ISRAELI NUCLEAR WEAPONS 2014

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DOI 1011770096340214555409

2014 70 97 originally published online 28 October 2014Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Hans M Kristensen and Robert S NorrisIsraeli nuclear weapons 2014

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Bulletinof the

Atomic Scientists

IT IS 5 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

reg

Nuclear notebook

Israeli nuclear weapons 2014

Hans M Kristensen and Robert S Norris

Abstract

Although the Israeli government neither confirms nor denies that it possesses nuclear weapons it is generally

accepted by friend and foe alike that Israel is a nuclear-armed stateNtildeand has been so for nearly half a centuryThe basis for this conclusion has been strengthened significantly since our previous estimate in 2002 particu-

larly thanks to new documents obtained by scholars under the US Freedom of Information Act and other openly

available sources1 We conclude that many of the public claims about the size of the Israeli nuclear arsenal are

exaggerated We estimate that Israel has a stockpile of approximately 80 nuclear warheads for delivery by two

dozen missiles a couple of squadrons of aircraft and perhaps a small number of sea-launched cruise missiles

Keywords

arms race cruise missiles Israel Jericho missiles Middle East nuclear weapons security

Nuclear policy issues

Since the late 1960s every Israeligovernment has practiced a policyof nuclear opacity that while

acknowledging that Israel maintains theoption of building nuclear weapons

leaves it factually uncertain as to whetherIsrael actually possesses nuclear weaponsand if so at what operational status Sincethe mid-1960s this policy has been pub-licly expressedNtildeand recently reaffirmedby Prime Minister Benjamin Netan-yahuNtildeas the phrase OgraveWe wonOtildet be thefirst to introduce nuclear weapons intothe Middle EastOacute (Netanyahu 2011)

This statement is widely seen as adeception because it is a long-held con-clusion among governments and experts

that Israel has produced a sizable stock-pile of nuclear warheads (probably unas-sembled) designed for delivery byballistic missiles and aircraft Commonsense dictates that a country that hasdeveloped and produced nuclear war-heads for delivery by designated delivery

vehicles has regardless of their oper-ational status introduced the weapons tothe region But Israeli governments haveattached so many interpretations toOgraveintroduceOacute that common sense doesnOtildetappear to apply

Declassified documents from USrdquoIsraeli negotiations in 1968rdquo1969 aboutthe sale and delivery of F-4 Phantom air-craft show that the White House under-stood full well that Ogravethey [Israel]interpreted that [OgraveintroductionOacute] to mean

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists2014 Vol 70(6) 97ndash115 The Author(s) 2014

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they could possess nuclear weapons aslong as they did not test deploy or makethem publicOacute (White House 1969a 1) In amemo prepared for President Nixon on

the Israeli nuclear program nationalsecurity advisor Henry Kissinger statedOgraveThis is one program on which the Israe-lis have persistently deceived usNtildeandmay even have stolen from usOacute (WhiteHouse 1969a 7 of attachment)

Both the Johnson and Nixon adminis-trations tried to get a clearer understand-ing of the Israeli interpretation of OgraveintroductionOacute During a meeting at the

Pentagon in November 1968 IsraelOtildesambassador to the United States YitzhakRabin who later succeeded Prime Minis-ter Golda Meir as Israeli prime ministersaid that Ogravehe would not consider aweapon that had not been tested to be aweaponOacute Rabin noted that this was hispersonal understanding as a former mili-tary leader Moreover he said OgraveThere

must be a public acknowledgement Thefact that you have got it must be knownOacuteSeeking clarity US Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Warnke asked OgraveThen inyour view an unadvertised untestednuclear device is not a nuclear weaponOacuteRabin responded OgraveYes that is correctOacuteSo Warnke continued an advertised butuntested device or weapon would consti-tute introduction OgraveYes that would be

introductionOacute Rabin confirmed (Depart-ment of Defense 1968 2 3 4)

In a follow-up exchange in July 1969the Nixon administration plainly sum-marized its own understanding of theterm OgraveintroductionOacute OgraveWhen Israel saysit will not introduce nuclear weapons itmeans it will not possess such weaponsOacuteThe Nixon administration wanted Israelto accept the US definition but the Meir

government didnOtildet take the bait andinstead claimed OgraveIntroduction means

the transformation from a non-nuclearweapon country into a nuclear weaponcountryOacute (Department of State 1969a)In other words Israel construed its

pledge not to be the first to introducenuclear weapons to mean that that intro-duction was not about physical posses-sion but about public acknowledgementof that possession

Kissinger saw a way out of the dis-agreement He informed PresidentNixon that what the Israelis had donewas to Ogravedefine the word OcircintroductionOtildeby relating it to the NPT [Nuclear Non-

Proliferation Treaty]Oacute KissingerOtildes argu-ment was that the Ogravedistinction betweenOcircnuclear-weaponOtilde and Ocircnon-nuclear-weaponOtilde states is the one which theNPT uses in defining the respective obli-gations of the signatoriesOacute By arguingthat the NPT negotiations Ograveimplicitlyleft it up to the conscience of the gov-ernments involvedOacute by being Ogravedeliber-

ately vague on what precise step wouldtransform a state into a nuclear weaponstate after the January 1 1967 cut-off dateused in the treaty to define the nuclearstatesOacute and by arguing that the NPT doesnot define what it means to Ogravemanufac-tureOacute or OgraveacquireOacute nuclear weapons Kis-singer concluded that the new Israeliformulation Ograveshould put us in a positionfor the record of being able to say we

assume we have IsraelOtildes assurance that itwill remain a non-nuclear state as definedin the NPTOacute (White House 1969b 1)

KissingerOtildes disingenuous interpret-ation provided the United States with away out of a diplomatic dilemma via atacit understanding between Nixon andMeir that the United States would nolonger pressure Israel to sign the NuclearNon-Proliferation Treaty as long as the

Israelis kept their program restrainedand invisibleNtildemeaning that Israel

98 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 70(6)




would not test nuclear weapons andwould not acknowledge in public its pos-session of such weapons

The Nixon administration also tried to

extract a pledge from Israel on the use of US-supplied aircraft In the Israeli letterthat requestedthesale of 50 F-4PhantomsRabin formally promised the UnitedStates that Israel Ograveagrees not to use anyaircraft supplied by the US as a nuclearweapons carrierOacute (Embassy of Israel 19681) A similar promise was made in 1966 inconnection with the sale of A-4 Skyhawkaircraft It is not known if Israel made

similar pledges when it acquired F-15 andF-16 aircraft in the 1980s and 1990s orwhen it purchased F-35sNtildewhich willstart to be delivered in 2017

If a formal pledge was made also forthe F-15 and F-16 aircraft it would appearto rule out Israel currently using US-sup-plied aircraft in a nuclear strike role Butgiven the preconditions the Nixon

administration discovered Israel hadattached to the Ograveno introductionOacutepledge Israel may also have attachedpreconditions to the pledge not to Ograveuseany aircraft supplied by the US as anuclear weapons carrierOacute What doOgraveuseOacute and OgravecarrierOacute mean Do they referto equipping an aircraft with the capabil-ity to deliver nuclear weapons or do theyrefer to the act of employment itself

