Israeli nuclear weapons are a threat to the Middle East

Israeli nuclear weapons are a threat to the Middle East

The hypocrisy of the U.S. regarding Israel’s nuclear weapons

By Lynda Carson - February 12, 2026

It seems absolutely totally bizarre that the national news media reports never mention anything about the 400 nuclear weapons or more in possession of Israel, as they endlessly talk about the U.S. going after Iran for its nuclear programs. The propaganda machine in the U.S. news media has no bounds or limits, when it comes to its biased news reports about Iran, and Israel.

—“Israeli Nuclear Weapons a Threat to Middle East”—

Reportedly in 2018, “Iran has called on the United Nations and the international community to force nuclear-armed Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, saying that that would indeed be crucial for sustainable peace and stability in the region. It is believed that Israel had possessed an operational nuclear weapons capability by 1967, with the mass production of nuclear warheads occurring immediately after the Six-Day War. Although no official statistics exist, estimates of Israeli nuclear weapons range from 75 to as many as 400.”

Israel and the Bomb.

In a March 21, 2025, release from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, in part it says, “An extraordinary three-part series on Israeli television, The Atom and Me, lays out how the country got its nuclear weapons. It takes for granted what anyone who pays attention has known for years. But the series goes well beyond a general discussion about Israel’s nuclear weapons. It shows the country’s single-minded determination to get the bomb no matter what it took, including stealing nuclear explosives and bomb components from the United States and violating a major nuclear arms control treaty to which Israel is a party—and lying about it.

As the Trump administration is in serious discussion about joining Israel in attacks on Iran to stop it from getting nuclear weapons, it is useful to shed illusions about Israel’s modus operandi.

US officials stay mute. A thread running through the three episodes is a continuing conversation, before he died in 2018, with Benjamin Blumberg, the head of Lakam, the Israeli scientific intelligence agency responsible for the nuclear missions that led to the Israeli bomb, some so secret they were kept from the Mossad. (Mossad is the Israeli agency that handles foreign intelligence collection and covert action.) Blumberg was in failing health and agreed to talk so long as the interview was not aired until after his death.

That conversation is mixed with archival material and recent interviews. The significance of the series lies not in showing what was not previously known—although there are details in that category—but in the admissions on Israeli public television, with the approval of the Israeli censors, about events that have been denied by Israel’s supporters in the United States, including the US government.

Several events discussed in the television series deal directly with the United States: the theft in the 1960s of bomb quantities of uranium 235 from the NUMEC facility in Pennsylvania, where the leaders of the Israeli team that spirited Eichmann out of Argentina appeared inexplicably in 1968 with false identities; the illicit purchase of hundreds of high-speed switches (krytrons) for triggering nuclear weapons, and spiriting them out of the country in the 1980s by Israeli spy and arms dealer, and by then Hollywood producer, Arnon Milchan; and, most significantly at this point, Israel’s 1979 nuclear test in the seas off South Africa of what appears to be the initial fission stage for a thermonuclear weapon. The nuclear test violated the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty to which Israel is a party.”

The Vela Incident

Reportedly, “The Vela incident was an event involving a double flash of light detected by an American Vela Hotel satellite on 22 September 1979 near the South African territory of Prince Edward Islands in the Indian Ocean, roughly midway between Africa and Antarctica. Most independent researchers conclude that this, and accompanying physical phenomena, were caused by a nuclear explosion. This explosion is widely believed to have been an undeclared test of an Israeli nuclear weapon on the ocean surface, carried out with assistance from South Africa.

Most historians conclude that Israel tested a low-yield nuclear device, around two to three kilotons, and that the United States subsequently attempted a cover-up. Historians have pointed to the test's timing with a typhoon in the region and no overhead Vela satellites which were listed as active, the receiving satellite being listed as retired. In 1980, US President Jimmy Carter wrote in his diary, "We have a growing belief among our scientists that the Israelis did indeed conduct a nuclear test explosion in the ocean near the southern end of Africa."

Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu

According to a Wikipedia report, in part it says, “Mordechai Vanunu (Hebrew: מרדכי ואנונו‎; Hebrew pronunciation: [moʁdeˈχaj vaˈnunu]; pronunciation; Arabic: مردخاي فعنونو; Arabic pronunciation: [murdaxaj faʕnuːnu]; born 14 October 1952), also known as John Crossman, is an Israeli former nuclear technician and peace activist who, citing his opposition to weapons of mass destruction, revealed details of Israel's nuclear weapons program to the British press in 1986. He was subsequently lured from Britain to Italy by the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, where he was drugged and abducted. He was secretly transported to Israel and ultimately convicted in a trial that was held behind closed doors.

