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The story of the world's best-kept secret: How Israel built a nuclear arsenal under the eyes of the great powers

2025-07-03 22:44:38Histori SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
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Clara Hage & Georges Schmitz – L'Orient Le Jour

For decades, an "open secret" has been stirring diplomatic backstage in Washington: a Middle Eastern state has been quietly developing a nuclear arsenal, outside any international oversight, raising the risk of an irreversible arms race in the region. It's Israel.

As early as 1961, just a few weeks before John F. Kennedy officially took office as US president, US intelligence services confirmed suspicions that the Eisenhower administration had long suspected that the Dimona plant, in the middle of the Negev desert, contained a secret reactor.

"The production of plutonium for military purposes is at least one of the main objectives of this project," the secret report read.

Kennedy, concerned, opened his first meeting with his predecessor with the question: "Which countries are most determined to acquire nuclear weapons?"

The answer was unequivocal: “Israel and India.”

The story of the world's best-kept secret: How Israel built a nuclear
A declassified photo from a US spy satellite shows an Israeli nuclear research center near Dimona.

At the time, Israel was expected to produce up to 90 kilograms of military-grade plutonium within two years. The US demanded regular inspections in Israel to avoid the risk of the bomb being introduced into the Middle East.

On May 30, 1961, Israeli Prime Minister David Ben Gurion met with Kennedy in Manhattan. When the president raised the issue, Ben Gurion seemed flustered. He spoke “rapidly and in a low voice,” the minutes of the meeting said. Still, he insisted: Dimona was for economic development, not weapons. And yet, he also mentioned a “pilot plant” for processing plutonium. This detail was deleted from the final version of the American memorandum. Ten days later, an American delegation visited Dimona and concluded that everything seemed “in keeping with the peaceful character claimed by the Israeli government.”

From denial to "nuclear opacity"

Israel has never officially admitted to having nuclear weapons, but it has not explicitly denied it either. According to the International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the country possesses between 80 and 100 nuclear warheads.

The story of the world's best-kept secret: How Israel built a nuclear
An Israeli Phantom fighter bomber in 1970.

This policy of “nuclear opacity” has allowed Israel to evade the obligations of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, unlike Iran, which is a signatory to the treaty and claims that its program is civilian. Meanwhile, Iran is under military strikes by Tel Aviv and Washington in the name of a “preventive war.” President Donald Trump declared that these interventions were aimed at “ending the nuclear threat from the state sponsor of terrorism on a global scale,” referring to Iran.

From Holocaust trauma to French aid

Israel's drive to build a nuclear capability arose as a response to the existential fears the country felt after the Holocaust and the Nakba of 1948. David Ben Gurion believed that only nuclear power would ensure the long-term existence of the Jewish state. As Ernst David Bergmann, one of the program's founders, would later put it: "The goal is to avoid another Shoah."

Israel established the Atomic Energy Commission in 1952 and worked closely with France, which at the time was also trying to develop nuclear weapons itself. The cooperation included not only the construction of the reactor in Dimona, but also the installation of a plutonium processing plant. In exchange, France received advanced technology from Israel, including supercomputers.

All this was kept secret. The French engineers in Dimona were not allowed to write directly to their families; letters were sent to a false address in Latin America. After De Gaulle came to power, French support was withdrawn in 1958. But construction of the reactor continued until 1965.

From mistrust to silent cooperation with the US

At first, the US demanded frequent inspections of Dimona, especially during the Kennedy presidency. But Tel Aviv manipulated the situation: it blocked access to parts of the facility and created a fake control room with fabricated data. The great distrust of Israel during this period even inspired conspiracy theories about the involvement of the Mossad in the Kennedy assassination.

After his death, the US did not react any more strongly. Classified reports indicate that as early as 1967, Israel may have built the first atomic bomb. But instead of confronting, the US chose to turn a blind eye. In 1969, with the arrival of Richard Nixon to the presidency, a confidential agreement was reached: Israel would keep the program secret, would not test the weapons, and the US would “look the other way.”

Dimona, still a mysterious center

Since then, not much has emerged from the Dimona facility. In 1986, Israeli technician Mordechai Vanunu revealed to the Sunday Times that the facility was producing 1.2 kg of plutonium per week, enough to build 12 bombs per year. For this discovery, he was kidnapped by the Mossad, sentenced to 18 years in prison, and after his release, remained under severe restrictive measures.

The story of the world's best-kept secret: How Israel built a nuclear
An Israeli nuclear facility in the Negev Desert outside Dimona, photographed in 2000.

“Samson Option”: The ultimate strategy?

Beyond maintaining secrecy, Tel Aviv has also built another policy: preserving the regional nuclear monopoly at all costs. It is the so-called "Begin doctrine", which implies preemptive strikes against any Middle Eastern state that tries to build nuclear weapons. This doctrine has been applied several times, in Iraq in 1981, in Syria in 2007 and today against Iran.

Another mystery is the “Samson Option,” the idea that in the event of an existential threat, Israel could use nuclear weapons as a final act of self-destruction. Mentioned by journalist Seymour Hersh, this option has never been officially confirmed, except for a 2009 interview by Shimon Peres in which he stated that Israel’s strength comes from “its neighbors’ suspicion that it can destroy them.”

It is possible that Israel's fleet of F-35 jets could be capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

In November 2023, during the first month of the Gaza war, the Israeli Minister of Heritage suggested using a nuclear bomb on the Palestinian enclave, then backed down, saying it was a “metaphor.” But this statement, however symbolic, shows that existential fear remains deeply embedded in Israeli strategy.

Today, according to expert analysis and satellite imagery, it appears that Israel is expanding the buildings in Dimona. At a time when the world is increasingly fragmented and international norms are often flouted, “the world’s least-kept secret” is increasingly visible.

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