Opinion Israel has nukes It’s time to admit it washingtonpost com opinions 2024 02 19 israel-nuclear-weapons Oleksii Liskonih Getty Images iStockphoto Listen 5 min Share Comment2454 Save William Burr is a senior analyst at the National Security Archive at George Washington University Richard Lawless is a former CIA officer and former assistant secretary of defense for Asia and Pacific affairs Henry Sokolski is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center Sign up for the Prompt 2024 newsletter for opinions on the biggest questions in politics With the Israel-Hamas war a nuclear Rubicon of sorts has been crossed Two elected Israeli officials — a government minister and a member of parliament — not only publicly referenced Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons but suggested that they be detonated over Gaza This was a disturbing first Meanwhile in Washington a long-standing secret executive order has prohibited American officials from even acknowledging that Israel has nuclear arms Given the increasing risks of nuclear weapons proliferation — and worse use — continuing such self-censorship about Israel’s nuclear arsenal is not just bizarre it’s harmful One of us directs a national security research center which last month conducted an unclassified Israel-Iran nuclear war game Israel fired nuclear weapons against Iran twice using a total of 51 weapons and Iran replied with a nuclear strike of its own Surprisingly the strategic uncertainties following the exchange were greater than those that preceded it The questions we were gaming were How much damage might Israeli nuclear strikes inflict against Iran’s nuclear and missile sites infrastructure and population Would Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities be incapacitated or are they buried so deep they would survive Would the region’s economies be “knocked out” by such a nuclear exchange or just “jolted ” Would Washington Moscow or Beijing be drawn into the conflict In what way None of the participants in the war game was confident they could answer any of these questions One of the best ways to clarify these matters is for American and Israeli experts and officials to peek into the future by gaming different nuclear war scenarios 1 5 Yet U S policy makes this impossible Why Because a course of action adopted half a century ago prohibits cleared U S employees from openly admitting Israel has nuclear arms In the late 1960s and 1970s this might have made sense The last thing Washington or Tel Aviv wanted was to goad the Soviets into sharing nuclear weapons or technology with Egypt or Syria to “balance” whatever nuclear weapons Israel had With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall though Washington doubled down on this know-nothing stance in part due to Israeli pressure Tel Aviv demanded President Bill Clinton and every subsequent American president commit to a secret agreement that the United States will not press the Jewish state to give up its nuclear weapons so long as it continues to face existential threats When this practice began the White House also promulgated a regulation — described in an Energy Department classification bulletin — that threatens present and past government employees with disciplinary action including firing if they publicly acknowledge Israel has nuclear weapons So far the regulation has been withheld from public release With Israeli officials’ recent public outbursts on using nuclear weapons in Gaza though whatever possible benefit this policy might have had has evaporated Maintaining it will only make matters worse One of us was a CIA officer who helped stop South Korea from getting nuclear weapons and just published a book “Hunting Nukes ” detailing this and related nonproliferation efforts After the CIA’s review board approved the book’s publication though the Pentagon demanded that references to Israel’s nuclear program be deleted Another of us has initiated the declassification of many archival documents on Israel’s nuclear weapons program Yet the Pentagon recently redacted all references to Israel’s nuclear program from a 60-year-old memorandum that U S diplomats had written on the need for regional Middle Eastern denuclearization talks even before Israel had produced a weapon What is the Pentagon protecting Does it really think keeping Israel’s nuclear program classified is in our national security interest If we pretend we don’t know Israel’s nuclear status doesn’t it only make it easier for Iran Saudi Arabia Egypt Turkey South Korea Japan and others to proceed with nuclear weapons programs of their own Worse doesn’t it provide policymakers cover to finesse dealing honestly with proliferation challenges they would prefer to ignore such as in North Korea Here also for diplomatic reasons U S officials stubbornly declare they will never accept Pyongyang as a nuclear weapons state despite its repeated nuclear tests and growing arsenal Also with increasing prospects of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and of Israel and Iran attacking one another what is to be gained by preventing open official discussion of what might unfold Shouldn’t our government instead be encouraging talks on how to promote greater nuclear restraint by both parties and in the Middle East more generally 2 5 For us these questions are all rhetorical Effectively Israel is no longer silent about its nuclear program Our government’s forced silence should end as well About guest opinion submissions The Washington Post accepts opinion articles on any topic We welcome submissions on local national and international issues We publish work that varies in length and format including multimedia Submit a guest opinion or read our guide to writing an opinion article PAID PROMOTED STORIES 00 30 00 31 C3A79 0 00 0 06 Watch More Top Podiatrist If You Have Toenail Fungus Try This Tonight It's Genius WellnessGuide101 com Ad is Hidden Please tell us why you hid this ad Inappropriate Misleading 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