Does the pledge apply to US aircraftmodified by Israel And what doesOgravenuclear weaponsOacute mean Similar to theinterpretation of OgraveintroductionOacute Israelmay consider that as long as a nuclearbomb is not assembled nor its existenceannounced a US-supplied aircraft is notbeing used (by IsraelOtildes definition) as acarrier of nuclear weapons

The tacit understanding that the

Nixon administration reached withIsrael about OgraveintroductionOacute may have

resolved a diplomatic conundrum Butit failed to address the core issues firstthat Israel already possessed nuclearweapons and second that the United

States would be seen as having a doublestandard when criticizing other MiddleEastern countries for pursuing nuclearweapons while turning a blind eye toIsraelOtildes arsenal And those have been irri-tants regarding the NPT and MiddleEastern security issues ever since help-ing provide excuses for other countriesin the region to reject criticism of theirown weapons of mass destruction

On a few rare occasions some Israeliofficials have made statements implyingthat Israel already has nuclear weaponsor could OgraveintroduceOacute them very quickly if necessary The first came in 1974 whenthen-President Ephraim Katzir stated OgraveIthas always been our intention to developa nuclear potential We now have thatpotentialOacute (quoted in Weissman and

Krosney 1981 105) Long after his retire-ment in a 1981 New York Times inter-view former defense minister MosheDayan also came close to violating thenuclear ambiguity taboo when hedeclared for the record OgraveWe donOtildet haveany atomic bomb now but we have thecapacity we can do that in a short timeOacuteHe reiterated the official policy mantraOgraveWe are not going to be the first ones to

introduce nuclear weapons into theMiddle EastOacute but his acknowledgementthat Ogravewe have the capacityOacute and wouldquickly produce atomic bombs if IsraelOtildesadversaries acquired nuclear weaponswas a hint that Israel had in fact pro-duced all the necessary components toassemble nuclear weapons in a veryshort time (New York Times 1981)

During a press conference in Wash-

ington with US President Bill Clintonand JordanOtildes President Hussein in 1994

Kristensen and Norris 99




Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabinmade a similar statement saying OgraveIsraelis not a nuclear country in terms of weap-onsOacute and has Ogravecommitted to the United

States for many years not to be the first tointroduce nuclear weapons in the con-text of the Arab-Israeli conflict But atthe same timeOacute he added Ogravewe cannotbe blind to efforts that are made in cer-tain Muslim and Arab countries in thisdirection Therefore I can sum upWeOtildell keep our commitment not to bethe first to introduce but we still lookahead to the dangers that others will do

it And we have to be prepared for it Oacute(Rabin 1994 emphasis added)

The ambiguity left by IsraelOtildes refusal toconfirm or deny the possession of nuclearweapons prompted the BBC in 2003 tobluntly ask former Prime MinisterShimon Peres whether the ambiguity wasjust another word for deception OgraveTheterm nuclear ambiguity in some ways it

sounds very grand but isnOtildet it just aeuphemism for deceptionOacute Peres did notanswer the question but confirmed theneed for deception OgraveIf someone wants tokill you and you use deception to saveyour life itOtildes not immoral If we wouldnOtildet[sic] have enemies we wouldnOtildet needdeceptionsOacute (BBC 2003)

Three years later in a December 2006interview with German television then-

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appeared tocompromise the deception when he criti-cized Iran for aspiring Ograveto have nuclearweapons as America France Israel Rus-siaOacute (Williams 2006) The statementwhich he made in English attracted wide-spread attention because it was seen as aninadvertent admission that Israel pos-sesses nuclear weapons (Williams 2006)A spokesperson for Olmert later said he

had been listing not nuclear states butOgraveresponsible nationsOacute (Friedman 2006)

Ambiguity is not just about refusing toconfirm possession of nuclear weaponsbut also about refusing to deny it Whenasked during a 2011 CNN interview if

Israel does not have nuclear weaponsNetanyahu did not answer directly butrepeated the policy not to be the first toOgraveintroduceOacute nuclear weapons into theMiddle East Undeterred the journalistfollowed up OgraveBut if you take an assump-tion that other countries have them thenthat may mean you have themOacute Netan-yahu didnOtildet dispute that but implied thatthe difference is that Israel doesnOtildet threa-

ten anyone with its arsenal OgraveWell it maymean that we donOtildet pose a threat toanyone We donOtildet call for anyoneOtildes anni-hilation We donOtildet threaten to obliter-ate countries with nuclear weapons butwe are threatened with all these threatsOacute(Netanyahu 2011)

The nuclear alert

One of the scenarios where Israel mightdecide to OgraveintroduceOacute its nuclear arsenalis in a crisis that poses a threat to the veryexistence of the state of Israel It iswidely believed such an incident mighthave happened in October 1973 duringthe Yom Kippur War when Israeli lea-ders feared Syria was about to defeatthe Israeli army in the Golan Heights

The rumor first appeared in Time maga-zine in 1976 was greatly expanded uponin Seymour HershOtildes book The SamsonOption in 1991 and several unidentifiedformer US officials allegedly stated in2002 that Israel put nuclear forces onalert in 1973 (see eg Sale 2002)

But an interview conducted by AvnerCohen with the late Arnan (Sini) Azar-yahu in January 2008 calls into question

the validity of this rumor Azaryahu wassenior aide and confidant to Yisrael Galili





a minister without portfolio who wasGolda MeirOtildes closest political ally andprivy to some of IsraelOtildes most closelyheld nuclear secrets In the early after-

noonoftheseconddayofthewarNtildeOcto-ber 7 1973Ntildewhen the Israeli militaryappeared to be losing the battle againstSyrian forces in the Golan Heights Azar-yahu said that the defense ministerMoshe Dayan asked Meir to authorizeinitial technical preparations for a Ogravedem-onstration optionOacuteNtildethat is ready nuclearweapons for potential use But Galili andDeputy Prime Minister Yigal Allon

argued against the idea saying Israelwould prevail using conventional weap-ons According to Azaryahu Meir sidedwith her two senior ministers and toldDayan to Ograveforget itOacute (Cohen 2013 For ana-lysis of the Azaryahu interview and itsimplications see Cohen (nd))

A study by the Strategic Studies div-ision of the Center for Naval Analyses

(CNA) in April 2013 appeared to confirmMeirOtildes rejection of DayanOtildes Ogravedemonstra-tion optionOacute and that IsraelOtildes nuclearforces were not readied The reportstates that even though the authors Ogravedidexhaustively scrutinizeOacute the documentfiles of US agencies and archives andinterviewed a significant number of offi-cials with firsthand knowledge of the1973 crisis OgraveNone of these searches

revealed any documentation of an Israelialert or clear manipulation of its forcesOacuteand Ogravenone of our interviewees save onerecalled any Israeli nuclear alert or sig-naling effortOacute during the Yom KippurWar (Colby et al 2013 31rdquo32)

