Israel and the Bomb

Writing this book was not easy. It required overcoming scholarly and personal difficulties. Some had to do with access to sources, archival and human; some with breaking an Israeli code of silence concerning the discussion of nuclear weapons. The latter was more taxing than the former. I had to abandon acquired habits and practices, and distance myself from modes of thought and speech into which I have been socialized.

Like other Israelis, I had internalized the norms governing the Israeli discourse on nuclear weapons, having learned that Israelis were not supposed to discuss their nation’s nuclear weapons program. Israelis avoid uttering the phrase “atomic bomb,” using instead phrases such as “nuclear option” and “nuclear capabilities,” just as orthodox Jews would never utter God’s name, using all kinds of euphemisms instead. I have come to see these circumlocutions for what they were—burdensome and unnecessary evasions—but I still feel a certain unease talking openly about Israel’s nuclear arsenal.

Ambivalence toward and inhibition regarding nuclear weapons are not an Israeli invention. They have been present in all nuclear-weapon programs since the Manhattan Project. In Israel, however, these attitudes have been manifested in the extreme. The code of silence over the nuclear issue is a testimony to what Israelis call kedushat habitachon—the sacredness of security. As a result, Israel’s nuclear status has remained an enigma, referred to both as “the world’s worst kept secret” and “the bomb that never is.”¹

Little has been written about Israel’s nuclear history, even less about the meaning and interpretation of this history. It is therefore appropriate to close this book with reflections on the subject.

Israel was the sixth nation to acquire nuclear weapons, but it had marked differences from the first five nations. The others were powerful countries, large in population and territory, rich in resources (except, perhaps, China), all of them major players on the international scene. Young Israel was small and poor, without an industrial base.

Israel’s nuclear project was a distinct product of the Zionist phase in Israel’s history. That phase was the age of the grand Zionist projects: the big settlements, economic development, water projects that were initiated in Israel’s first decade. The nuclear program was probably the most complex project Israel has ever undertaken—the most sensitive politically, the costliest, the most challenging technologically, and the most secretive.

The nuclear project was, in many ways, the ultimate Zionist project. Its purpose was to ensure the physical existence of the State of Israel, the product of the Zionist movement. At the beginning there were fears, vision, and audacity. The project’s managers relied on intuition and opportunities. Action came first, planning came later. With more knowledge and forethought, and a more orderly decision-making process, the project might never have taken off.²

Ben Gurion, with his fears, hopes, and authority, was present from the very beginning. What would have happened had it not been for him? I am convinced that without Ben Gurion at the helm, Israel’s nuclear project as we know it would not have been launched. No other Israeli leader at the time—Moshe Sharett, Pinhas Lavon, Levi Eshkol, or Golda Meir—had the vision, courage, and authority to make those decisions. In 1955–58, when the important decisions about Dimona were made, the idea of an Israeli nuclear project was beyond the ken of even the most activist and security-minded Israeli leaders. Most members of Israel’s small scientific community questioned the viability of the project. But Ben Gurion persisted.

Had the decisions Ben Gurion made in 1955–58 not been taken, Israel might have developed a modest nuclear research program in the late 1950s. It is also possible that, by the late 1960s, it would have had a civilian nuclear power program with some weapon-producing potential. Any Israeli prime minister would have purchased the small research reactor that the United States offered Israel in 1955 because the Israeli scientific establishment firmly supported it. Israel’s nuclear program would not have been equal to the Dimona project, however. It would have been different, in purpose and character, from the project Ben Gurion had initiated and Peres executed in 1955–58. What is not in doubt is that without Ben Gurion, Peres, and Bergmann, Israel would not have had an operational nuclear weapons capability on the eve of the Six-Day War.

Had Israel not acted in the mid-1950s as it did, it would have been more difficult for it to do so later. The French assistance was unique. Nowhere else could Israel have expected to receive such a large, unsafeguarded reactor, as well as the accompanying reprocessing technology. It would have been nearly impossible for Israel, technologically and financially, to develop a plutonium-based nuclear infrastructure on its own.

On the domestic front, the secret decisions could have been taken only in the mid- and late 1950s, the period when Ben Gurion’s moral authority and bureaucratic control were at their peak. Kedushat habitachon was still an absolute value, and Ben Gurion personified it. Had Ben Gurion waited another five or ten years to initiate the project, he would have faced a different Israel, a nation less trusting and gullible, a society that would not have given him the freedom to act as he saw fit. The struggles that split MAPAI in the early 1960s, and brought Ben Gurion down, were early indications of the political transformations that would change Israel.

