Editor’s Note: This is the second of four articles covering the interlinked topics of Israel’s relations with the U.S. and the challenge posed by Iran’s nuclear program. Much of what follows, especially as to diplomatic maneuvers, is drawn from a 2015 case study by Warren Bass of RAND, A Surprise Out of Zion?, covering the preventive/preemptive wars Israel has faced.
The Six-Day War, 1967
If the Suez Crisis was an exemplar of preventive war, the Six-Day War was a classic case of pre-emptive war. in the month run-up to the June 5 beginning of the conflict, Nasser issued a series of bloodcurdling threats calling upon his Arab allies to join him in a war of extermination against the Jewish state. He ordered UN peacekeeping forces, stationed in the Sinai since 1956, to first pull back and then, to depart the Sinai. The secretary-general, U Thant of Burma, the first developing-country representative to hold that position, complied.
Israeli prime minister Levi Eshkol had formed a solid friendship with president Lyndon Johnson — both were farmers, and LBJ, a Christadelphian (Brothers in Christ) worshipper, harbored a special feeling for Jerusalem. After Egypt imposed a blockade on the Straits of Tiran on May 22, Eshkol went to his friend asking for American assistance, based upon America’s 1957 post-Suez guarantee from freedom of Israel navigation through the Straits, and the expulsion of UN expeditionary forces in the Sinai.
But while the two heads of state were close, that was hardly the case at the Pentagon or at Foggy Bottom. Mired ever more deeply in the Vietnam War, Defense had no appetite for getting involved in another major conflict. As for State, though less pro-Arab than during Israel’s early years, its Mideast desk still leaned strongly towards the Arabs. The State Department denied that it had guaranteed Israeli safe passage through the Straits after Suez. In Ike’s Gamble (1956), discussed in Part One, Michael Doran notes that it took a press conference called by former president Eisenhower, who reaffirmed that such a commitment had been made, to make State concede. LBJ asked for a fortnight to see if through diplomacy the Straits could be re-opened. Eshkol replied that he would delay as long as possible, but he could not guarantee that Israel could safely hold off a full fortnight.
When Israeli aircraft were returning from their surprise strike at Egypt’s air force, having destroyed some 90 percent of the force, Eshkol notified LBJ. Though LBJ did not agree that Israel had to act, he understood that Eshkol felt differently. Another factor that may have influenced LBJ to stand down: the CIA estimated that in event of war, Israel would win easily in a couple days. After two days, Egypt, and its allies, Syria and Iraq, were defeated, save for mop-up operations, with Israeli ground forces marching towards the Suez Canal. But then Jordan’s normally circumspect King Hussein, galvanized by false reports from Radio Cairo recounting a massive Egyptian victory — including destroying the Israeli Air Force — decided to jump in. The upshot was that Israel defeated the Jordanians, seized much of the area west of the Jordan River, and liberated Jerusalem, re-uniting the western and eastern halves after 19 years of separation. Hostilities ended June 11. Israel, in addition to reclaiming Jerusalem, had taken two-thirds of the Golan Heights in the north, eliminating Syria’s ability to shell northern Israel at will. (READ MORE: Six Days, and Forty Years)
Because the war ended with an Israeli triumph, there was no need for Israel to use the atomic bomb. Sources conflict to how many Israel had in 1967. A 2017 New York Times article based on an interview with a former Israeli official, asserts that Israel had only one A-bomb, to be used by exploding it in the Sinai as a warning to Arab adversaries to back off. But a 2013 compilation of global arsenals by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (BAS) shows Israel with two in 1967, 15 in 1973, 33 in 1991, and 80 for 2004-13. A Federation of Atomic Scientists (FAS) 2007 compilation shows two for 1967 and 13 for 1973, with 20-kiloton yields. As of 2007, FAS offers a range of 70 to 400 for Israel, but adds that the most likely figure is close to the low end of the range. If the 1967 number of two is correct, and given a yield of 20 kilotons, roughly comparable to the Nagasaki bomb, their use could have been, in event of imminent total defeat, for the “Samson Option”: taking out Cairo and Damascus as Israel fell to Arab forces. The most recent estimate for Israel’s nuclear arsenal is 90 warheads.