Even so the single former official whorecalled seeing an Ograveelectronic or signalsintelligence reportOacute at the time thatOgraveIsrael had activated or increased the

readiness of its Jericho missile bat-teriesOacuteNtildeand the extreme government

secrecy that surrounds the issue of Israeli nuclear weapons in generalNtildeledthe authors of the CNA study to con-clude that Ogravethe United States did observe

some kind of Israeli nuclear weapons-related activity in the very early days of the war probably pertaining to IsraelOtildes Jericho ballistic missile force Oacute(Colby et al 2013 34) The studyOtildes overallassessment was that OgraveIsrael appears tohave taken preliminary precautionarysteps to protect or prepare its nuclearweapons andor related forcesOacute (Colbyet al 2013 2 emphasis added)

The conclusion that Israel did some-thing with its nuclear forces in October1973Ntildealthough not necessarily placethem on full operational alert or preparefor a Ogravedemonstration optionOacuteNtildeseemssimilar to the assertion made by Peres in1995 who in an interview with the authorsof We All Lost the Cold War Ogravecategoric-ally denied that Jericho missiles were

made ready much less armed At mosthe insisted there was an operationalcheck The cabinet never approved anyalert of Jericho missilesOacute (Lebow andStein 1995 463 footnote 47)

Evidently some uncertainty persistsabout the 1973 events But then presum-ably as well as now the Israeli warheadswere not fully assembled or deployed ondelivery systems under normal circum-

stances but stored under civilian controlAnd since no official confirmation wasmade back then either via a test or anannouncement no formal Ograveintroduc-tionOacute of nuclear weapons occurredNtildeatleast in the opinion of Israeli officials

Six years later on September 22 1979a US surveillance satellite known as theVela 6911 detected what appeared to bethe flash from a nuclear test in the south-

ern parts of the Indian Ocean (for back-ground on the 1979 Vela incident see





Richelson 2006) Despite widespreadrumors about Israeli involvement in the

test which would constitute Ograveintroduc-tionOacute of nuclear weapons by the Israelidefinition Israeli governments havecontinued since to state that Israelwould not be the first to introducenuclear weapons in the region

How many warheads

Absent official public information fromthe Israeli government or intelligencecommunities of other countries specula-tions abound about IsraelOtildes nucleararsenal Over the past several decadesnews media reports think tanks authorsand analysts have sized theIsraeli nuclearstockpile widely from 75 warheads up tomore than 400 warheads Delivery vehi-cles for the warheads have been listed as

aircraft ballistic missiles artillery tac-tical or battlefield weapons such as artil-lery shells and landmines and morerecently sea-launched cruise missilesWe believe many of these rumors areinaccurate and that the most crediblestockpile number is on the order of 80warheads for delivery by aircraft land-based ballistic missiles and possiblysea-based cruise missiles (see Table 1)

In 1969 the US State Department con-cluded OgraveIsrael has moved as rapidly as

possible since about 1963Oacute in Ogravedevelopinga capability to produce and deploy

nuclear weapons and to deliver themby surface-to-surface missile or byplaneOacute (Department of State 1969b 1Department of State 1969c 3) By 1974the CIA concluded OgraveIsrael already hasproduced and stockpiled a smallnumber of fission weaponsOacute (CIA 197420) OgraveSmallOacute is a relative term to someanalysts it meant an arsenal of a dozen

or two dozen weapons but the publicestimate would later balloonsignificantly

Most publicly available estimatesappear to be derived from a rough calcula-tion of the number of warheads that couldhypothetically be created from theamountof plutonium Israel is believed to have pro-ducedinitsnuclearreactoratDimonaThetechnical assessment that accompanied

the 1986 Sunday Times article aboutformer nuclear technician MordechaiVanunuOtildes disclosures about Dimona forexample estimated that Israel had pro-duced enough plutonium for 100 to 200nuclear warheads (Sunday Times 1986a1986b 1986c)2 In the public debate thisquickly became Israel possessing 100 to200 nuclear warheads the estimate thathas been most commonly used ever

sinceThereisuncertaintyabouttheoper-ationalhistoryorefficiencyoftheDimona

Table 1 Israeli nuclear forces 2014

LAND-BASED MISSLES

Jericho II 1984ndash1985 1500+ Possibly 25ndash50 at Zekharia for TELs in caves

Jericho III 4000 In development

SEA-BASED MISSLES

Dolphin-class submarines 2002 Possibly modified cruise missile for land-attack

TYPEYEAR FIRSTDEPLOYED

RANGE (KM) COMMENT

AIRCRAFT

F-16ABCDI Fighting Falcon 1980 1600 Nuclear bombs posssibly stored at undergroundfacility near Tel Nof Air Base

F-15I Rarsquoam (Thunder) 1998 3500 Potential nuclear strike role





reactorOtildes operation over the years butplutonium production is thought to havecontinued after 1986 making for a total of roughly 840 kilograms of plutonium for

military purposes3

That amount couldpotentially be used to build 168 to 210nuclearweaponsassumingasecond-gen-eration single-stage fission-implosionwarhead design with a boosted pit con-taining 4 to 5 kilograms of plutonium4

Total plutonium production is a mis-leading indicator of the actual size of theIsraeli nuclear arsenal however becauseIsraelNtildelike other nuclear-armed sta-

tesNtildemost likely would not have con-verted all of its plutonium intowarheads A portion is likely stored as astrategic reserve And given that Israelprobably has a limited portion of its air-craft and missiles that are equipped todeliver nuclear weapons it would inany case not produce many more war-heads than it can actually deliver

And this is where the estimates of 200to 400 warheads strain credibilityAssuming that Israel has no more than25 single-warhead land-based ballisticmissiles such a large stockpile wouldimply as many as 150 to 350 air-deliveredbombs or a significant inventory of othertypes of nuclear weapons In comparisonthe 180 US bombs deployed in Europehave roughly 20 bombs allocated to each

nuclear-capable fighter-bomber squad-ron IsraelOtildes nuclear posture has notbeen determined by war-fighting strategybut by deterrence needs so a more realis-tic estimate may be that Israel only has acouple of fighter-bomber squadronsassigned to the nuclear missions with per-haps 40 bombs in total

The higher stockpile estimates appearto come from rumors that Israel has pro-

duced a significant number of othertypes of nuclear weapons or tactical

nuclear weapons A variety of differentsources over the years has claimed with-out providing much evidence that theother weapon types include artillery

landmines suitcase bombs nuclear elec-tromagnetic pulse weapons to take outelectronic circuits and enhanced radi-ation weapons (neutron bombs)5