By the 1960s international attitudes toward nuclear weapons proliferation were changing, and IAEA safeguards were being developed. In 1968 the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed (had it not been for the initiation of the Dimona project a decade earlier, Israel would likely have joined the treaty), and its presence would have changed states’ calculations. The opportunities available to Israel in the 1950s would have disappeared. Had Israel tried to develop a nuclear project a decade later, the Arabs and the superpowers would have responded differently than they did a decade earlier.

What was the impact of the nuclear project on Israel: on its science and technology, on its national security, on its relations with the Arabs, and on its own self-image? Would Israel without nuclear weapons have been the same Israel as we know it now?

These questions cannot be answered with precision. There are no data available on the effects of the nuclear and related programs on the development of Israeli science, technology, and industry. Part of the difficulty is methodological, having to do with the definition of boundaries of the nuclear project, and with measuring the spillover of the project into other areas. Opacity also makes it difficult to answer the less quantifiable aspects of the puzzle. Since the existence of nuclear weapons is not acknowledged, it is difficult to discern their effects on Israel’s foreign and defense relations.

There is no doubt, however, that the nuclear project has had profound consequences for the State of Israel. It has greatly contributed to the rapid development of Israeli science and technology. Virtually all Israeli universities and research institutions benefited from the fruits of the project, in one way or another. The project, and related research and development activities, have also contributed to the advent of Israel’s high-tech industries in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly in the areas of computers, aeronautics, and telecommunications.

Even more intriguing are the effects of the bomb on Israel’s national security, on Arab-Israeli relations and Arab-Israeli peace. The fact is that Israel has nuclear weapons and the Arabs do not. The 1967 war, related to the nuclear issue but not caused by it, left the Arabs defeated and humiliated. Nasser could no longer respond to the Israeli nuclear challenge, allowing Israel to travel safely through the risky transition to a nuclear-weapon state.

The 1970s and 1980s were the golden era of nuclear opacity. The Arabs were not deterred from waging the 1973 war by the knowledge that Israel was in possession of nuclear weapons (although nuclear weapons might have induced them to limit their war aims), but the war also established that Israel was a prudent nuclear-weapon state. The robustness of opacity was demonstrated in other situations. During the Egyptian-Israeli peace negotiations in 1978–79, Egypt, under American pressure, ignored the nuclear issue, understanding that emphasizing the issue would be counterproductive. Iraq threatened to shatter opacity when it started its own nuclear weapons program, but Israel responded in 1981 by destroying the Iraqi reactor, demonstrating its determination to deny nuclear weapons to Arab states. The Arab reaction was milder than had been anticipated, indicating that the Arabs recognized that it would not be in their interests to confront Israel’s nuclear monopoly as long as Israel kept its nuclear profile opaque. The 1986 Vanunu revelations accentuated Israel’s nuclear image in the Arab world but were insufficient to undermine opacity.

Opacity has been successful in Israeli eyes, allowing Israel to enjoy a regional nuclear monopoly without incurring the political cost of possessing nuclear weapons. This brought many Arabs to the realization that the conflict could not be settled by military means, but only through negotiation. The peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, the Oslo agreements with the Palestinians in 1993, and the peace treaty with Jordan in 1994 were negotiated in the shadow of opaque nuclear weapons.

Ben Gurion’s vision of an Israel secured against existential threats has now been realized. Though nuclear weapons have not been officially acknowledged, they have greatly contributed to Israel’s image as the strongest nation in the Middle East. The Jews of Israel will never be like the Jews in the Holocaust. Israel will be able to visit a terrible retribution on those who would attempt its destruction.

Still, some questions persist: Has Israel gone too far in its nuclear pursuit under opacity? Have nuclear weapons made Israel arrogant? Indeed, has Israel’s nuclear might led some of its leaders to believe that nothing matters in politics but raw military power?

These are intriguing, even disturbing, questions. Unfortunately, opacity has made it difficult, if not impossible, to research and debate them. This leads me to the second, even more fundamental difference between Israel and the first five nuclear-weapon states. Unlike the five declared nuclear powers, Israel has never acknowledged its nuclear-weapon status. If France had invented opacity as a temporary measure to becoming a nuclear power, Israel has made opacity a permanent posture.

Secrecy about the development of nuclear weapons is not unique to Israel. The first five nuclear-weapon states kept their initial development effort secret. Once they acquired nuclear weapons capability, they acknowledged their status while continuing to maintain secrecy with regard to technical matters and doctrine. Israel was the first country that decided to build nuclear weapons but not to declare their possession, first through a policy of denial, later through ambiguity that evolved into opacity. Israel’s declaratory policy is still “not to be the first to introduce nuclear weapons to the Middle East.” Israel thus chose a schizophrenic path.

