AfterIsraellaunched its war againstIranvowing to take out the country's nuclear program before it had the ability to produce weapons, fresh scrutiny has fallen on the country's own arsenal. Israel initiated strikes on Iran on Friday, with Prime MinisterBenjamin NetanyahusayingTehranwas close to developing a nuclearweapon. The attack was necessary because Iran with nuclear weapons would pose an existential threat to Israel, he said. On Wednesday, according to Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the U.S. assessment of Iran's nuclear program had not changed since March,when the director of national intelligencetold lawmakers that Tehran has large amounts of enriched uranium but has not made a decision to rush toward building an atomic bomb. Less discussed are the nuclear capabilities of Israel, which is widely believed to be in possession of weapons, though it neither acknowledges nor denies having a nuclear arsenal. "What we used to call it was opacity," Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear expert at the Middlebury Institute, said in a phone interview Wednesday, referring to Israel's stance of ambiguity around its nuclear program. "But I think a better term these days is implausible deniability." Israel is amemberof the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, along with Iran. But unlike Iran, it is one of five countries, including North Korea, India, Pakistan and South Sudan, that are not signatories to theTreaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the landmark deal that came into effect in 1970 to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. North Korea, India and Pakistan also have nuclear arsenals. Israel would have to relinquish any nuclear weapons in its possession in order to sign the treaty, which officially recognizes just five countries as nuclear states, including the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia. The Federation of American Scientists and theStockholm International Peace Research Institute,an independent international organization dedicated to researching arms control and disarmament, estimate that Israel has around 90 nuclear warheads. Due to Israel's official stance of ambiguity regarding its nuclear program, the organizations note the difficulties in determining the extent of the country's nuclear capabilities. "They are intentionally secretive about their nuclear capabilities and that's part of the policy that they follow," John Erath, senior policy director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said in a phone interview Wednesday. He said that policy was likely in part to ensure Israel's "potential adversaries would not know what they can do in the event of a crisis." Historical records suggest Israeli leaders had hoped to build a nuclear arsenal to help ensure the country's safety after it was founded in 1948 in the years after theHolocaust, according to theJewish Virtual Library,an online encyclopedia published by the American foreign policy analyst Mitchell Bard's nonprofit organization American–Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. In a July 1969 declassified memo to President Richard Nixon, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said that Israel had committed "not to be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Near East," when buying the U.S.' Phantom aircraft, though it has never been made clear precisely what that means. Mordechai Vanunu, a former Israeli nuclear technician who worked at Israel's atomic reactor in Dimona in the Negev Desert in the late 1960s and early 1970s, sent shock waves around the world when he disclosed details and photographs of the reactor to Britain's Sunday Times newspaper. His disclosures embarrassed the Israeli government, undermining its long-standing policy of strategic ambiguity. Vanunu was jailed in 1986 for treason after disclosing the information and released in 2004. "I felt it was not about betraying, it was about reporting. It was about saving Israel from a new Holocaust," he told the BBC's "This World" program in 2004 aboutdeciding to blow the whistle. He added that he had no regrets, despite paying a "heavy punishment." Monitors, including the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, have argued that the ambiguity around Israel's nuclear program hinders efforts to ensure the peaceful use of nuclear energy in the Middle East. "The lack of clarity surrounding an Israeli nuclear weapons program is a key obstacle to establishing a weapons of mass destruction free zone in the Middle East," the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation says on its website, adding that the global pledge to create such a zone in 1995 was "crucial to securing the indefinite extension of the NPT." Experts have alsowarned that Israel's attackson Iran may fuel the country's nuclear ambitions, rather than act as a deterrent. "They're very likely going to decide that they need to have more nuclear capabilities to deter such attacks in the future," Erath said. "This puts us on a very dangerous path."
