How Israel deceived the United States about its nuclear weapons program

[Exp]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/06/23/israel-nuclear-weapons-iran-united-states/

As of 2021, Israel is believed to possess 90 nuclear warheads for delivery by aircraft, land-based ballistic missiles and possibly sea-based cruise missiles, according to an estimate by researchers at the Federation of American Scientists.

The roots

David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, decided in the mid-1950s that Israel needed a nuclear weapon as an insurance policy against its Arab neighbors. In the 1950s and 1960s, Israel secretly acquired the technology and material to build nuclear weapons, frequently misleading the U.S. government (and other governments) about its intentions.

After the Suez crisis of 1956, sparked by Egypt’s closure of the Suez Canal, French officials felt a “sense of debt” to Israel for failing to fulfill commitments in the misbegotten adventure, according to the Jewish Virtual Library, an online encyclopedia. In secret, France helped Israel build the Dimona reactor in the Negev desert, with plans for a chemical reprocessing plant deep underground not committed to paper.

When French officials began to have second thoughts about the project and pressed Israel to stop work, Israel proposed a compromise: France would help finish the job and not insist on international inspections in return for Israeli assurances that they had no intention of making nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, Norway supplied heavy water, which helps control nuclear reactions, after receiving assurances that Israel’s intentions were peaceful.

The cover-up

When U.S. intelligence discovered the secret facility deep in the desert late in the 1950s, Israeli officials lied to the American Embassy and said it was only a textile plant. When that turned out to be false, Israeli officials offered another explanation: It was purely a metallurgical research installation that did not contain the chemical reprocessing plant needed to produce nuclear weapons.



The U.S. commitment to Israel “could be seriously jeopardized if it should be thought we were unable to obtain reliable information on a subject so vital to peace as the question of Israel’s effort in the nuclear field,” Kennedy wrote, adding that U.S. scientists should have unlimited access to all sites at the Dimona complex.

A month later, Eshkol responded, underscoring the plant’s peaceful uses. In 1964, a U.S. inspection team confirmed that there was no weapons-making capability.

But the inspectors were operating under a false assumption — that Israel had no plutonium reprocessing plant. In reality, one was built beneath the reactor. Israelis had built fake walls around the elevators that led to it.

Seymour Hersh’s 1991 book “The Samson Option” detailed the scheme: “A false control room was constructed at Dimona, complete with false control panels and computer-driven measuring devices that seemed to be gauging the thermal output of a twenty-four-megawatt reactor (as Israel claimed Dimona to be) in full operation. There were extensive practice sessions in the fake control room, as Israeli technicians sought to avoid any slips when the Americans arrived. The goal was to convince the inspectors that no chemical reprocessing plant existed or was possible.”

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Israel as a helpful ally? Israel fired upon one of our Navy ships:


The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship (a spy ship), USS Liberty, by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy motor torpedo boats, on 8 June 1967, during the Six-Day War.[2] The combined air and sea attack killed 34 crew members (naval officers, seamen, two marines, and one civilian NSA employee), wounded 171 crew members, and severely damaged the ship.[3] At the time, the ship was in international waters north of the Sinai Peninsula, about 25.5 nautical miles (47.2 km; 29.3 mi) northwest from the Egyptian city of Arish.[1][4]

Israel apologized for the attack, saying that USS Liberty had been attacked in error after being mistaken for an Egyptian ship.[5] Both the Israeli and United States governments conducted inquiries and issued reports that concluded the attack was a mistake due to Israeli confusion about the ship's identity.[6] Others, including survivors of the attack, have rejected these conclusions and maintain that the attack was deliberate.[7][8] Thomas Hinman Moorer, the 7th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, accused President Lyndon B. Johnson of having covered up that the attack was a deliberate act.[9]

[Kid Berwyn]

1. Someone understood the complexities way back then.

From the WaPo:

The U.S. commitment to Israel “could be seriously jeopardized if it should be thought we were unable to obtain reliable information on a subject so vital to peace as the question of Israel’s effort in the nuclear field,” Kennedy wrote, adding that U.S. scientists should have unlimited access to all sites at the Dimona complex.

[vanessa_ca]

2. "in return for Israeli assurances that they had no intention of making nuclear weapons."

"France would help finish the job and not insist on international inspections in return for Israeli assurances that they had no intention of making nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, Norway supplied heavy water, which helps control nuclear reactions, after receiving assurances that Israel’s intentions were peaceful."

[dalton99a]

4. +1. And enriched uranium came from the U.S.

https://www.courthousenews.com/cia-documents-sought-on-1960s-transfer-of-enriched-uranium-from-u-s-to-israel/

CIA Documents Sought on 1960’s Transfer of Enriched Uranium From U.S. to Israel
Janet McMahon / February 23, 2015

In the depths of the Cold War, a legendary Israeli spy made a visit to a Pennsylvania plant that processed government-supplied U-235 uranium into fuel for the U.S. Navy. Around the same time, hundreds of kilograms of uranium disappeared from the plant.

Traces of uranium were found outside Israel's Dimona nuclear facility in the 1960's and later revealed to carry the unique signature of uranium from the Pennsylvania plant.

The mystery of how the uranium traveled from one place to the other is what a Washington-based researcher is trying to unravel through a federal court complaint filed Friday.

The complaint asks for CIA files regarding "the unlawful diversion of U.S. government-owned weapons-grade uranium from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) into the clandestine Israeli nuclear weapons program."

...

[Exp]

5. Illegally / unannounced / largely unknowingly nt

[dalton99a]

3. And nothing has changed. Netanyahu is leading Trump around by the nose

[AloeVera]

6. So Israel is projecting again? About nuclear weapon denial and deceiving?

So Israel knows all about how to mislead and trick nuclear inspectors.

A false control room was constructed at Dimona, complete with false control panels and computer-driven measuring devices that seemed to be gauging the thermal output of a twenty-four-megawatt reactor (as Israel claimed Dimona to be) in full operation. There were extensive practice sessions in the fake control room, as Israeli technicians sought to avoid any slips when the Americans arrived. The goal was to convince the inspectors that no chemical reprocessing plant existed or was possible.”

That's some serious fakery there.

Every accusation....

Like the Human Shields! (TM) BS.

[2naSalit]

7. Well...

Little ole me has known about their nukes for at least a couple decades.

[Exp]

8. Sure, but just a reminder about how devious and undeserving Israel is of our respect. nt