At its founding, prime minister David Ben-Gurion decided to pursue nuclear weapons to prevent a possible second Holocaust. He secured technology from the French, and they built a nuclear reactor at Dimona, which can produce civilian-grade 3.5 percent enriched uranium, and enable extraction of plutonium by reprocessing spent fuel. In April 1963, when Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres met with JFK in the Oval Office, in response to JFK’s interrogation as to nuclear weapons, Peres improvised on the spot what remains Israel’s stated policy today: Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. Defined narrowly, it means that Israel can produce weapons-grade fuel, but will not mate warheads to any bomb chassis, so long as the Middle East remains nuclear-free.
The Yom Kippur War, 1973
In The Two O’ Clock War: The 1973 Yom Kippur Conflict and the Airlift That Saved Israel (2002), authors Walter J. Boyne and Fred Smith show in harrowing detail how close to destruction Israel found itself, before rallying with U.S. aid to save the day. Egypt and Syria turned the tables, striking the first blow and achieving strategic surprise by attacking on Yom Kippur — coincidentally also the first date of the month of Ramadan — which fell on October 6 that year. As the Arabs were marshaling forces, Israeli prime minister Golda Meir went to the U.S. for prewar aid, only to be told that if she wanted to receive U.S. assistance, Israel must not strike first. Reluctantly she complied. Israel did not order mobilization in advance, difficult in a society far less populous than many Arab countries. Thus, unlike Egypt, Israel is unable to maintain a full-time standing army. (READ MORE: The Yom Kippur War and the Righteous Richard Nixon)
Israel intelligence, usually first-rate, proved catastrophically wrong in 1973, in grossly underestimating the military prowess of its adversaries. Had the war been fought without Israel having the buffer of territory acquired in 1967, the Jewish state would have ceased to exist. Not only did the Arabs fight effectively; they also had amassed from their Russian suppliers thousands of modern “Sagger” wire-guided anti-tank missiles, and thousands of surface-to-air missiles, some portable, all deadly. Over the first fortnight of the three-week conflict, the Israeli airfare and armor suffered heavy losses.
Worse, enmeshed in a protracted, desperate fight for survival, Israeli forces consumed munitions at a far higher rate than anticipated, and began asking the U.S. for resupply after one week. The second week saw the first shipments, but it was not until the third week that the full weight of massive U.S. aid enabled Israel to decisively turn the tide. Even that was made possible by the narrowest of margins: all European countries save Portugal were dependent upon Arab oil, and early in the conflict Saudi Arabia imposed an oil embargo on Europe. As Portugal imported its petroleum needs from its colony, Angola, it was willing to offer its NATO base in the Azore Islands for American shipments. Without this base America’s military transports would have needed to fly 6,000 miles direct, which would have drastically reduced the per-trip cargo load that its nonpareil jet transports, the C-5A Galaxy and C-141 Starlifter, could carry. The shortfall would have to have been made up by many more flights, and thus the time to fully resupply Israel with vital supplies would have been longer. Likely the intense and growing outside pressure to end the military phase and employ diplomacy would have precluded full recovery by Israel of ground lost since Oct. 6.
As noted above, in 1973 Israel had an estimated 13 Nagasaki-yield atomic bombs that it was prepared to use to avoid total defeat. Though no public threat was made it is believed that Israel made it known to its Arab adversaries that it would do so if need be; this may explain why Syrian forces halted after retaking the Golan (which Israel would reconquer before hostilities ended). It is unclear if Egyptian president Sadat intended to retake the entire Sinai, and then invade Israel proper.