Seymour HershOtildes 1991 best-seller TheSamson Option IsraelOtildes Nuclear Arsenaland American Foreign Policy claimedthat Israel had manufactured OgravehundredsOacute(Hersh 1993 276) of low-yield neutronnuclear warheads and that at least three

nuclear-capable artillery battalions wereestablished after 1973 with self-propelled175-mm cannons assigned more than 108nuclear artillery shells Additional nuclearartillery shells were supplied for IsraelOtildes203-mm cannons Moreover Hershclaimed the warhead that was tested inIsraelOtildes suspected nuclear test in 1979Ogravewas a low-yield nuclear artillery shell

that had been standardized for use bythe Israeli Defense ForceOacute (Hersh 1993271) The New York Times reported theseclaims but also mentioned that the Ogravefor-malOacute United States intelligence estimatewas Ogravefewer than 100Oacute warheads quotedthe Carnegie Endowment as saying thatmost outsiders estimated as many as 200warheads but ended on HershOtildes estimateof an Israeli stockpile of Ograve300 or moreOacute

warheads (Brinkley 1991)Partly building on these claims an art-

icle published in JaneOtildes Intelligence Review in 1997 by photo-interpreterHarold Hough used commercial satellitephotos to examine IsraelOtildes suspected mis-sile base near the town of Zakharia Thearticle concluded that the base mighthouse 50 Jericho II missiles and that fivebunkers at a nearby depotwere capable of

storing 150 weapons OgraveThis supports indi-cations that the Israeli arsenal may





contain as many as 400 nuclear weaponswith a total combined yield of 50 mega-tonsOacute) Hough (1997) asserted6

Thesatellite photos were notvery clear

however and imagery experts laterpointed out that Ograveclose examination of the published photos indicates that manyof these identified features are notvisuallyevidentOacute leaving Ogravelarge uncertainty asso-ciated with these identificationsOacute (Guptaand Pabian 1998 97) Possibly indicatingsimilar doubts a New York Times articlereminded readers that a RandCorporationstudy commissioned by the Pentagon and

reported by the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz had concluded that Israel onlyhad enough plutonium to make 70 nuclearweapons (Schmemann 1998)

The Rand estimate was in the samerange as the 60 to 80 nuclear warheadsthe US Defense Intelligence Agency(DIA) listed in a 1999 classified report(US Defense Intelligence Agency

1999)

7

Leaked and later published in2004 this report is to our knowledgethe most recent publicly available docu-ment that provides an official estimate of how many nuclear warheads Israel hasThe report the timing of which coin-cided with the commissioning of thefirst of IsraelOtildes six Dolphin-class submar-ines also contained a projection for thearsenal by 2020 65 to 85 warheads

During the 15 years that have passedsince the DIA report Israel presumablyhas continued production of plutoniumat Dimona for some of that time (althoughthe reactor is getting old) and probablyalso has continued producing nuclearwarheads Many of those warheads wereprobably replacements for warheads pro-duced earlier for existing delivery sys-tems such as the Jericho II missiles and

aircraft Warheads for a rumored JerichoIII ballistic missile would probably

replace existing Jericho II warheads on aone-for-one basis Warheads for therumored submarine-based cruise missileiftruewouldbeinadditiontotheexisting

arsenal but probably only involve a rela-tively small number of warheads

Warhead designs

The large variety of warhead designs thatwould be needed to arm the many differ-ent types of launchers rumored toexistNtildereentry vehicles for ballistic mis-siles gravity bombs for aircraft artillery

landmines and a neutron bombNtildewouldbe a significant technical challenge for anuclear weapons complex that has onlyconducted one nuclear test or even a fewtests 35 years ago

It took other nuclear weapon statesdozens of elaborate nuclear test explo-sion experiments to develop such variedweapon designsNtildeas well as the war-

fighting strategies to justify the expenseAccording to some analysts Israel hadOgraveunrestricted access to French nucleartest explosion dataOacute in the 1960s (Cohen1998 82rdquo83) so much so that Ogravethe Frenchnuclear test in 1960 made two nuclearpowers not oneOacute (Weissman and Kros-ney 1981 114rdquo117) Until France broke off deep nuclear collaboration with Israel in1967 France conducted 17 fission war-

head tests in Algeria ranging from a fewkilotons to approximately 120 kilotons of explosive yield (CTBTO nd NuclearWeapon Archive 2001)

Based on interviews with Vanunu in1986 Frank Barnaby a nuclear physicistwho worked at the British Atomic Weap-ons Research Establishment later saidthat VanunuOtildes description of Ograveproduc-tion at Dimona of lithium-deuteride in

the shape of hemispherical shells

raised the question of whether Israel





had boosted nuclear weapons in itsarsenalOacute (Barnaby 2004 4) Althoughhe didnOtildet think Vanunu had much know-ledge about such weapons Barnaby con-

cluded that Ogravethe information he gavesuggested that Israel had more advancednuclear weapons than Nagasaki-typeweaponsOacute (Barnaby 2004 4)

Barnaby did not mention thermo-nuclear weapons in his 2004 statementeven though he concluded in his bookThe Invisible Bomb in 1989 that OgraveIsraelmay have about 35 thermonuclear weap-onsOacute (Barnaby 1989 25) At the time the

director of the CIA apparently did notagree but reportedly indicated that Israelmay be seeking to construct a thermo-nuclear weapon (Cordesman 2005)Yet The Samson Option claims that USweapon designers concluded fromVanunuOtildes information that OgraveIsrael wascapable of manufacturing one of themost sophisticated weapons in the nuclear

arsenalNtildea low-yield [two-stage] neutronbombOacute (Hersh 1993 199) The authors of The Nuclear Express in 2009 echoed thatclaim stating that the product of IsraelOtildespartnership with South Africa would be Ograveafamily of boosted primaries generic H-bombs and a specific neutron bombOacute(Reed and Stillman 2009 174)

While a single-stage boosted fissiondesign warhead was probably within

IsraelOtildes technical reach at the time theclaim that Israel also was capable of pro-ducing two-stage thermonuclear war-head designs or even enhancedradiation weapons (which are also two-stage thermonuclear designs) is harderto accept based on the limited informa-tion that is publicly available aboutIsraelOtildes nuclear testing and design history

Whatever the composition of the

Israeli nuclear arsenal we neither seethe indicators that Israel has sufficient

nuclear-capable launchers for 200 to400 nuclear weapons nor understandwhy a country that does not have a strat-egy for fighting nuclear war would need

that many types of warheads or warheaddesigns to deter its potential adversariesIn our assessment a more credible esti-mateNtildetaking into consideration pluto-nium production testing history designskills force structure and strategyNtildeisan Israeli stockpile of approximately 80boosted fission warheads

Aircraft and airfieldsOver the past 30 years the Israeli AirForce (IAF) has had several types of US-produced aircraft capable of carry-ing nuclear gravity bombs Theseinclude the A-4 Skyhawk F-4 Phantomand more recently the F-16 and F-15EMoreover Israel has purchased 20 F-35A Lightnings to replace older F-16s

and plans to buy moreThe A-4 and F-4 served long careers asnuclear strike aircraft in the US militaryand their potential roles as similar nu-clear weapons delivery vehicles withinthe IAF was the focus of much attentionat the time they were in use As noted ear-lier when it bought these aircraft Israelformally promised the United States thatit Ograveagrees not to use any aircraft supplied

by the US as a nuclear weapons carrierOacute(Embassy of Israel 1968 1) But theexperience with IsraelOtildes interpretation of its promise not to be the first to Ograveintro-duceOacute nuclear weapons in the MiddleEast makes it hard to take its promisenot to use American aircraft for nuclearmissions without a pinch of salt

