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With international interest focused on Iran's nuclear program, amid fears that uranium enrichment could reach levels capable of creating nuclear weapons, analysts tell the New York Times that "Israel also has its own secret nuclear arsenal."
Israel, according to a New York Times report, immediately after its founding in 1948, began planning the development of a nuclear program to ensure its survival.
“The Israelis will neither confirm nor deny their nuclear arsenal,” Alexander K. Bolfras, a nuclear security expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, told the NYT.
However, there have been statements that this is not the first country to "import" nuclear weapons to the Middle East.
“This deliberately vague wording constitutes what Mr. Bolfrass called an obscurity regarding a clearly defined nuclear weapons program.”
How large is Israel's nuclear arsenal?
Israel is estimated to have at least 90 nuclear warheads and the fissile material to produce hundreds more, according to the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation and the Nuclear Threat Initiative. These nuclear warheads could be delivered from fighter jets, submarines or land-based ballistic missile launchers, analysts have said.
It is worth noting that, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), 30 countries are capable of developing nuclear weapons, but only nine of them are known to possess them.
According to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, Israel has the second-smallest arsenal among nine countries, ahead of North Korea.
At the same time, it is one of five countries, along with India, Pakistan, North Korea and South Sudan, that has not signed the UN Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. This is an agreement that came into force in 1970, which aimed to commit governments to promoting the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.
How long has Israel had nuclear weapons?
As the New York Times explains, citing historical data, Israeli leaders after the establishment of the state in 1948 were determined to build a nuclear arsenal to ensure the country's survival.
The Israel Atomic Energy Commission was founded in 1952, and its first chairman, Ernst David Bergman, declared that a nuclear bomb would ensure "that we will never again be led like lambs to the slaughter," according to the Hebrew Virtual Library.
Israel began construction of a nuclear weapons development facility in 1958 near the southern Israeli city of Dimona. A recently declassified U.S. intelligence report from December 1960, by the Joint Atomic Energy Intelligence Committee, stated that the Dimona project included a processing plant to produce plutonium. The report concluded that the project was related to nuclear weapons.
In 1967, according to the Arms Control Association, it was alleged that it had secretly developed the ability to produce nuclear explosives. By 1973, the United States was “convinced that Israel possessed nuclear weapons,” as the Federation of American Scientists later revealed.
“There is a sense of responsibility that Israel’s security belongs to Israel and it will do whatever is necessary to ensure that,” Bolfras told the NYT. / Adapted Pamphlet /
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