Israel’s nuclear opacity is by now more than a phenomenon of international politics or strategy—it is a cultural and normative phenomenon as well. Individuals and events determined the way Israel stumbled into opacity in the 1950s and 1960s, but since then opacity has become embedded in Israel’s national security culture—in the values, attitudes, and norms passed on to those who are initiated into the culture.

The culture of opacity is rooted in several convictions: that it is vital to Israel’s security to possess nuclear weapons; that the Arabs should not be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons, thus maintaining an Israeli nuclear monopoly; that Israel cannot openly make a case for nuclear monopoly and thus must keep its nuclear status unacknowledged; that the nuclear issue must be kept out of public discourse; that the issue should be left to anonymous nuclear professionals; and, finally, that the policy of opacity has served Israel well and has no alternative. Even in today’s Israel, when all other security-related organizations and issues, including the Mossad and the Shin Bet, have become a matter of public debate and criticism, the nuclear complex is conspicuous in its absence from the public agenda.

There is, however, a price to be paid for this policy. Opacity has stifled public debate on the nuclear issue in Israel.³ All of Israel’s democratic institutions—the Knesset, political parties, the press, academia—have looked the other way when it came to nuclear weapons. They have abdicated their democratic duties—checking, debating, informing, overseeing, critiquing—in the face of the nuclear issue. This code of silence is an anomaly in a political culture characterized now by lively, open debate on virtually every public issue, including other sensitive defense matters. Such a debate is at the heart of Israeli democracy. The culture of opacity thus marks a striking failure of that democracy.

It was this tension between democratic norms and nuclear secrecy that brought me, in the mid-1980s, three years before the Vanunu affair, to reflect on the uniqueness of the Israeli nuclear case. I returned to Israel in 1982, after seven years in the United States. Like many of my generation I was moved by the antinuclear sentiment of the early 1980s. I began to think about nuclear weapons and the philosophical puzzles and paradoxes associated with them. The result was Nuclear Weapons and the Future of Humanity: The Fundamental Questions, which Steven Lee and I published in 1986.⁴

Around that time I became aware of the “tragic paradox” (as Robert Dahl called it): the contradiction between nuclear weapons and the principles and values of a liberal democracy. Following Richard Falk, one of the contributors to that volume, I recognized that nuclear weapons create “structural necessities” that contradict the spirit of democratic government. Nuclear weapons corrode and corrupt democratic rule.⁵

The argument that Dahl, Falk, and others articulated is simple but powerful. Decisions about nuclear weapons—development, deployment, doctrine, command and control, safety, and ultimately use—are the most fateful decisions a nation can make. Because of their vast consequences, such decisions require a thorough process of deliberation and discussion. Yet these decisions tend to escape the control of democratic processes. Many of the decisions in all the nuclear weapon states were made in secrecy and under the code of “atomic sovereignty.” All nuclear weapons complexes function, in one way or another, as a state within a state, protected by the complexes’ own nuclear guardians. But who guards the guardians? In a liberal democracy we know that there are no Platonic guardians who can know, and be motivated only by, the good of the Republic. The guardians have interests of their own that are not necessarily compatible with the common good.

I recognized, then, that Israel’s nuclear opacity has elevated the tension between nuclear secrecy and democracy to new heights. It did not occur to me then that a decade later this issue would become, for me, a very personal matter. In April 1994, after months of discussions with the Israeli military censor, he informed me that for “reasons of state” he was banning the publication of a monograph I had written on this subject. I was told that this was the first time in Israel’s history that a product of academic research and scholarship, not a journalistic exposé, was suppressed in its entirety by the censor. When all efforts to reach a compromise failed, I petitioned the Israeli Supreme Court of Justice to reverse the censor’s decision.⁶ I soon realized, however, that the censor’s objection had little to do with concerns about information I might have divulged, since during nearly a year of legal correspondence, the censor refused to tell me exactly what he found objectionable or harmful. At issue, I felt, was a violation of a national taboo, breaching the code of Israeli nuclear opacity. The monograph was never published, but it inspired me to write a new and much larger work on the subject.

Israel is the only Western democracy that has a military censor who oversees every publication dealing with security issues. Over the years the impact of the censor has diminished, with the exception of the nuclear issue. The existence of this office reinforces Israel’s policy of opacity in two ways. First, it strengthens the code of silence by disallowing serious discussion of nuclear policies. Second, the fact that the office exists makes any published expression seen to carry a message on behalf of the government. If Israeli writers were to start referring to “nuclear bombs” rather than to “nuclear potential,” it would be taken as a new governmental policy.