Since the 1980s the F-16 has been thebackbone of the Israeli Air Force Over

the years Israel has purchased well over200 F-16s of all types as well as specially





configured F-16Is Various versions of the F-16 serve nuclear strike roles in theUS Air Force and among NATO alliesand the F-16 is the most likely candidate

for air delivery of Israeli nuclear weap-ons at the present time

Since 1998 Israel has also used theBoeing F-15E Strike Eagle for long-rangestrike and air-superiority roles TheIsraeli version is characterized by greatertakeoff weightNtilde36750 kgNtildeand rangeNtilde4450 kmNtildethan other F-15 models Itsmaximum speed at high altitude is Mach25 The plane has been further modified

with specialized radar that has terrain-mapping capability and other navigationand guidance systems In the US AirForce the F-15E Strike Eagle has beengiven a nuclear role It is not known if the Israeli Air Force has added nuclearcapability to this highly versatile plane

Regardless of what happens with theF-15E Israel has decided to replace a por-

tion of its F-16 fleet with a new planeunder development in the UnitedStates the F-35A In so doing it willbecome the first non-US country to oper-ate the aircraft The first F-35ANtildetheIsraeli version will be known as the F-35I (named OgraveAdirOacute for OgraveawesomeOacute orOgravemightyOacute)Ntildewill arrive in 2017 with thefirst squadron expected to become oper-ational at Nevatim Air Base in the Negev

desert in 2018 Israel purchased 20 of anearlier F-35 design in 2012 and plans tobuy over 100 of the new F-35Is but thehigh cost of the F-35 might limit theplans The F-35I will be adapted withIsraeli weapons and has unlike the F-15Iand F-16I the ability to fly long-rangemissions with internal weapons TheUS Air Force is upgrading its F-35As tocarry nuclear bombs and IsraelOtildes Chan-

nel 2 reported that an unnamed Ograveseniorlevel US officialOacute refused to say if Israel

had requested such an upgrade for its F-35 s (Channel 2 2014)

It is especially difficult to determinewhich Israeli wings and squadrons are

assigned nuclear missions and whichbases support them The nuclear war-heads themselves may be stored inunderground facilities near one or twobases Israeli F-16 squadrons are basedat Ramat-David Air Base in northernIsrael Tel Nof and Hatzor air bases incentral Israel and Hatzerim NevatimRamon and Ouvda air bases in southernIsrael Of the many F-16 squadrons only

a small fractionNtildeperhaps one or twoNtildewould actually be nuclear-certified withspecially trained crews unique proced-ures and modified aircraft The F-15 sare based at Tel Nof Air Base in centralIsrael and Hatzerim Air Base in theNegev desert We cautiously suggestthat Tel Nof Air Base in central Israeland Nevatim Air Base in the Negev

desert have nuclear missions

Land-based missiles

IsraelOtildes nuclear missile program datesback to the early 1960s In April 1963 sev-eral months before the Dimona reactorbegan producing plutonium Israelsigned an agreement with the Frenchcompany Dassault to produce a sur-

face-to-surface ballistic missile Themissile system became known as the Jericho (or MD-620)

The first purchase of 30 missilesoccurred in early 1966 but soon after theSix-Day War in June 1967 France imposedan embargo on new military equipment toIsrael Jericho production was transferredto Israel and the first two missiles deliv-ered in 1968 with 10 more by mid-1969

The program was completed around 1970with 24 to 30 missiles Apparently not all





were nuclear with only 10 of the missilesOgraveprogrammed for nuclear warheadsOacuteaccording to the White House (Depart-ment of State 1968 2 White House

1969a 1)8

Apparently the other missilescould be armed with chemical warheadsprobably nerve gas (White House 1969c)The short-range Jericho could deliver a1000-kilogram (2200 pound) reentryvehicle with a range of about 480 kilo-meters (298 miles) Theaccuracywas esti-mated to be roughly within 926 meters(approximately 06 miles) of its target(CIA 1974 22)

Most sources assert that Jericho was amobile missile transported and firedfrom a transportable erector launcher(CIA 1974) But there have occasionallybeen references to possible silos for theweapon A US State Department studyproduced in support of National SecurityStudy Memorandum 40 in May 1969 con-cluded that Israel believed it needed a

nearly invulnerable nuclear force todeter a nuclear first strike from its ene-mies Ograveie having a second-strike cap-abilityOacute The study stated OgraveIsrael is nowbuilding such a forceNtildethe hardened silosof the Jericho missilesOacute (Department of State 1969d 7 emphasis added) It isnot clear that the claim of OgravehardenedsilosOacute constituted the assessment of theUS intelligence community and only a

few subsequent sourcesNtildeall non-gov-ernmentalNtildehave mentioned Israeli mis-sile silos9 We did not find any publicevidence of Jericho silos

The Jericho range was sufficient totarget Cairo Damascus and all of Jordan but not the Soviet UnionNtildewhichwas gaining importance in IsraelOtildes plan-ning In collaboration with South AfricaIsrael in the late 1980s developed

the medium-range Jericho II that putthe southern-most Soviet cities and the

Black Sea Fleet within range Jericho II amodified version of the Shavit spacelaunch rocket was first deployed in theearly-1990s replacing the first Jericho

Unofficial estimates of the Jericho IIOtildesrange vary greatly and tend to be exag-geratedNtildesome even up to 5000 kilo-meters (3100 miles)10 The Jericho wasfirst flight-tested in May 1987 to approxi-mately 850 km (527 miles) The trajectorywent far into the Mediterranean SeaAnother test in September 1989 reached1300 km (806 miles) The US Air ForceNational Air Intelligence Center in 1996

reported the Jericho II range as 1500 kilo-meters (930 miles) (NAIC 1996)

Half of Iran which has increased inimportance to Israeli military strategyover the past two decades is out of JerichoIIOtildes reach That includes Tehran (barely)Rumors abound that Israel has beendeveloping a longer-range missile pub-licly known as Jericho III with an esti-

mated range of 4000 kilometers or 2480miles With such a missile Israel would beable to target all of Iran Pakistan and all of Russia west of the UralsNtildeincluding forthe first time Moscow Jericho III wasfirst test-launched over the MediterraneanSea in January 2008 again in 2011 and mostrecently in July 2013 Unidentified defensesources told JaneOtildes Defence Weekly that Jericho III constitutes Ogravea dramatic leap

in IsraelOtildes missile capabilitiesOacute ( JaneOtildes Defence Weekly 2008 5) but many detailsand current status are unknown

