ANALYSIS: Could Israel Use Its Secret Nuclear Weapons to Defend Itself in a Multi-Front War?

An Israeli army M109 155mm self-propelled howitzer fires rounds near the border with Gaza in southern Israel on Oct. 11, 2023. Israel declared war on Hamas on October 8 following a shock land, air, and sea assault by the Gaza-based terror group. JACK GUEZ/AFP via Getty Images

News Analysis

Buried beneath the sands of the Negev Desert lies a suspected stash of Israeli weapons—nuclear warheads that could plunge the Middle East into a cataclysmic struggle.

Although it has never admitted to having nukes, Israel is suspected to hold enough weapons of mass destruction to obliterate any enemy that truly threatens its continued existence.

Should Israel be attacked directly by Iran, or fear itself in danger of being overrun by actors on multiple fronts, a nuclear launch, however distant, could be a possibility.

As the Israel–Hamas War rages on and the nation contends with a genocidal foe in Gaza, the world will need to come to grips with what Israel may be willing to do in order to prevent enemies from overrunning it.

Israel adheres to a doctrine of “nuclear opacity,” neither confirming nor denying the existence of its warhead stockpiles.

It is a situation that the nations of the world have accepted for decades, all while acknowledging the weapons behind the scenes.

While Israel hasn’t admitted to having nuclear weapons, U.S. leaders and leaked materials have shed light on the suspected arsenal.

In 2008, former President Jimmy Carter acknowledged Israel had at least 150 nuclear warheads.

And in 2016, a leaked email written by former Secretary of State Colin Powell revealed that Israel had around 200 nuclear warheads.

But how did Israel grow its nuclear arsenal? And what risk does its existence pose to the Middle East now that the Israel–Hamas War threatens to draw in other powers like Iran and, possibly, ignite a regional war?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a speech on Iran's nuclear program at the defence ministry in Tel Aviv on April 30, 2018. Netanyahu said that he had proof of a "secret" Iranian nuclear weapons program, as the White House considers whether to pull out of a landmark atomic accord that Israel opposes. Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images

History of Nuclear Israel

To understand the secrecy surrounding Israel’s nuclear arsenal, and how that is affecting the security of the Middle East as a whole, it’s necessary to look at the history of its nuclear program.

Israel’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the United States’ knowledge of it, goes back more than 60 years.

It was in 1959 that Israel first struck a secret agreement with Norway to purchase heavy water, a key component of some nuclear reactors, through a proxy in the UK.

Details of the deal were sent to Washington by a political officer at the U.S. embassy in Oslo, Richard Kerry, the father of current White House Climate Envoy John Kerry.

In a now declassified letter, Mr. Kerry asked the State Department to keep the transaction a secret at the time, saying that exposing the deal could wreak havoc on Norway’s relations with Egypt and cause it to lose face internationally.

By 1960, Israel began construction on its nuclear reactor at Dimona, in the Negev Desert, using imported reactor, missile, and aircraft technologies from France alongside the heavy water from Norway.

The nuclear technologies had been guaranteed through a secret agreement with France in 1957.

The Dimona reactor, officially termed the Shimon Perez Negev Nuclear Research Center, became active the next year, and by 1969 top U.S. officials believed that Israel had obtained its first nuclear warheads.

Rather than acknowledge this fact, however, then-national security adviser Henry Kissinger urged President Richard Nixon to obfuscate the arsenal’s existence.

Mr. Kissinger wrote to the president in a now-declassified memo that the United States should work “to keep Israeli possession [of nuclear weapons] from becoming an established international fact.”

Acknowledging the arsenal, it was assumed, would lead the Soviet Union to help its own allies in the Middle East develop nuclear weapons in turn.

Instead, the Nixon administration urged Israel behind the scenes to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Doing so would compel Israel not to pursue nuclear weapons in exchange for access to nuclear energy technology.

Israel refused. To this day, it remains one of only five UN nations that are not party to the agreement. The others are India, North Korea, Pakistan, and South Sudan.