Opacity is thus, in one way, consistent with a deep-rooted Israeli tendency to hold off on important decisions that would determine the country’s identity. The nuclear issue has joined a long list of fundamental issues on which Israel conducts itself like an ostrich by avoiding clear-cut, public decisions. Other examples include state versus religion; the Jewish character of Israel; Israel’s relationship with the domestic Arab population; its relationship with the Palestinians; and the future of the occupied territories. In the case of nuclear weapons, however, unlike these other issues, the question is hardly discussed; opacity has allowed Israel to make the necessary practical decisions without addressing the fundamental, long-term issues.

Can opacity last? Should opacity last? For how long? If not, what should Israel’s future nuclear posture be? Israeli leaders assume that the continuation of the current posture of opacity is essential for Israel’s security, since only under opacity would Israel be able to keep its nuclear program intact and unchecked. I disagree. The time may have come for Israel to find ways to move beyond opacity. Here are some reasons why (in addition to the democratic argument about the inpact on democratic values discussed above).

In the past Israel’s nuclear opacity entailed a significant element of technological and operational uncertainty about the country’s nuclear program. This uncertainty has disappeared. In addition to the Vanunu revelations, satellite photos exposed other aspects of Israel’s nuclear infrastructure. While many of the details are still unknown, as is the case in all other nuclear nations, the big picture is clear. Opacity has become increasingly anachronistic.

It is true that even after Vanunu, opacity has proved itself impervious to the facts, but this was in an era in which Arab governments were still acquiescing to Israeli opacity. Since the Gulf War this is no longer the case, and opacity has been weakened as a regional regime. The Arabs, especially Egypt, are no longer interested in playing their roles in the game of opacity. They now insist that Israel has nuclear weapons, whether Israel confirms it or not. Indeed, Egypt now publicly considers Israel a nuclear-weapon state, saying that the nuclear issue should be addressed through multilateral bodies, such as the Arms Control and Regional Security (ACRS) working group. Egypt has demanded that ACRS initiate discussions on the establishment of a zone free of all weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, and has insisted that tangible progress in the nuclear discussions be achieved in parallel to progress in the peace negotiations. The nuclear impasse has put the ACRS process in a deep freeze. It is doubtful that any substantial progress in the arms control track is possible without Israeli readiness to discuss the nuclear issue.

Another consideration is the impact of opacity on Israel’s own long-term nuclear policy. Opacity prevents conceptual clarity about Israel’s intentions and objectives. This may have been a virtue in the past, when opacity blurred the tension between Israel’s commitment to acquire and preserve nuclear weapons capability, and its commitment not to nuclearize the Middle East. In the context of the peace process, however, the intrinsic tension in the Israeli position has become apparent. Israel has projected two contradictory messages. On the one hand, Israel’s traditional position on the matter of a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (NWFZ) sounds as if Israel agrees in principle with the Arab position that once the Middle East is peaceful, no party should have a right to maintain nuclear weapons. On the other hand, Israeli leaders have made it clear that they have no intention of giving up their nation’s ultimate deterrent even after signing comprehensive peace agreements. Israeli leaders consider nuclear weapons indispensable to Israeli security and to the architecture of peace.⁷

Under opacity Israel has been able to project contradictory objectives without the need to explain away the contradiction. Opacity about long-term objectives made sense during a time of conflict. The end of the conflict, if it comes, will force Israel to confront its nuclear dilemma. Israel will have to face the moment of truth about its nuclear program.

Two kinds of criticism—procedural and substantitive—may be raised against the complaints about opacity I have just made. First, one could argue that my complaints are uninformed and overstated, and that, in reality, despite the unavoidable secrecy, decision making in this area has been rational and has conformed to prudent procedures, with institutionalized mechanisms installed to compensate for the unique character of Israel’s nuclear situation.⁸ One could argue, for example, that the Knesset has a small subcommittee that hears regular briefings on the nation’s nuclear activities.

Second, and more important, many argue that there is no policy alternative to opacity. Any effort to deal more openly with the nuclear issue will generate more costs than benefits. For the sake of strategic stability, nuclear nonproliferation, and Israel’s relationship with the United States, Israel cannot and should not change its opaque policy. Despite its flaws, opacity has no alternative, surely not at the current time.

