The WaPo has an article about America’s relationship with Israel during the years Israel got the bomb. It is an edited version of a longer article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
By the time Prime Minister Levi Eshkol visited President Lyndon B. Johnson in January 1968, the official State Department view was that despite Israel’s growing nuclear weapons potential, it had “not embarked on a program to produce a nuclear weapon.” [3] That assessment, however, eroded in the months ahead.
In November 1968, Paul Warnke, the assistant secretary of defense for international security, was engaged in intense negotiations with Israeli ambassador (and future prime minister) Yitzhak Rabin. At issue was a forthcoming sale of F-4 Phantom aircraft to Israel. The NPT had already been completed and submitted to states for their signature. U.S. officials believed that the F-4 deal provided leverage that would be America’s last best chance to get Israel to sign the NPT.
Yet it was clear that the two negotiators came to the table with completely different mindsets. Israel had previously pledged not to be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. But how does one define “introduce”? For Warnke, the physical presence of nuclear weapons entailed the act of introduction. Rabin, however, argued that for nuclear weapons to be introduced, they needed to be tested and publicly declared. By these criteria, he argued, Israel had remained faithful to its pledge. [4] When Warnke heard Rabin’s interpretation, as he told one of the authors years later, he realized that Israel had already acquired the bomb. [5]
Read the Bulletin article in full. The subtext is clear: The article is written now with the express purpose toward pushing Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or to piggyback on those who say that while we’re stopping Iran from getting the bomb, let’s take the bomb away from Israel.
Yet, even as Nixon and Kissinger enabled Israel to flout the NPT, NSSM 40 allowed them to create a “defensible record.” [37] And, as was his typical modus operandi, Kissinger used NSSM 40 as a way to maintain control over key officials who wanted to take action on the problem. Not aware of the secret Nixon-Meir understanding, lower-level officials involved in the NSSM 40 exercise continued to believe that the Israeli nuclear issue was open and vainly tried to restart the inspection visits at Dimona.
Politically, the Nixon-Meir agreement allowed both leaders to continue with their old public policies without being forced to publicly acknowledge the new reality. As long as Israel kept the bomb in the basement–which meant keeping the program under full secrecy, making no test, declaration, or any other visible act of displaying capability or otherwise transforming its status–the United States could live with Israel’s “non-introduction” pledge. A case in point: Even in a classified congressional hearing in 1975, the State Department refused to concur with the CIA estimate that Israel had the bomb. [38]
Again, the subtext is clear. You cannot “flout” a treaty you have never signed, yet that is exactly the language used by the authors. By contrast, Iran is a signatory of the NPT, and they are violating a treaty that they have signed. Note the conclusion:
Over time, the tentative Nixon-Meir understanding became the solid foundation for a remarkable and dramatic deal, accompanied by a strict but tacit code of behavior to which both nations closely adhered. The deal created a “don’t ask, don’t tell” stance. And the United States gave Israel a degree of political cover in international forums such as the NPT review conferences. Secrecy, taboo, and non-acknowledgement became embedded within the U.S.-Israeli posture.
It is striking how much Israel has stuck to its part of the deal, at great expense and risk. To this day, all Israeli governments of the left and the right have been faithful in keeping secrecy over their nuclear weapons activities, making great efforts to assure that nothing would be visible, politically, technologically, militarily, or otherwise. Even during its darkest hours in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel was cautious not to make any public display in deed or word of its nuclear capability. [39]
Yet set against contemporary values of transparency and accountability, the Nixon-Meir deal of 1969 is now a striking and burdensome anomaly. Not only is Israel’s nuclear posture of taboo and total secrecy anachronistic, it is inconsistent with, and costly to, the tenets of modern liberal democracy. At home and abroad Israel needs a better way to handle its nuclear affairs. The deal is also burdensome for the United States, not only because it is inconsistent with U.S. values of openness and accountability, but also because it provokes claims about double standards in its nuclear nonproliferation policy.
It is especially striking to compare the Nixon administration’s stance toward Israel in 1969 with the way that Washington is trying to accommodate India in 2006. As problematic as the proposed nuclear deal with New Delhi is, it at least represents an effort to deal openly with the issue, rather than sweeping it under the rug. Without open acknowledgment of Israel’s nuclear status, by Israel itself and by the rest of the world, such ideas as a nuclear-free Middle East, or even the inclusion of Israel in an updated NPT regime, cannot even be discussed properly. [40]
It is time for a new deal to replace the old Nixon-Meir understandings of 1969, with Israel telling the truth and in so doing finally normalizing its nuclear affairs.
You’re not fooling anyone by using India as an example, Mssrs. Cohen and Burr. Let us imagine for a moment the outburst that would occur if Israel publicly admits having nuclear weapons:
- There will be an immediate call for UN Security Council condemnation. The U.S. would not be able to veto the condemnation without looking hypocritical after its call to stop Iran from gaining nuclear weapons.
- There will be an immediate call for Israel to sign the NPT.
- There will be an immediate call for Israel to give up all of her nuclear weapons.
Does anyone out there doubt the outcome of these actions? Israel is not about to give up the only weapon that stops the Arab world from invading en masse. And so, Israel will be declared a pariah state, and sanctions called for — and established.
You can never underestimate the amount of bile the world has towards any Israeli action. Anything negative, no matter how trivial, is seized on as a weapon to hammer the Jewish state with. Lies have been made up for decades — witness the nonexistent Jenin “massacre,” which is still touted as having happened, and the Mohammed al-Dura lie, which is also still being shown as having happened even after investigations have proven it false.
Lest we forget, the anti-Israel Arab bloc got the United Nations to declare that “Zionism is racism,” a resolution that stood for years before finally being repealed.
Just thinking about Israel openly admitting she has nukes gives me the shudders. But compare the article quoted above with this short piece on the “inevitability” of the Iranian nuclear program. It’s conclusion: Lie back and enjoy it.
t now appears a foregone conclusion that Iran will continue its nuclear program no matter what the United States and the European Union offer to stop it.
Short of a U.N. Security Council resolution–which is unlikely, given the reluctance of veto-wielding nations such as China and Russia to impose sanctions–Israel or the United States might seek to end the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program through force. But bombing nuclear facilities or launching a preventive war runs the risk of futility because Iran has hardened and dispersed its nuclear complex. Moreover, military action may spark reprisal by Iranian-backed jihadist groups at a time when the U.S. military is already stretched to the breaking point by the insurgency in Iraq.
In pursuing a civilian nuclear program, Iran has international law on its side. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty gives signatories “the inalienable right” to peaceful nuclear technologies contingent on not making nuclear explosives. Although Iran has been less than forthcoming about many of its nuclear activities, inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency have not revealed evidence of a nuclear weapons program.
[...] Critics would likely label our proposal as appeasement. Rather than being starry-eyed Neville Chamberlains proclaiming nuclear “peace in our time” with Iran, we would hinge implementation of our initiative on Iran agreeing to rigorous, continuous monitoring of their nuclear program through active involvement with the United States and the European Union. Only by keeping our enemy closer can we increase confidence that Iran is living up to its commitments.
Once again, the world’s double standard when it comes to Israel is both breathtaking and apalling.