How many Jerichomissiles Israel has isanother uncertainty Estimates vary from25 to 100 Most sources estimate thatIsrael has 50 of these missiles and placethem at the Sdot Micha facility near thetown of Zakharia in the Judean Hillsapproximately 27 kilometers or about 17

miles east of Jerusalem (There are manyalternative spellings and names for the





base including Zekharyeh ZekharaiaSdot Micha and Sdot HaElla)

Commercial satellite images showwhat appear to be two clusters of what

might be caves for mobile Jericho IIlaunchers The northern cluster includes14 caves and the southern cluster has ninecaves for a total of 23 caves This numberof caves roughly matches the 24 to 30 mis-siles mentioned in a 1969 White Housememo(White House 1969a) Each clusteralso has what appears to be a covereddrive-through facility potentiallyfor mis-sile handling or warhead loading A sep-

arate circular facility with four tunnels tounderground facilities could potentiallybe for warhead storage Consequentlywe conclude that estimates of 50 to 100missiles are exaggerated and estimatethat Israel deploys about two dozenmobile launchers for Jericho missiles

Most reports only mention one missilesite but a US State Department back-

ground paper from 1969 stated that therewas Ograveevidence strongly indicating thatseveral sites providing operationallaunch capabilities are virtually com-pleteOacute (Department of State 1969c 4emphasis added) The Sdot Micha baseis relatively small at 16 square kilometersand the suspected launcher caves arelocated along two roads each of which isonly about one kilometer long Although

this layout would provide protectionagainst limited conventional attacks itwould be vulnerable to a nuclear surpriseattack For the Jericho missiles to havemilitary value they would need to beable to disperse from their caves

Sea-based missiles and

submarines

Rumorsabound that Israelhas developeda nuclear warhead for a sea-launched

cruise missile which would be launchedfrom diesel-electric Dolphin-class attacksubmarines that Israel has acquired fromGermany Some rumors say that the

nuclear-capable sea-launched cruisemissile is a modification of the conven-tional OgravePopeye TurboOacute air-to-surfacemissiles while others claim that Israelconverted the US-supplied HarpoonNtildealong-standing US anti-ship missileNtildetonuclear capability

It is difficult to say with certaintywhen the rumors first emerged orwhere but one early candidate is a

Center for Strategic and InternationalStudies study from 1998 which listedOgraveVariant of the Popeye air-to-surfacemissile believed to have nuclear war-headOacute (Cordesman 1998 17) There wasno source for the claim but it quicklymade its way into The WashingtonTimes under the headline OgraveIsrael buying3 submarines to carry nuclear missilesOacute

The article also referenced a June 8 1998report in the Israeli paper Haaretz OgravethatIsraeli military planners want to mountnuclear-armed cruise missiles on thenew submarinesOacute (Sieff 1998)

An article published by Gerald MSteinberg from Bar Ilan University in

RUSI International Security Review in1999 described Ograveunconfirmed reportsthat Israel is developing a cruise missile

(known as the Popeye Turbo) with arange of 350 kilometers to be operationalin 2002Oacute that Ogravecould become the basis of a sea-based second strike deterrentOacute(Steinberg 1999 215rdquo224)

When the Clinton administration pro-posed returning the Golan Heights toSyria the Israeli government respondedwith a $17 billion security package requestthat included 12 long-range BGM-109

Tomahawk sea-launched cruise mis-siles (The US Navy possessed a





nuclear-armed version of the Tomahawkbetween 1983 and 2012) Israel argued thatit would need the Tomahawk to compen-sate for the loss of strategic depth if it

gave up the Golan Heights although tar-geting Iran was clearly also a factor Butthe Clinton administration turned downthe Israeli request in March 2000

Only three months later in June 2000an article in the Sunday Times quotedunnamed OgraveIsraeli defense officialsOacute assaying that Israel had secretly tested asubmarine-launched cruise missile to arange of more than 1500 kilometers

(930 miles) in the Indian Ocean (Mah-naimi and Campbell 2000)

The reports about a nuclear Popeyecruise missile and a 1500-kilometercruise missile test were soon conflatedinto one missile which has been referredto as fact in numerous publications eversince After the widely respected book

Deadly Arsenals printed this information

in June 2002 (Cirincione et al 2002)coverage in The Washington Post addedunnamed former Pentagon and StateDepartment officials who confirmed thatIsrael was arming three newly acquireddiesel submarines with Ogravenewly designedcruise missiles capableof carrying nuclearwarheadsOacute The report said the US Navymonitored the Israeli cruise missile testalthough a former Pentagon official cau-

tioned OgraveIt is above top secret knowingwhether the sub-launched cruise missilesare nuclear-armedOacute (Pincus 2002)

The lead author of the Sunday Timescruise missile test article Uzi Mahnaimihas written other articles about IsraelOtildesnuclear capabilities some of which laterturned out to be incorrect A 2007 articleclaimed Ograveseveral Israeli military sourcesOacutehad told the Sunday Times that two Israeli

air force squadrons were training to blowup an Iranian facility using low-yield

nuclear Ogravebunker-bustersOacute (Mahnaimi andBaxter 2007) In 2010 Mahnaimi claimedOgravethe decision has now been takenOacute to con-tinuously deploy at least one of IsraelOtildes

Ogravesubmarines equipped with nuclearcruise missiles in the Gulf near theIranian coastlineOacute The article quoted anunidentified navy officer saying that theOgrave1500-km range of the submarinesOtildecruise missiles can reach any target inIranOacute (Mahnaimi 2010) These and otherarticles have caused media critics includ-ing Marsha B Cohen on PBSOtildes Frontline todescribe Mahnaimi as a OgravesensationalistOacute

with Ogravea long and consistent recordNtildeforbeing wrongOacute (Cohen MB 2010)

Up until 2002 news media reportsfocused on a naval version of the air-launched Popeye Turbo missile But inOctober 2003 the Los Angeles Timesquoted unnamed US and Israeli officialssaying that Israel had modified the US-supplied Harpoon cruise missile to carry

nuclear warheads on submarines OgraveTwoBush administration officials describedthe missile modification and an Israeliofficial confirmed itOacute the paper stated(Frantz 2003)

This added to the mystery because therange of the Harpoon is even shorter thanthe range of the Popeye Turbo (110-pluskilometers or about 68 miles versus300-plus kilometers or about 186 miles)

Former Israeli Deputy Defense MinisterEfraim Sneh dismissedthe Harpoon story

Anyone with even the slightest understanding of

missiles knows that the Harpoon can never be

used to carry nuclear warheads Not even

[IsraelOtildes] extraordinarily talented engineers and

its sophisticated defense industries can trans-

form the Harpoon into a missile capable of

doing this ItOtildes simply impossible (Haaretz 2003)