U.S. worries about Israel’s nuclear ambitions and continued secrecy continued to grow.

In 1974, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said that Israel’s secrecy was so pervasive that nothing could be said definitively of its nuclear capabilities or ambitions.

A now-declassified CIA report from the time confirmed that Israel’s first warheads were likely already completed and that the missiles it imported from France had little use other than as nuclear weapons.

“We believe Israel already has nuclear weapons, though the Israelis have been quite successful in concealing their program and denying outsiders absolute proof of their weapons capability,” the report said.

In 1979, an American satellite detected two flashes of light between Africa and Antarctica. Similar phenomena had been observed 41 times before. Each of them was caused by a nuclear detonation.

The event, now termed the Vela Incident, was believed by analysts to have been a covert joint nuclear test conducted by South Africa and Israel. Then-President Jimmy Carter moved, however, to dismiss the incident as an anomaly.

A White House Panel issued a statement saying that the flashes of light were “probably not from a nuclear explosion.”

The United States never acknowledged the source of the flash.

The incident led ultimately to the creation of an informal understanding that has continued through every presidential administration since: Israel doesn’t declare or threaten to use their nuclear weapons and, in turn, the United States does not pressure Israel to join non-proliferation agreements nor seek to inspect its nuclear facilities.

DIMONA, ISRAEL: (FILE PHOTO) A recent undated file photo of Israel's nuclear reactor at Dimona. Photo by Getty Images

‘The Samson Option’

How long such a state of affairs can continue is up for debate. The arduous history of Israel’s nuclear development, and the United States’ role in covering it up, has now put the two powers into a precarious relationship.

Israel relies on billions of dollars in security funding from the United States each year. In all, it receives some 80 percent of its weapons from the United States.

Numerous American laws including the Foreign Assistance Act, however, prohibit the United States from providing military funding to nations pursuing nuclear proliferation.

Simply put, Israel relies on conventional arms from the United States so that it does not have to rely on its nuclear arsenal. If America were to acknowledge that arsenal, however, it would no longer be able to supply conventional arms to Israel, making nuclear escalation more likely.

In this way, not acknowledging Israel’s nuclear arsenal may be the best way for the United States to ensure it is not used.

That doesn’t mean there is no situation in which Israel will use its nuclear weapons, however.

Paul Crespo, president of the Center for American Defense Studies think tank, says that Israel maintains the “Samson option,” a military contingency in which Israel could launch an overwhelming nuclear barrage meant to destroy an invader in the event Israel is defeated in war.

“It’s their ‘Samson Option’ of final deterrence if Israel is threatened with destruction or occupation,” Mr. Crespo said.

The name is a reference to the biblical figure Samson, who pushed apart the pillars of a Philistine temple, killing himself along with his captors.

While Israel’s war in Gaza is unlikely to merit such a grim outcome on its own, Israel is also facing pressure from Iran-backed elements in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, as well as a growing unease with its war by its neighbors.

To that end, some analysts have suggested that the coordinated attacks on Israel were made with the explicit purpose of sparking a regional war to destroy Israel, the one scenario in which Israeli use of a nuclear weapon might be assured.

As such, it is perhaps unsurprising that the United States is committing such vast resources to preventing the war from escalating into a regional conflict.

It has already sent two carrier strike groups, a nuclear-powered submarine, and missile defense systems to the region.

TOPSHOT - An Israeli artillery unit fires during a military drill in the annexed Golan Heights near the border with Lebanon on November 2, 2023. Lebanon's southern border has seen tit-for-tat exchanges, mainly between Israel and Hamas ally Hezbollah, since Hamas militants launched an unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip. (Photo by Jalaa MAREY / AFP) Photo by JALAA MAREY/AFP via Getty Images

Preventing Iran From Joining In

For both Israel and the United States, a key is preventing Iran from becoming directly involved in the Israel–Hamas War.

Whereas Israel would like to limit Iranian involvement for the sake of preventing further casualties, the United States may also hope to prevent the possibility of nuclear war.

