Israel’s nuclear weapons and their history

Does Israel Possess Nuclear Weapons?

Greek Reporter By Philip Chrysopoulos, October 14, 2023

Israel is generally understood to possess nuclear weapons, yet the country has never officially denied or admitted it has a nuclear arsenal.

Instead, Israel has maintained a policy of deliberate ambiguity on the issue throughout decades. Nevertheless, experts estimate that the country’s stockpile ranges between 90 and 400 warheads………….

Furthermore, the middle-eastern country is able to deliver nuclear missiles by aircraft, as submarine-launched cruise missiles, and via the Jericho series of intermediate to intercontinental range ballistic missiles.

According to the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Israel has 90 plutonium-based nuclear warheads and has produced enough plutonium for 100-200 weapons…………….

The History of Israel’s Nuclear Weapons

Israel’s interest in nuclear weapons has started in the end of the 1940s. The country’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion spoke of the urgent need for obtaining nuclear weapons to prevent the Holocaust from reoccurring.

In 1948, even before the Israeli-Arab War, Israel began recruiting Jewish nuclear scientists and forming scientific institutes in order to create a nuclear arsenal.

Ben-Gurion had stated, “What Einstein, Oppenheimer, and Teller, the three of them are Jews, made for the United States, could also be done by scientists in Israel, for their own people”.

………………………………………….. Nuclear Weapons Production

It is believed that Israel began full-scale production of nuclear weapons following the 1967 Six-Day War, although it had built its first operational nuclear weapon by December 1966.

In 1969, U.S. President Richard Nixon in a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir pressed Israel to “make no visible introduction of nuclear weapons or undertake a nuclear test program”, so maintaining a policy of nuclear ambiguity.

……………………………….. In the 1980s the CIA estimated that Israel had 100-200 nuclear weapons. In 1991, after the Soviet Union dissolved, nearly 20 top Jewish Soviet scientists reportedly emigrated to Israel.

By the mid 2000s estimates of Israel’s arsenal ranged from 75 to 400 nuclear warheads.  https://greekreporter.com/2023/10/14/israel-nuclear-weapons/ #nuclear #antinuclear #NuclearFree #NoNukes #NuclearPlants

October 16, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | weapons and war