SnehOtildes claim that Ogravethe Harpoon cannever be used to carry nuclear warheadsOacute





is not entirely correct Between 1973 and1980 the United States considered equip-ping the Harpoon with a nuclear warheadbut the program was terminated (Coch-

ran et al 1984) IsraelOtildes nuclear weaponsengineering capability is much lessadvanced than that of the United Statesand the PentagonOtildes Defense SecurityCooperation Agency which overseesUS military sales abroad told Arms Con-trol Today that although IsraelOtildes contractfor Harpoon missiles does not explicitlyprohibit Israel from modifying them tocarry nuclear warheads Ogravewe have had

no reason to believe that the governmentof Israel had any intention to modify orsubstitute the warheads of these missilesOacute(Boese 2003)

Contrary to the Harpoon rumor thenormally well-informed Avner Cohenwrites in The Worst-Kept Secret that thesubmarine cruise missile developed forIsraelOtildes sea-based strategic leg of its

nuclear deterrent has been Ogravedevelopedand built in IsraelOacute (Cohen A 2010 83)Israel plans to operate six Dolphin-

class submarines The last three submar-ines are 10 meters (approximately 33feet) longer than the first three due tothe addition of an improved air-indepen-dentpropulsion system After delivery of the first three submarines rumors of nuclear capability reportedly prompted

Germany to demand that Israel assurethat the additional submarines itwanted would not be carrying nuclearweapons (Ben-David 2005)

Whether the German demand wasactually made remains unknown but in1999 after delivery of the first Dolphinsubmarine then-Prime Minister EhudBarak told the National Defense Collegethat the submarines Ograveadd an important

component to IsraelOtildes long armOacute (Barak1999) And the Israeli defense force chief

of staff made it clear in 2005 that Israelwas modifying its military capabilities inresponse to IranOtildes suspected nuclearweapons ambitions OgraveWe cannot sit

indifferent in the face of the combinationof an irrational regime with non-conven-tional weapons We have to concentrateall our efforts to create different capabil-ities that would allow us both to defendand to reactOacute (Ben-David 2005 4)

Colonel Yoni the head of the Israelisubmarine fleet in 2006 refused to com-ment on reports about the submarinesOtilderumored nuclear capability but added

that Ogravehitting strategic targets is notalways a task the Air Force or the infan-try can carry out a submarine can per-form the missionOacute he explained OgraveThefact that foreign reports refer to the sub-marines as a deterring factor says some-thingOacute (Greenberg 2006)

In June 2009 Israeli defense sourcesreported that the INS LeviathanNtildeone of

the first three diesel-electric Dolphin-class submarines but without the air-inde-pendent propulsion of later purchases of submarineNtildehad sailed through the SuezCanal on its way to a naval exercise Somenews media reported the submarinesailed for an exercise in the Persian Gulfbut instead it docked at the Israeli navalbase at Eilat in the Red Sea Speculationserupted about the deployment being a

signal to Iran and therefore indirectly aconfirmation of the Dolphin-submarineOtildesrumored nuclear capability and thatIsrael might deploy submarines perman-ently at Eilat But an Israeli defense offi-cial said there would be no permanentsubmarine deployment in Eilat OgraveIf any-thing we are scaling down our navaloperations in EilatOacute (Haaretz 2009)

Even so an article published by the

Sunday TimesNtildewritten by the samereporter that wrote the article about the





1500-km cruise missile test and the plansto bomb Iran with low-yield nuclearbombsNtildeclaimed that Israel had made adecision Ograveto ensure a permanent presence

of at least oneOacute of the Dolphin-class sub-marines in thePersian GulfOgravenear the Iran-ian coastlineOacute (Mahnaimi 2010)

The German magazine Der Spiegelreported in 2012 that the German govern-ment had known for decades that Israelplanned to equip the submarines withnuclear missiles Former German offi-cials said they always assumed Israelwould use the submarines for nuclear

weapons although the officials appearedto confirm old rumors rather than pro-vide new information The articlequoted another unnamed ministry offi-cial with knowledge of the matterOgraveFrom the beginning the boats were pri-marily used for the purposes of nuclearcapabilityOacute ( Der Spiegel 2012)

Setting the record straight

From these examples it should be appar-ent that there is much that is unclearabout what kind of nuclear weaponsIsrael has how many there are underwhat circumstances they would beused or how they would be deliveredto their targets All Israeli governmentshave preferred to keep this information

secret Nevertheless from our examin-ation of the publicly available informa-tion we conclude that widespreadclaims of an Israeli nuclear stockpile of 200 to 400 warheads and 50 to 100 Jerichomissiles are exaggerated

In our assessment based on analysisof available sources and examination of commercial satellite imagery we esti-mate that Israel has a stockpile of

approximately 80 nuclear warheads fordelivery by two dozen mobile Jericho

missiles a couple of squadrons of air-craft and perhaps a small inventory of sea-launched cruise missiles Muchuncertainty remains however about

the structure and diversity of IsraelOtildesnuclear arsenal because of IsraelOtildespolicy of keeping its nuclear capabilityambiguous and because other countriesdonOtildet reveal some of what their intelli-gence communities know

Despite IsraelOtildes stated policy that itwill not be the first to introduce nuclearweapons in the Middle East there is littledoubt that Israel has already introduced

nuclear weapons in the region and thatonly a deception based on a narrow inter-pretation of what constitutes Ograveintroduc-tionOacute keeps Israel from officially being anuclear weapon state Thanks to invalu-able research by researchers such asAvner Cohen and William Burr previ-ously unknown nuances of IsraelOtildesopaque nuclear policy have become

available to the public

Funding

This research was conducted with generous support

from the New Land Foundation and the Ploughshares

Fund

Notes

1 For collections of declassified US govern-

ment documents relating to IsraelOtildes nuclear

weapons capability see Cohen and Burr

(2006)2 Frank Barnaby who cross-examined Vanunu

on behalf of the Sunday Times stated in 2004

that the estimate for IsraelOtildes plutonium

inventoryNtildesufficient for Ogravesome 150 nuclearweaponsOacuteNtildewas based on VanunuOtildes descrip-

tion of the reprocessing plant at Dimona

(Barnaby 2004 3rdquo4)3 International Panel of Fissile Materials (2013

20) For additional information about Israelifissile material production see International

Panel of Fissile Materials (2010 107rdquo116)





4 The 4 to 5 kilograms of plutonium per war-

head assumes high-quality technical andengineering performance for productionfacilities and personnel Lower perform-ance would need a greater amount of pluto-

nium per warhead and therefore reduce thetotal number of weapons that Israel couldpotentially have produced

5 For examples of claims about tactical and

advanced nuclear weapons see Hersh(1993 199rdquo200 216rdquo217 220 268 276 (note)312 319)

6 The 400-warhead claim apparently wasbased on an earlier article in the samemagazine (Brower 1997)

7 The secret document was leaked and repro-duced in Scarborough (2004 194

rdquo223) It is

important to caution that as a DIA docu-ment the report does not necessarily rep-resent the coordinated assessment of the

US Intelligence Community as a wholeonly the view of one part of it An excerptfrom the DIA report is available at Kristen-

sen and Aftergood (2007)8 Another declassified document at the time

stated OgraveIsrael plans to produce and deploy

up to 60 missilesOacute (Joint Chiefs of Staff1969 2)