As to the first argument, although it is generally true that the system Israel has institutionalized for its decision making on nuclear issues allows for some outside review and even oversight through classified forums, those discussions tend to be bureaucratic and short-term in nature. They tend to be about procedures, budgets, and tactics, not about long-term policies and strategies. As to the question of parliamentary control, that the Knesset subcommittee has no independent tools and personnel to evaluate what it is being told makes its oversight job not much more than a ritual. The fact remains that no other issue of comparable consequence to Israel’s future has been debated so little in public.

The second, more substantive argument, is more difficult to answer. I strongly agree that without adequate preparations, consultations, and assurances, at home and abroad, Israel cannot change its opacity policy, particularly its declaratory posture. Furthermore, I agree that any hasty effort to go beyond opacity could be dangerous, even counterproductive, to the causes of Israeli national security, regional stability, global nonproliferation, and American-Israeli relations. A change of policy without adequate preparation could damage Israel’s greatly improved position in the region and the world, and could generate pressure on Israel to give up nuclear weapons entirely. For these reasons I do not advocate any unilateral or abrupt change of policy.

To say one must handle the issue with utmost care, however, is different from saying that there is no alternative to current opacity. First, a post-opacity posture ought not to be confused with complete transparency. No nuclear-weapon state is completely transparent about its nuclear weapons posture, and details about the stockpile, command-and-control procedures, and security issues are not discussed in public. What should be discussed in a post-opacity era are issues relating to strategic-doctrinal concepts, accountability and oversight, and history.

Second, to move beyond opacity in a prudent manner Israel would have to assure itself of political preconditions: (1) an appropriate regional context, perhaps a critical breakthrough in the peace process; (2) careful preparation and coordination with the United States; and (3) progress in the global arms control agenda.

One avenue for a deliberate, cautious move to a post-opacity era could be in the context of the proposed Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT). The idea of a treaty prohibiting any future production of fissile material for weapons has been discussed on and off for years. In recent years the proposal was again discussed at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva, though at present there are significant problems with that forum. One major political difficulty is the question of how much ground an FMCT should cover, whether it should be linked to a “time-bound” commitment to nuclear disarmament by the weapon states , and to what extent it could make the past transparent.

Notwithstanding these difficulties, a properly constructed FMCT could provide Israel with a number of advantages. First, it could give legitimacy to Israel’s possession of weapon-grade fissile material, hence legitimizing Israel’s nuclear status. Second, an FMCT puts a halt on the production of weapon-grade fissile material; it does not refer in any way to bombs nor even need it count past production of weapon-grade material.

At the same time, it is hard to believe that a discussion of a fissile material cutoff could be kept to closed forums. What is at stake is too important to be left to a handful of ministers and anonymous bureaucrats. Active discussion of a cutoff would inevitably force Israel to move to a post-opacity stage. It would make Israel’s nuclear program more, but not entirely, transparent. Opacity will necessarily diminish, but some ambiguities will long remain.

In the end a formal peace will not alter the fundamentals of Israel’s geopolitical situation. The Middle East is still far from reaching the era of democratic peace. Even if peace prevails, it will not be peace among democracies. Furthermore, the trend toward technological competency in the region seems to outpace the trend toward democracy and peace. It is not only the lessons of the past but also the trends of the future that give Israel the right to preserve its nuclear deterrent, in some form or another, as a hedge against the resumption of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israel should be in a position to say that, and to discuss more openly what such a hedge should look like.

A similar process should be taking place on the collective level as well. The issues of how Israel should move to post-opacity are complex and sensitive, but the real resistance to change does not lie in this or that specific consideration. Rather, the opposition comes from the structure of opacity itself, that is, opacity as a self-enclosed culture that does not permit thinking on how to move to a post-opacity era. It is comfortable for those in charge of Israel’s nuclear infrastructure to work anonymously, immune from outside criticism. Once the anxiety of silence is eased, it will be easier to deal with the substantive issues. Just as other nuclear-weapon democracies found compromises to ease the tension between nuclear weapons and democratic principles, so too can Israel.

The United States has learned this lesson after the cold war. In recent years Americans have become aware of the mistakes and follies committed under the protection of nuclear secrecy. Nuclear weapons were not used during the four decades of the cold war, but many American citizens were casualties of the secret activities of the nuclear weapons complex. President Bill Clinton recently apologized for these mistakes, but the scope of human and environmental damage caused by these secret nuclear activities done in the name of protecting democracy will probably never be known.

After more than thirty years of possessing nuclear weapons, Israel ought to find better ways to deal with this reality. Just as the end of the cold war allowed the United States to impose better democratic control over its nuclear weapons complex, one hopes that the peace process in the Middle East will allow Israel to place its atomic complex under better democratic rule. The causes of both peace and Israeli democracy require that Israel move to a post-opacity era.