Inside Israel’s secret nuclear program | What the world isn’t allowed to see at Dimona - video Dailymotion

India Today

Israel has never admitted to having nuclear weapons—but the world knows better.

Transcript

00:00Why is no one talking about Israel's nukes?

00:02The Hebrew word for nuclear opacity or ambiguity is Amimut.

00:06Israeli historian Abner Cohen believes it to be Israel's original contribution to the nuclear age.

00:12When the US launched strikes against Iran's nuclear sites,

00:15it said it was to stop Tehran from ever building a bomb.

00:18The objective of Israel's military operation is to remove this threat,

00:22both the nuclear threat and the ballistic missile threat to Israel.

00:26But here's the thing, critics say that Israel already has the bomb.

00:31And it's never admitted it.

00:32No public nuclear test, no declared arsenal,

00:35no membership in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

00:38But among intelligence agencies, many military analysts and global monitors,

00:42there's no ambiguity.

00:43Israel is a nuclear state.

00:45According to the Center for Arms Control and Nuclear Threat Initiative,

00:48Israel holds at least 90 warheads with enough fissile material to build hundreds more.

00:53It's ahead of North Korea in size, but still officially silent.

00:56Israel is one of the just five countries that never signed the NPT,

01:00the global agreement aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

01:03That puts it in the same category as India, Pakistan, North Korea and South Sudan.

01:08The rationale is rooted in history.

01:10After the Holocaust and a wart on birth in 1948,

01:13Israel's leaders believed nuclear weapons would guarantee survival.

01:17Ernst David Bergman, a key architect of Israel's nuclear program, put it bluntly,

01:21we shall never again be led as lambs to the slaughter.

01:24By 1952, Israel created its Atomic Energy Commission.

01:28It then secured heavy water from Norway and the UK in 1959.

01:32Later, it sourced uranium from Argentina and apartheid South Africa.

01:35The US-Israel's closest ally knew what was happening in Dimona,

01:39home to the Negev Nuclear Research Center,

01:41widely believed to be the heart of Israel's secret nuclear weapons program.

01:44By the early 1960s, American intelligence had raised red flags.

01:49But successive US presidents from Kennedy to Johnson and beyond

01:52chose quiet diplomacy over confrontation.

01:55Washington occasionally pressured Israel to sign the NPT

01:58or open Dimona to international inspections.

02:00But these efforts were largely symbolic.

02:02We want to be sure that Israel continues to have support.

02:08And I said, I will not let Israel go down the tube.

02:10Israel allowed US inspectors into Dimona.

02:12US conducted seven to eight inspection visits to Dimona between 1961 and 1969.

02:18Today, it leads calls to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions,

02:21while receiving billions in US aid and staying outside global nuclear rules.

02:26To much of the global South, that's double standard.

02:29Should Israel be held to the same nuclear standards as others?

02:32Or is nuclear ambiguity a necessary shield?

02:34Tell us what you think in the comments below.

Inside Israel’s secret nuclear program | What the world isn’t allowed to see at Dimona

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