“The biggest concern right now is Iran getting involved directly or ordering Hezbollah to attack Israel in a larger way than it has been doing,” Mr. Crespo said.

“That would likely involve Israel striking Iran, conventionally at first, but things could spiral quickly.”

The tense situation has not been helped by Israel’s continued secrecy about its own military goals with regard to Iran. To that end, Israel may in fact be planning unilateral military action against Iran.

A classified document from the director of national intelligence, leaked earlier this year by U.S. Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira, said that Israel is keeping the U.S. intelligence community in the dark about possible plans to launch a preemptive strike on Iran to disrupt the nuclear program there.

“[Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu probably calculates Israel will need to strike Iran to deter its nuclear program and faces a declining military capability to set back Iran’s enrichment program,” the document said.

“The CIA does not know what Israel’s plans are.”

The report also revealed that Israel conducted its largest-ever air exercise in February, likely simulating an attack on Iran.

Complicating Israel’s decision-making in Gaza is the fact that the Iranian regime is drawing closer and closer to securing its own nuclear weapons, in part with the help of communist China.

China has taken an increasingly hardline stance against Israel in the hopes of securing increased influence in the Arab world.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang said on Oct. 26 that China would “firmly support” Iran against the backdrop of the Israel–Hamas war, and praised the two nations’ “comprehensive strategic partnership.”

What’s more, the United States believes that China-based agents are working to deliver weapons of mass destruction (WMD) components to Iran.

The Department of Justice unsealed charges against a Chinese citizen in May, whom the department claims helped to operate a network that provides WMD components to Iran in exchange for payments made through the U.S. financial system.

“The defendant tried to arrange the sale using Chinese companies that the United States has sanctioned for supporting Iran’s ballistic missile program,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew Olsen during a press conference announcing the charges.

Iranian possession of a nuclear weapon at this juncture would no doubt have broad ramifications throughout the Middle East and could pressure Israel into reaching into its secret arsenal.

“The biggest concern is Israel feeling threatened enough that it would consider resorting to using its nuclear weapons,” Mr. Crespo said.

“That is likely a big motivator for the United States right now—to ensure Israel doesn’t ever feel that vulnerable because we are committed to backing them.”

TOPSHOT - Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, uses a diagram of a bomb to describe Iran's nuclear program while delivering his address to the 67th United Nations General Assembly meeting on Sept. 27, 2012, at the United Nations in New York. Don Emmert/AFP via Getty Images

Avoiding Israeli Nuclear Option

To be sure, the United States’ motivations for its involvement in the Middle East are not limited to simply supporting a close ally. The nation also seeks to prevent the destabilization of one of the world’s largest nuclear arsenals.

The risk posed to regional stability should the Israel–Hamas War escalate to a regional or even global conflict would have dire consequences, and the United States hopes to stop nuclear war from being one of them.

The security of Israel’s nuclear arsenal is therefore a key component of U.S. strategy in the Middle East, according to Sam Kessler, a geopolitical adviser at the North Star Support Group risk management firm.

“Israel’s nuclear arsenal can be considered a component of U.S. strategy in the Middle East, so it impacts how Washington decides to navigate and deal with the current situation,” Mr. Kessler told The Epoch Times.

Should Israel be forced to contend with a multi-front war, fighting Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, and possibly Iran on its own territory, resorting to the Samson option may be more appealing.

Particularly so if Israeli leadership judges it cannot afford to lose more soldiers.

“If Israel is caught in a multi-front war on its own territory, the temptation to use … tactical nukes can be very high,” Mr. Kessler said, “especially when Israeli Knesset members representing Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party are promoting it as an alternative to deploying large ground forces.”

Likewise, Mr. Kessler said, should Israel’s conventional arms dwindle, such as may happen through a lack of funding from the United States, the risk of nuclear escalation will increase.

“If Israel’s military and social mobilization efforts require more time for organizing and restructuring of systems in anticipation for a big and long conflict, it may consider a nuclear option if current capacities and capabilities become depleted and unreplenished.”