9 For examples of sources claiming Jerichomissiles are deployed in silos see Cordes-

man (2008) Missilethreatcom (2012) Cor-desman references the Nuclear ThreatInitiative country profile on Israeli missiles

as the source for the silo claim The NTI hassince updated its page which no longermentions silos See httpwwwntiorgcountry-profilesisraeldelivery-systems

10 For examples of large range estimates forthe Jericho II see Hough (1997 407 rdquo410) Missilethreatcom (2012)

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New York Times Books

White House (1969a) Memorandum Henry Kissinger

to Richard Nixon SubjectIsraelOtildes Nuclear Program

July 19 Available at www2gwuedunsarchiv

nukevaultebb485docsDoc2010207-19-69

20circapdf

White House (1969b) Memorandum Kissinger to

Nixon Subject IsraelOtildes Nuclear Program Novem-

ber 6 Available at httpwww2gwuedu


White House (1969c) Talking paper for the Deputy

Secretary of Defense and the Chairman Joint

Chiefs of Staff (Meeting of the Ad Hoc Committee

of the NSCReview Group) June 20Attachment to

Memorandum Jeanne Davis Secretariat National

Security Council to Under Secretary of State

Richardson et al June 5 Available at http


docsDoc207pdf

Williams D (2006) IsraelOtildes Olmert under fire over

nuclear remarks Washington Post December 12

Available at httpwwwwashingtonpostcom

wp-dyncontentarticle20061212AR2006121

200463_pfhtml

Author biographies

Hans M Kristensen is the director of theNuclear Information Project with the Federa-tion of American Scientists (FAS) in Washing-

ton DC USA His work focuses on researchingand writing about the status of nuclear weaponsand the policies that direct them Kristensen is aco-author of the world nuclear forces overviewin the SIPRI Yearbook (Oxford UniversityPress) and a frequent adviser to the newsmedia on nuclear weapons policy and oper-ations He has co-authored Nuclear notebooksince 2001 Inquiries should be directed toFAS 1725 DeSales St NW Sixth Floor Washing-ton DC 20036 USA (202) 546-3300

Robert S Norris is a senior fellow with theFederation of American Scientists in Washing-ton DC USA A former senior research associ-ate with the Natural Resources DefenseCouncil his principal areas of expertise includewriting and research on all aspects of thenuclear weapons programs of the UnitedStates the Soviet Union and Russia theUnited Kingdom France and China as well asIndia Pakistan and Israel He is the author of

Racing for the Bomb General Leslie R Grovesthe Manhattan ProjectOtildes Indispensable Man

(Steerforth 2002) and co-author of Making the

Russian Bomb From Stalin to Yeltsin (West-view 1995) He co-authored or contributed tothe chapter on nuclear weapons in the1985rdquo2000 editions of the SIPRI Yearbook

(Oxford University Press) and has co-authoredNuclear notebook since 1987




Bulletinof the

Atomic Scientists

IT IS 5 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT

reg

Nuclear notebook

Israeli nuclear weapons 2014

Hans M Kristensen and Robert S Norris

Abstract

Although the Israeli government neither confirms nor denies that it possesses nuclear weapons it is generally

accepted by friend and foe alike that Israel is a nuclear-armed stateNtildeand has been so for nearly half a centuryThe basis for this conclusion has been strengthened significantly since our previous estimate in 2002 particu-

larly thanks to new documents obtained by scholars under the US Freedom of Information Act and other openly

available sources1 We conclude that many of the public claims about the size of the Israeli nuclear arsenal are

exaggerated We estimate that Israel has a stockpile of approximately 80 nuclear warheads for delivery by two

dozen missiles a couple of squadrons of aircraft and perhaps a small number of sea-launched cruise missiles

Keywords

arms race cruise missiles Israel Jericho missiles Middle East nuclear weapons security

Nuclear policy issues

Since the late 1960s every Israeligovernment has practiced a policyof nuclear opacity that while

acknowledging that Israel maintains theoption of building nuclear weapons

leaves it factually uncertain as to whetherIsrael actually possesses nuclear weaponsand if so at what operational status Sincethe mid-1960s this policy has been pub-licly expressedNtildeand recently reaffirmedby Prime Minister Benjamin Netan-yahuNtildeas the phrase OgraveWe wonOtildet be thefirst to introduce nuclear weapons intothe Middle EastOacute (Netanyahu 2011)

This statement is widely seen as adeception because it is a long-held con-clusion among governments and experts

that Israel has produced a sizable stock-pile of nuclear warheads (probably unas-sembled) designed for delivery byballistic missiles and aircraft Commonsense dictates that a country that hasdeveloped and produced nuclear war-heads for delivery by designated delivery

vehicles has regardless of their oper-ational status introduced the weapons tothe region But Israeli governments haveattached so many interpretations toOgraveintroduceOacute that common sense doesnOtildetappear to apply

Declassified documents from USrdquoIsraeli negotiations in 1968rdquo1969 aboutthe sale and delivery of F-4 Phantom air-craft show that the White House under-stood full well that Ogravethey [Israel]interpreted that [OgraveintroductionOacute] to mean

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists2014 Vol 70(6) 97ndash115 The Author(s) 2014

Reprints and permissions

sagepubcoukjournalsPermissionsnavDOI 1011770096340214555409

httpthebulletinsagepubcom























































The nuclear alert































How many warheads











LAND-BASED MISSLES



SEA-BASED MISSLES



RANGE (KM) COMMENT

AIRCRAFT








military purposes3

























1999)

7






Warhead designs














































Land-based missiles










1969a 1)8



























submarines

















































































Funding



Fund

Notes























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References








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November 30




act2003_11Israel


















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October 4 2013)









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2014)






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Author biographies






























































The nuclear alert































How many warheads











LAND-BASED MISSLES



SEA-BASED MISSLES



RANGE (KM) COMMENT

AIRCRAFT








military purposes3

























1999)

7






Warhead designs














































Land-based missiles










1969a 1)8



























submarines

















































































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November 30




act2003_11Israel


















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October 4 2013)









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ber 407rdquo410









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israelnuke
























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docsDoc207pdf





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Author biographies










































The nuclear alert































How many warheads











LAND-BASED MISSLES



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RANGE (KM) COMMENT

AIRCRAFT








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1999)

7






Warhead designs














































Land-based missiles










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Funding



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Notes























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docsDoc206205-30-6920NSSM204020

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Author biographies






















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How many warheads











LAND-BASED MISSLES



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AIRCRAFT








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1999)

7






Warhead designs














































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Author biographies

































How many warheads











LAND-BASED MISSLES



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RANGE (KM) COMMENT

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Author biographies













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Funding



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submarines

















































































Funding



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Notes























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References








Tauris







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November 30




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docsDoc206205-30-6920NSSM204020

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marinesa836784html




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Funding



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Author biographies



















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Author biographies














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Author biographies







