Israel wants to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. But should Israel have nuclear weapons?

Despite complaining about Iran’s growing nuclear threat, Israel also has a nuclear arsenal and has been the aggressor in the conflict.

Israel’s stated objective in the Middle East war is prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. However, the double standard associated with this is unlikely to be sustainable in the long term.

As International Relations specialist Marianne Hanson writes in , the worst-kept secret in the world of nuclear politics is that Israel has a formidable arsenal of nuclear weapons. The country began developing them in the 1950s and reached full operational capacity in the late 1960s.

Although Israel refuses to confirm or deny this fact, arms control organizations estimate that the country possess between 80 and 90 nuclear weapons.

In recent days, Iran attacked the Israeli nuclear installation in the city of Dimona, in the south of the country, injuring more than 100 people. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for avoid a “nuclear accident”.

A program shrouded in secrecy

There is much evidence to support the existence of Israel’s arsenal.

In 1963, the then deputy minister of Defense, Shimon Peres, declared that Israel would not be the first to “introduce” nuclear weapons into the Middle East. The true meaning of this was clarified a few years later by the Israeli ambassador to the USA. For a weapon to be “introduced”, he said, it had to be tested and publicly declared. Mere possession did not constitute introduction.

Multiple whistleblower accounts, intelligence reports and satellite images confirm the extent of the Israeli program and its capabilities.

More recently, Amichai Eliyahu, a far-right minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, insinuated the use of nuclear weapons in Gaza – a tacit recognition of Israel’s capabilities. He was later reprimanded by Netanyahu.

And in 2024, Avigdor Lieberman, former Minister of Defense and Foreign Affairs, threatened “use all the means at our disposal” to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon. He added: “It must be clear at this point that it is not possible to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons through conventional means.”

It is important to remember that Israel not only developed its nuclear weapons in secret – employing subterfuge, misleading claims and even the alleged theft of nuclear bomb material from the United States – but also rejected international inspections to its facilities and refused to adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This treaty was signed by almost every country in the world.

Concerns about Iran’s program

Iran, for its part, never had a nuclear weaponalthough its program has been a cause of international concern for more than a decade.

In 2015, the Iran signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (also known as the Iranian nuclear deal) with the US, Russia, China, France, the UK and Germany, which imposed restrictions on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. This included inspections by IAEA monitors.

However, Trump tore up the plan in 2018. Since then, Iran enriched uranium to levels far above necessary for your energy program. And last year, the IAEA said Iran was not meeting its nuclear non-proliferation obligations by failing to provide complete answers about its program.

But since the start of the current war, North American and international officials have confirmed that the Iran was not close to develop a nuclear weapon and did not pose an imminent nuclear threat to the US or Israel.

In summary, there is no truth on the allegation, that Iran is “weeks” away from having the bomb. The IAEA made clear two years ago that a nuclear weapon requires “many other things independent of the production of fissile material.”

Approaching the nuclear threshold, but not actually developing a bomb, likely offers an alternative for Iran. If Iran feels pressured or threatened, it could, over time, accelerate its energy program toward a weapons program. Or you could use this enriched uranium as bargaining chip in negotiations with the USA.

Nuclear powers need to show restraint

This brings us back to an important question: do double standards about who can and cannot develop a nuclear weapon can be kept indefinitely?

Israel’s nuclear arsenal was tacitly accepted by the Westwhich implies that there are “right hands” and “wrong hands” for nuclear weapons. But this is a risky and ultimately unsustainable position.

As Australia’s Canberra Commission noted in 1996, as long as one state possesses nuclear weapons, other states will also want them.

This is precisely why many States voted in 2017 to adopt the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The purpose of the treaty is to make the possession, threat and use of nuclear weapons illegitimate for all Statesand not just for some, based on international humanitarian law.

Signed by 99 states to date, the treaty recognizes that nuclear weapons represent a threat of mass destruction for both civilians and combatants, and that even a “small” nuclear war will cause catastrophic damage.

Ultimately, a consistent approach to nuclear weapons is more likely to prevent nuclear proliferation (by Iran or other states) would be more appropriate than the current chaotic situation, in which some states have tacit permission to possess these weapons (and wage war against others), while others do not.

We may be at a tipping point when it comes to nuclear proliferation, with some countries suspected of wish to develop nuclear capabilities. This includes US allies such as South Korea and Japan.

Are states possessing nuclear weapons willing to accept the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and disarm for the sake of global peace and security? If not, the current trajectory of maintaining nuclear weapons and waging war against states that do not possess them will only further weaken a rules-based international order that is already in shambles.