declining expectations in
the ‘Arab street’, as the end-of-the-world character of
atomic war is understood by both mass and elite elements within
the Arab World.”16
In
this sense, it is intended to dictate Israel’s existence in
the region and gradually produce a “pervasive feeling of doubt
and eventually resignation and despair about the dream of
annihilating Israel from the world’s map.”17
More
importantly, however, Israeli nuclear weapons play a very
important, albeit implicit, role in limiting Arab ambitions
during negotiations and in wartime. In fact, during the 1973
October War, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat recognized the
dangers inherent in an overall offensive beyond the Sinai passes
because of an anticipated Israeli nuclear response.18
Also,
nuclear weapons limited Sadat’s objectives during the Camp
David negotiations. Shlomo Aronson and Oded Broch maintain that
“neither President Carter or President Sadat could pressure
Israel to make concessions with regards to the nuclear option.
How could they, when, in fact, this nuclear option was one of
the main reasons why Sadat was ready to negotiate in the first
place.”19
In
addition, it facilitated the imposition of a peace deal that
favors Israel in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. Avner
Cohen suggests that: “Israeli nuclear weapons were important
in encouraging Arab realism… [They were] instrumental in
bringing Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem in 1977 and
may have been even more important in convincing other Arabs,
particularly the Palestinians, to recognize that the
Arab-Israeli conflict could not be resolved by the sword.”
20
At a press conference in Jordan held on July 13, 1998, Peres
stated that “Israel built a nuclear option in order not to
have a Hiroshima but an Oslo.”21
Israel
is also concerned with maintaining the current status-quo in the
region. Nuclear weapons serve as a deterrent to any would-be
adversaries from altering the status-quo. In fact, “Israel has
contingency plans to be applied if the ‘Egyptian regime should
change’ or because ‘the Saudi royal family will not reign
forever’… Israel is preparing for war, nuclear if needed be,
for the sake of averting domestic change not to its liking, if
it occurs in some or any Middle Eastern states.”22
Conclusions
Israel’s
possession of nuclear weapons has been, no doubt, a major source
of instability in a volatile region with a long history of
conflict. Nuclear weapons did not guarantee security for Israel
in low-intensity conflicts such as those against the
Palestinians or against Hizbullah guerrillas in southern
Lebanon.
Nevertheless,
it helped it achieve many of its long-term strategic objectives
by providing it with a viable means of deterrence, compellence,
and regional hegemony. In the absence of effective international
means for addressing interstate security concerns in a fair and
just manner, states resort to any means to achieve their goals.
There is a lesson to be learnt for all Arab and Muslim leaders
and apologetics who willingly refuse to join the nuclear club:
“learn from your enemy.”
Useful
Links:
[1]
Taysir Nashif, Nuclear Weapons in Israel (New Delhi:
S.B. Nangia, 1996): 85. Originally taken from Shimon Peres, Hashalav
Haba (The Next Phase) (Tel Aviv: ‘Am Hasefer, 1965).
[2]
Christopher
Dickey and Daniel Klaidman, “How Will Israel Survive?”
Newsweek
April 1st, 2002: 22-26.
[3]
Cameron W. Barr, “Israel’s Worst Kept Secret, on
Web,” Christian
Science Monitor August
24th, 2000: 1-2.
[4]
Avner
Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1998): 1.
[5]
Ibid.
[6]
Michael
Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel: Setting,
Images, Process (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1972): 216; See also Nashif, Nuclear Weapons in Israel,
pp. 81.
[7]
Ibid.,
9.
[8]
Shai Feldman, Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control in
the Middle East (Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1997): 97.
[9]
Avner
Cohen, “The Bomb That Never Is,”
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
56 (May/June 2001): 22-24.
[10]
Israel
Shahak, Open Secrets: Israeli Nuclear and Foreign
Policies (London: Pluto Press, 1997):
31-32.
[11]
Ibid.,
32-33. Shahak’s comments involve insights from military
and intelligence experts and prominent authors in the Hebrew
press.
[12]
Ibid.,
31-32.
[13]
George
H. Quester, “Nuclear Weapons and Israel,” Middle East
Journal 37
(Autumn 1983): 548.
[14]
Qtd. in Taysir Nashif, Nuclear Weapons in Israel (New
Delhi: S.B. Nangia, 1996): 85.
[15]
Ibid.,
52.
[16]
Steven
J. Rosen, “A Stable System of Mutual Nuclear Deterrence in
the Arab-Israeli Conflict,” The American Political
Science Review 71
(December 1977): 1373.
[17]
Qtd. in
Ibid.
[18]
Shlomo
Aronson and Oded Brosh, The Politics and Strategy of
Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East: Opacity, Theory
and Reality, 1960-1991
(New York: State University of New York Press, 1992):
145.
[19]
Ibid.,
163.
[20]
Avner
Cohen, “Did Nukes Nudge the PLO?” Bulletin of the
Atomic Scientists 49
(December 1993).
[21]
In the
post-Gulf War period, Israel’s
nuclear policy seems to have become more explicit in light
of media reports dealing with Vanunu’s revelations and in
response to Iraqi missile attacks on Israel. This was the
first time that Peres explicitly admitted that Israel
possessed nuclear weapon capabilities, nevertheless
Israel’s official policy of “nuclear ambiguity” is
generally upheld and has not changed to this date. “Israel’s Nuclear Posture Review,”
(Center for Nonproliferation Studies: Monterrey Institute of
International Studies, December 1998).
[22] Israel
Shahak, Open Secrets: Israeli Nuclear and Foreign
Policies: 43-44. (In his analysis, Shahak cites
important figures such as Oded Brosh, a distinguished expert
in nuclear politics who can be presumed to speak in
semi-official capacity, and Shlomo Gazit, a former military
intelligence commander who often explains in the
media the strategic aims of the Israeli security system)