The specter of nuclear conflict was also raised in the closing days of the war. Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, who was chief of naval operations at the time, recalled in his memoir, On Watch (1976), that the Sixth Fleet was in a more tense situation vis-a-vis the Soviets than at any time since World War II. In his book Crisis: The Anatomy of Two Major Foreign Policy Crises (2003), Henry Kissinger, who served as national security advisor and secretary of state during the Nixon years, recounts that after the 1973 war, president Nixon told him that the superpowers had been “close to a nuclear confrontation.”
Israel Bombs Osirak, 1981
Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin confronted a different problem in his dealings with the Americans. President Reagan was personally sympathetic to Israel. But the Middle East was peripheral to his overall foreign policy goal: to win the Cold War. Towards that end he selected his national security team with an eye to their views on the Soviet Union and the Cold War. Only one member of his cabinet, UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, was passionately committed to siding with Israel in the Middle East. Yet she was selected by Reagan because of an article she published in 1979, stating that human rights abuses were far more pervasive in totalitarian countries, than in mere authoritarian regimes.
Begin sought U.S. approval for a planned raid on Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s “Osirak” nuclear reactor at Tammuz (named for the Babylonian counterpart to the Egyptian god Osiris), which France had built to secure access to Iraqi petroleum. Astonishingly, author Roger W. Claire recounts in Raid on the Sun (2004) on Sept. 8, 1975, two days before Saddam flew to France to sign the agreement, one calling for construction of a nuclear research reactor, he let the cat out of the proverbial bag at a press conference:
The search for a reactor with military potential was a reaction to Israel’s nuclear armament, and the [Franco-Iraqi] agreement was the first actual step in the production of an Arab atomic weapon, despite the fact that the declared purpose for the establishment of the reactor is not for the production of atomic weapons. (Emphasis in original.)
If that were not enough, in 1978 the French developed a new reactor fuel, “Caramel” (so-named for its color), which they planned to test in the Osirak reactor. Instead of loading 93 percent enriched uranium, they would have been using fuel enriched to seven or eight percent, yet capable of carrying out nuclear research. The Iraqis adamantly rejected the idea.
To Begin’s dismay, the administration insisted that diplomacy, which never had stopped a nuclear proliferator, should be used instead of military force. Under what has been called the Begin Doctrine, Israel will not allow any Middle Eastern enemy to cross the nuclear threshold, in order to ensure that no one can perpetrate a Second Holocaust. In Iraq’s case, this would, in Israel’s view, come when an adversary has enough enriched uranium (or reprocessed plutonium) to build a bomb. Once a reactor “goes critical” — begins operation — any strike would release highly radioactive material, which atmospheric winds can carry for hundreds of miles.
In his book, First Strike: The Exclusive Story of How Israel Foiled Iraq’s Attempt to Get the Bomb (1987), author Shalom Nakdimon presents a “what if” alternate scenario, set in 1985: A Boeing 727 commercial jetliner is spotted approaching Tel Aviv from the Mediterranean Sea. It disregards repeated warnings from Israeli jets to change course. A call to Israeli prime minister Begin gets a temporizing response, as Begin recalls Israel’s 1972 shooting down of a Libyan airliner. (The plane, carrying 108 passengers, had accidentally flown over an Israeli military base.) One jet fires an air-to-air missile as an object falls from the plane’s belly. The plane escapes, just as the unknown object explodes over Tel Aviv. It is an Iraqi atom bomb.
On June 7, 1981 the Israeli Air Force carried out a successful strike that destroyed the reactor before it went critical, which at that time was expected within weeks. Further angering the U.S. was that in late June Israel was holding elections, and that its timing would likely help Begin win. Exactly how close Iraq was then could not be pinpointed precisely.
The U.S. reaction was instantaneous and furious. Then-defense secretary Caspar Weinberger wanted an end to U.S. aid and for Israeli leaders to be prosecuted for violating international law. Other senior members of the administration settled on strong condemnation and a delay in sending requested military assets. Ambassador Kirkpatrick was tasked with drafting the UN Security Council resolution condemning the raid; she did her best to limit the harshness of UN Sec. Resolution 487 which was adopted on June 19, 1981.
