Israel's Right to Nuclear Weapons - Essay Example

Desire for defense springs from the insecurity perceived to prevail in the surroundings. It would be the extent of the existing or likely threat which will lead a nation to decide the importance of defence in their overall strategy. In short, it will be the combination of historical facts and current realities which are merged to carve a structure for defensive preparedness of a nation. Some might suggest that histroical realities are infact the ones which produced the current realities therefore we should give them priority over the current realities or try to establish a connection between the historical facts and current realities to find a solution for the current predicaments from the past. But to our credence we should observe the current realities and historical facts differently for three reasons: History is communicated to us with some intended / unintended biases which as the time passes are difficult to ascertain Most of the history is longitudinal in nature as against being cross sectional. That is, it tells us one aspect of the event taking place in history like politics, economics or international environment. To have a true cross sectional account of any historical event is too complicated to contemplate by single or couple of minds of historians. The environments of the world in every respect are in continuous flux. The lessons of events occuring many years back may or may not hold good in present scenarios. It is with this perception that we should be able to see the Israel's requirement for a nuclear weapon. "Throughout history, many rulers, empires and nations have oppressed their Jewish populations or sought to eliminate them entirely. Methods employed have ranged from expulsion to outright genocide; within nations, often the threat of these extreme methods was sufficient to silence dissent. Some examples in the history of anti-Semitism are: the Great Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire; the First Crusade which resulted in the massacre of Jews; the Spanish Inquisition led by Torquemada and the Auto de f against the Marrano Jews; the Bohdan Chmielnicki Cossack massacres in Ukraine; the Pogroms backed by the Russian Tsars; as well as expulsions from Spain, Portugal, England, France, Germany, and other countries in which the Jews had settled. The persecution reached a peak in Adolf Hitler's Final Solution, which led to the Holocaust and the slaughter of approximately 6 million Jews from 1939 to 1945"1. In Holocaust the persecution and genocide was accomplished in stages. Legislation to remove the Jews from civil society was enacted years before the outbreak of World War II. Where the Third Reich conquered new territory in Eastern Europe and Russia, ghettos were established to contain and marginalize Jewish communities. Specialized units called Einsatzgruppen murdered large numbers of Jews and political opponents in mass shootings and mobile gassing units. In countries occupied by the Nazis, Jews were interned before being deported to death camps, often crammed into freight cars and transported hundreds of miles by rail, then killed in gas chambers. These historical events had its impact on the building of "collective insecurity psyche" of Jews. And that was the time when Jews decided that "(they should) act in such a way that the Jews who died in the gas chambers would be the last Jews to die without defending themselves."2 To add to the above building sense of insecurity when Israel was declared as independent state May 14, 1948 in the heart land of Arab dominated region, none of the Arab Countries liked the situation. Resultantly Egypt, Jordan, Syra, Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia invaded but failed to achieve success. In 1949 separate armistice was made with each state in which Jordan occupied the West Bank and Egypt occupied Gaza. Therefore, Israel was made to realize stark reality of existential intolerance of its neighbours. In 1956 during the Suez crisis Israel made tremendous success against Egypt and its allies, Britain and France not only failed in the operation but also backed out from it under US and USSR pressure. This event made Israel realize that it was not only the Arab neighbours it cannot trust but it has to see the international relationship in the light of realism. It is commonly said that "the Suez Crisis, proved to be the genesis of Israel's nuclear weapons production program"3. The hostility of Arab countries forced them to give another try to destroy Israel on Oct 6, 1973 in a war commonly named as Yom Kippur war. The result was the evidence of professionalism and increase in confidence of Israel and exactly the reverse for Egypt and Syria. Ironically the areas Israel captured after the blatant act of aggression by these Arab states are the ones on which now the Arab world want to build the Palestinian state: the idea never occurred to them when the area was with them. Israel rightly takes it as another gesture of its neighbors regarding their un-acceptance of its existence. For its security Israel has to destroy the nuclear reactor in Iraq, which was said to be in a near completion stage. Since Iraq had always adopted hostile policy towards Israel, therefore, it took the action in its best interest. At that time lot of hue and cry was made by the world but later on it was proved that in fact, "Israel helped make possible the U.S.