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Israel-Hamas war fuels fears of nuclear weapons in the Middle East

Israel is widely believed to possess 90 plutonium-based nuclear warheads and to have produced enough plutonium for 100-200 weapons

i By Michael Day 23 Oct 23′

Israel’s war with Hamas, renewed fighting with Hezbollah and tensions with Iran have fuelled concerns that the spate of conflicts in the Middle East could turn nuclear.

Israel is thought to have a sizeable arsenal of air and submarine-launched nuclear warheads – while Iran has long denied attempts to develop nuclear weapons, but its true capabilities are largely unknown amid a failed nuclear deal with the US and longstanding tensions with the monitoring body, the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Within Israel, there have already been calls by fringe figures for a scorched-earth policy, with the far-right Likud MP Tally Gotliv urging the Israeli government to use “everything in its arsenal” including “doomsday” weapons against Hamas.

Others have pleaded for level heads. “She [Tally Gotliv] is a complete idiot,” says Uri Bar-Joseph, professor emeritus in political science at Haifa University in Israel. “Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas on Earth. The suggestion is idiotic.”

He notes that Gotliv is not a minister, and that far-right extremists in government, such as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir have been excluded from the Israeli war cabinet and thus “will have been excluded from decision-making in the war with Gaza”.

But memories of how then Israeli defence minister Moshe Dayan asked prime minister Golda Meir to increase the readiness of Israeli nuclear weapons on the second day of the 1973 Yom Kippur Arab-Israeli War has led some to question whether Israel, under extreme duress, might resort to the use of such weapons in an expanded Middle East conflict.

“We know from internal cabinet documents that Golda Meir immediately said ‘no’ to that in 1973,” says Professor Bar-Joseph. Although some historians have claimed the mere fact that nuclear weapons were mentioned by Dayan prompted then-president Richard Nixon to order an airlift to Israel days later on 12 October.

If we had Golda Meir in power today, Biden would not have been less concerned,” says Bar-Joseph. “But Biden does not consider Netanyahu to be a responsible player.”

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has said that Israel’s presumed possession of nuclear weapons “significantly increases the risks associated with the conflict”.

……………………………………………….. The Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation thinks Israel possesses 90 plutonium-based nuclear warheads and to have produced enough plutonium for 100-200 weapons, but there have been questions over how ready the Israeli military is to use them in a conflict.

Israel has conducted few, if any, tests. The mystery that surrounds its nuclear programme has sparked questions among military experts about the nation’s actual deterrence capabilities.

But many observers, including Professor Bar-Joseph think that since it first acquired nuclear weapons capability in 1967, Israel has had more than enough time to ensure its military is able to fire them from land and sea…………  https://inews.co.uk/news/world/nuclear-weapons-israel-hamas-war-risk-escalation-2706029 #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes

October 25, 2023 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | MIDDLE EAST, weapons and war