The Gulf War, 1991
President George H.W. Bush forced Israel to the sidelines, lest the coalition lose Arab countries, whose participation removed any taint of Western imperialism. Israel, which had resolved never to subcontract its security to any country, found itself absorbing “Scud” short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) strikes launched by Iraq; nor was Israel allowed to help hunt for Scud launchers inside Iraq. (SRBM denotes ballistic missiles with a range less than 1,000 km./625 mi.)
During the war, American aircraft destroyed the nuclear facilities Saddam had begun constructing after the loss of Osirak. After the war, then-defense secretary Dick Cheney thanked Gen. David Ivry, who had been ground commander for the 1981 IDF airstrike that took out Osirak. He sent Ivry a post-attack photo of the Osirak reactor, inscribed, “With thanks and appreciation for the outstanding job you did on the Iraqi nuclear program in 1981, which made our job much easier in Desert Storm.” Indeed, there might never have been a Desert Storm in 1991; but for the 1981 airstrike, Saddam likely would have gone nuclear before the Gulf War, and thus also avoided later being toppled in 2003.
Syria, 2007
The story of the 2007 raid is told in Yaakov Katz’s Shadow Strike: Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power (2019). Israel confronted a situation roughly similar to what it faced in 1981: a rogue nation on the verge of starting operation of a nuclear reactor. The facility was a clone of the reactor built by North Korea at Yongbyon, which in 1994 had become the subject of an “Agreed Framework” under which the North Koreans would enrich uranium for civilian purposes only. But in 2006 it openly violated the accord by testing an atomic bomb. The Israelis were certain that the reactor, outside al-Kibar, a small town far from major urban centers, situated by the Euphrates River, was not part of any civilian electric grid.
In April 2007, prime minister Ehud Olmert sent Mossad chief Meir Dagan to brief the Bush 43 administration. In the wake of the Iraqi WMD fiasco, Bush wanted to be absolutely sure that the reactor was in fact intended for military purposes. Intelligence analysts told the administration senior leaders that the facility very likely was so intended. Bush’s senior advisers were split on whether to take action; Olmert met with Bush and asked him to use American planes to destroy the facility. He also told Bush that if 35 Syrian planes took off for Israel, with two of them carrying nuclear bombs, given direct southward flight time to Israel of one minute, the Israeli Air force would not be able to destroy all the planes. One or both jets with nuclear bombs could well penetrate Israel’s defenses to drop them.
Ensnared in the Iraqi insurgency, Bush demurred. But without specifically giving Olmert a green light, he told Olmert that the U.S. would not attempt to block Israel from striking. Olmert sent in planes to destroy the reactor on Sept. 6, having sent in a clandestine advance party to collect updated soil samples and take new site photographs. The U.S. and Israel maintained strict silence afterward, as did the Syrians — the latter likely to avoid embarrassment at having failed to prevent destruction of the reactor. The only country to react negatively was Turkey, as one of the returning aircraft had dropped an empty fuel tank that drifted across the Turkish border with Syria. Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded, and received a public apology from Israel; but Israel told the world that a mishap had occurred during a training flight when one fuel tank landed astray.
The Bottom Line
In the six use-of-force crises spanning five decades that Israel faced, it never received full cooperation from Washington. The degree to which their perceived geostrategic interests were mutual varied considerably. Israel’s leaders concluded that it could mitigate adverse American reaction by avoiding completely surprising the Americans as it did in 1956. American leaders generally found greater stakes elsewhere, and relegated Israel’s concerns to second-tier status. As a result, Israel nearly perished in 1973, and nearly faced a nuclear-armed, hostile Iraq ruled by a Stalinist tyrant.
John Wohlstetter is author of Sleepwalking With the Bomb (Discovery Institute Press, 2d. ed. 2014).