Vanunu spent 18 years in prison, including more than 11 in solitary confinement, though no such restriction is mentioned in Israel's penal code, nor imposed by his verdict. Released from prison in 2004, he was further subjected to a broad array of restrictions on his speech and his movement and arrested several times for violations of his parole terms, giving interviews to foreign journalists and attempting to leave Israel. He claims to have suffered from "cruel and barbaric treatment" at the hands of prison authorities and suggests that things would have been different if he had not converted to Christianity.

In 2007 Vanunu was sentenced to six months in prison for violating terms of his parole. The sentence was considered unusually severe even by the prosecution, who expected a suspended sentence. In response, Amnesty International issued a press release in July 2007, stating that "The organization considers Mordechai Vanunu to be a prisoner of conscience and calls for his immediate and unconditional release." In May 2010 Vanunu was arrested again and sentenced to three months in jail on a charge that he had met foreigners, in violation of conditions of his 2004 release from prison.

Vanunu has been characterized internationally as a whistleblower. American whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg has referred to him as "the preeminent hero of the nuclear era". In 1987, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "his courage and self-sacrifice in revealing the extent of Israel's nuclear weapons program". Israel claims and regards Vanunu as a traitor. In Israeli propaganda, he is known as the "nuclear spy" (Hebrew: מרגל האטום; Hebrew pronunciation: [meʁaˈɡel haʔaˈtom]).

Amnesty International Release

In a 2010 release from Amnesty International, in part it says, “Amnesty International is concerned for the health and wellbeing of 56- year-old Israeli nuclear industry whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu, a prisoner of conscience, who has been held in solitary confinement for more than five weeks. Mordechai Vanunu previously spent 11 years in solitary confinement after he was sentenced to 18 years’ imprisonment in 1986 for revealing details of the country’s nuclear arsenal to a UK newspaper, The Sunday Times. Amnesty International believes that individuals exposed to prolonged or repeated periods in solitary confinement may experience depression, anxiety, and other significant mental health problems.1 According to Vanunu’s lawyer, the Israeli authorities claim they are holding him in isolation in order to protect him from attacks from other prisoners. He is being held in a special unit for dangerous prisoners in Ayalon Prison, which is an inappropriate measure for a prisoner who does not pose any credible threat to others.”

Below are 2 interesting and revealing reports from 2004 about Mordechai Vanunu, that I was able to dig up.

Lynda Carson may be reached at newsland2 [at] gmail.com

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April 22, 2004, VANUNU, UPON RELEASE, CLAIMS U.S. AGENT LURED HIM TO 1986 CAPTURE

SUMMARY AND COMMENT: Immediately upon his April 21
release from prison, "nuclear spy" Mordechai Vanunu charged
that the woman who lured him into a Mossad trap in 1986
worked for the CIA or FBI. Nevertheless, Vanunu told the
press that he would like to emigrate to the U.S. The head of
the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, Gideon Frank, defended
the GOI's restrictions on Vanunu's liberty in an April 20
discussion with visiting U/S Bolton, charging that Vanunu is
out to "destroy" the Dimona nuclear facility. In an earlier
discussion with the Ambassador, however, Frank's deputy
accused the head of the MOD internal security service of
acting like a Communist security apparatchik in his campaign
against Vanunu. Recent articles have maintained that the
security establishment is motivated by a desire to conceal
its own bumbling in failing to prevent the original Vanunu
leaks, although an Israeli journalist speculated that
Vanunu's lawyers were peddling this story. In placing
onerous restrictions on Vanunu's liberty, the GOI appears to
be elevating Vanunu's international cult status rather than
protecting its nuclear program or national security. END
SUMMARY AND COMMENT.

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Vanunu Drags the U.S. Into It
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Mordechai Vanunu, the former low-level technician at
Israel's Dimona reactor who revealed details of Israel's
nuclear program to the Sunday Times of London in 1986,
claimed, upon his April 21 release from 18 years in prison,
that the woman who lured him into a Mossad kidnapping trap in
Rome in 1986 was an agent of the CIA or FBI, not the Mossad.

Nevertheless, he told Israel Radio -- in English, because he
is refusing to speak Hebrew -- that he would like to emigrate
to the United States, marry, and study and teach history.
Leaving little doubt that he intended to remain a nuisance
for the GOI, Vanunu told a crowd of supporters, opponents and
journalists outside the gates of the Shikma prison in
Ashkelon that he had been mistreated in prison because of his
conversion to Christianity. He also called for opening
Dimona to international inspections.

