How Israel Deceived U.S. To Become A Nuclear Power, Recalling Mossad’s Masterstroke

Defence affairs analysis

After Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007, Israel attacked Iran to dismantle its nuclear program. For the last 44 years, Israel has been fulfilling the promise it made under the Begin Doctrine, to launch preemptive military strikes to ensure that no hostile state in the Middle East develops nuclear weapons.

Named after Prime Minister Menachem Begin, this doctrine was established following Israel’s 1981 airstrike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor (Operation Opera). The doctrine was reaffirmed in 2007 with Operation Orchard, which destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor.

Under the same doctrine, Israel launched cyberattacks like Stuxnet on the Iranian nuclear program in 2010, and has now launched targeted air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.

The last four-and-a-half decades show Israel’s commitment to preventing any Middle Eastern state from becoming a nuclear power.

However, there is one state in the Middle East that has been a secret nuclear power for the last five decades—Israel itself.

According to the SIPRI Yearbook 2025, Israel has a stockpile of 90 nuclear bombs.

How Israel built this massive stockpile of nuclear warheads under the radar is a story worth a Hollywood flick.

And, if such a movie is to be made, there is no better guy to produce it than Arnon Milchan, a successful Hollywood producer behind such hits as Pretty Woman, LA Confidential, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Fight Club, The Revenant, and 12 Years a Slave.

Why? Because Milchan himself worked as Israel’s and Mossad’s mole in Hollywood, using his connections in LA to procure nuclear technology and Uranium for Israel’s nuclear program.

The story of Israel building its nuclear weapons is the story of determination, audacity, trickery, and deception, all rolled into a nation’s will to survive against all odds.

How Israel Got Its Nuclear Weapons

Israel’s nuclear aspirations began as soon as the country was founded in 1948. David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, believed nuclear capability was essential for survival.

In his new book, The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel’s Bargain With the Bomb, Avner Cohen, the preeminent historian of Israel’s nuclear program, writes that David Ben-Gurion was nearly obsessed with developing nuclear weapons as the only guarantor against further slaughter.

“What Einstein, Oppenheimer, and Teller, the three of them are Jews, made for the United States, could also be done by scientists in Israel, for their own people,” Ben-Gurion declared.

In the late 1940s, Israeli scientists, many trained in Europe and the US, began researching nuclear technology. The Israeli Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC) was established in 1952 to oversee these efforts. Initially, Israel lacked the infrastructure, technology, and materials for a nuclear program, prompting a strategy of international collaboration and covert acquisition.

In 1957, Israel struck a pivotal deal with France, which agreed to supply a 24-megawatt research reactor and technical expertise for the Dimona facility in the Negev Desert. The agreement, detailed in Seymour Hersh’s The Samson Option (1991), was kept secret, even from the US, Israel’s steadfast ally.

Why France, a country that took one of the harshest lines on nuclear proliferation when it came to Iran, helped Israel is not difficult to understand.

Cohen writes in his book that France felt a deep sense of responsibility towards Israel for its help during the 1956 Suez Canal crisis. Besides, Israel was the primary source of intelligence for France to safeguard its colonies in North Africa.

France also provided designs for plutonium reprocessing, critical for weaponizing nuclear material. This partnership laid the foundation for Israel’s program but required additional resources, specifically uranium and technical expertise.

Israel would acquire these through less conventional means.