Vanunu's hope to leave Israel will be blocked, at
least for now, by a GOI decision to deny Vanunu a passport.
Vanunu has also been barred from communicating with
foreigners, entering embassies, approaching an airport or
other point of international egress, or talking with anyone
about his experiences at Dimona. He will not be allowed to
leave the city in which he chooses to live, reportedly the
Jaffa section of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, without authorization.
Vanunu reportedly intends to challenge these restrictions in
court.

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Top Nuclear Bureaucrats Split on Handling Vanunu
--------------------------------------------- ---

In an April 20 discussion with visiting Under
Secretary John Bolton, the head of the Israel Atomic Energy
Commission, Gideon Frank, defended the restrictions on
Vanunu, while acknowledging that they may prove
unenforceable. Frank charged that Vanunu "acted like a spy"
during his last months as an employee at Dimona and that he
clearly still intended to "destroy Dimona." Frank noted that
Vanunu, as a low-level technician, had not had access to a
lot of sensitive information about Dimona, but worried that
Vanunu would simply invent and spread lies. Moreover, Frank
added, not all the information that Vanunu leaked to the
Times had made it into print.

Frank's deputy, Eli Levite, expressed a very different
view of the GOI restrictions on Vanunu in a March 3
conversation with the Ambassador. He said that Yehiel Horev,
the head of the MOD internal security department (MALMAB),
whose responsibilities include Dimona, was the driving force
behind the GOI campaign to restrict Vanunu's liberty and had
argued for keeping Vanunu in administrative or home
detention. Noting that Horev had held the same position
since the period of the Vanunu leaks, Levite commented that
Horev had come to resemble "those who held similar positions
for 18 years in former Communist countries." Israel is a
democracy, Levite said, and should therefore leave Vanunu
alone now that he has paid his debt to society.

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Security Service CYA?
---------------------

Recent articles in Ha'aretz and Yedioth Ahronoth
suggested that Horev and other members of the GOI security
establishment sought to restrict Vanunu in order to prevent
revelation of their lapses in not stopping Vanunu before he
leaked to the Times. In a discussion with emboffs, an
Israeli journalist not involved in either of the reports cast
doubts on this version of events. The fact that two
newspapers ran the story suggested, he said, that Vanunu's
lawyers had been peddling the story.

COMMENT: The GOI is only contributing to the
international cult around Vanunu in its continuing campaign
against him. Vanunu's revelations in 1986 did nothing to set
back Israel's nuclear program, and we have difficulty
imagining that anything he says or does today could harm the
program or otherwise damage Israeli national security. As
Ha'aretz defense commentator Reuven Pedatzur wrote, Vanunu is
"a strange man with strange ideas who committed a very
serious crime for which he was tried and imprisoned for a
lengthy period.... Leave Vanunu alone. Simply ignore him.
Don't turn him into a cultural hero." KURTZER.

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July 26, 2004, DIMONA RADIATION FEARS HEIGHTENED BY VANUNU STATEMENTS

SUMMARY: Comments made by Israeli nuclear scientist
Mordechai Vanunu to a UK paper have inflamed public concerns
in Jordan regarding Israel's Dimona reactor. The GOJ quickly
countered Vanunu's claims that Jordanians - and others in the
region - are at risk from leaks or other environmental
effects. However, a popular perception remains that Dimona is
a hazard that the government is unwilling to acknowledge. END
SUMMARY.

Vanunu's recent comments specific to Jordan have
gained wide attention among Jordanians. He reportedly told a
UK-based newspaper that the Dimona reactor mainly operates
when winds blow towards Jordan and that a strong earthquake
could crack the reactor and cause millions of deaths in the
region. He also advised the Jordanian government to examine
residents near the border for radioactive contamination and
to prepare for possible leaks.

(SBU) In response to Vanunu's allegations, GOJ
Spokesperson Asma Khader issued a statement that the Jordan
Nuclear Energy Commission monitors radiation levels
constantly near the border with Israel and has recorded no
abnormal levels. Khader also restated GOJ support for all
international efforts to create a nuclear-free Middle East.
Most local papers carried only the GOJ denial of negative
effects and not the Vanunu allegations themselves.

COMMENT: Vanunu's latest public remarks have once
again raised concerns among the public - and press - about
the health effects of Dimona. Since Vanunu's release from
prison, his revelations have been repeated by the pan-Arab
satellite channels, where most Jordanians get their news. The
GOJ may have a credibility problem on this issue, as no
independent studies of the health effects of Dimona have been
conducted in Jordan. END COMMENT. HALE.

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