-U.N. victory in 1991 over Saddam Hussein"4 by that action. During all these international events time and again Israel has used "ambiguity of its nuclear capability" as a bargain chip for assistance even with its so called friends i.e. US. The present realities are more volatile than what Israel had faced so far. Adventurism in Iraq by US has brought more instability to the region. The fighting within is breeding ground for more suicide bombers which can be exported to wage their so called "Jihad" in Israel. This possibility is inevitable in any scenario. If the things settle down now in Iraq it will prepare so much of suicide bombers that after settlement in Iraq they got to be employed somewhere else and what could be better than Israel, as always In the other scenario if such instability in Iraq continues it will soon reach a point that surplus number of suicide bombers will be available to carry out the same task as is mentioned for the first scenario. On the other hand, Iran's stance towards Israel is made clear by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Dec 8. He doubted that Holocaust ever occurred and suggested that Israel should be moved to Europe or North America. If we combine these sentiments of "Head of a State" together with the likely acquisition of nuclear capability by Iran, it require no sage to think of what are the security imperatives emerging for Israel. If at all we, for the time being suppose that the planned perceived favorable changes in Iraq and Iran are successfully made, even then "a new Iraq and a new Iran would still want nuclear weapons as long as (they think to their benefit that) Israel has them."5 Foregoing in view it is easy to list down the reasons (in relation to historical facts) for Israel to have nuclear capability, these are as follows:-6 1. To deter a large conventional attack, as it faced such attacks in its initial few years of independence.. 2. To deter all levels of unconventional (chemical, biological, nuclear) attacks, as it had been under such threats by Iraq and will likely to be under such threats by terrorists now. 3. To preempt enemy nuclear attacks, Iran is the case in point. 4. To support conventional preemption against enemy nuclear assets. 5. To support conventional preemption against enemy non-nuclear (conventional, chemical, biological) assets. 6. For nuclear war fighting. 7. The "Samson Option" (last resort destruction). With regard to Iran (in relation to current situation) following are the set of reasons to validate Israel's requirement for nuclear weapons:-7 1. Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and other Iranian leaders deny Israel's right to exist. 2. [Conjectures that] Iran develops its nuclear energy technology in clandestine facilities. 3. The distance from Iran to Israel is within the range of missile systems possessed by both countries. 4. Iran was closely involved with the establishment of, and continues to fund the Hezbollah organisation, which has executed numerous terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and Jewish targets worldwide. 5. Iran has pledged to attack Israel if Iran is attacked, even if it was attacked by the United States (and not Israel). So far Isreal's "undeclared nuclear capability" policy has given the right divedends. In present environement there seem to be no reason to deviate from that. However, if at all Iran goes overtly nuclear than it would be safer for Israel to follow a declared nuclear capability to create the credible deterrence. With Pakistan having nuclear capability and Iran striving to get it, adding the factor of influence of fundamentalists in both society it is not far from reality to assume that "should war break out in the Middle East again,... or should any Arab nation fire missiles against Israel, as the Iraqis did, a nuclear escalation, once unthinkable except as a last resort, would now be a strong probability."8 Bibliography 1. Wikipedia, Population changes: Wars against the Jews, 1 May 07,On line, Internet, Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews 2. Quoted in Stevens, Elizabeth. "Israel's Nuclear Weapons-A Case Study." 14 pages. On line. Internet, 2 May 2007. Available from http://infomanage.com/nonproliferation/najournal/israelinucs.html. 3. Israel's Nuclear Weapons Program, 10 December 1997 , On line, Internet, 3 May 2007, http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Israel/Isrhist.html 4. Beichman Arnold, Israel's Right To Self-Defense, Hoover Insititute, February 9, 1998, On line, Internet, http://www.iraqwatch.org/perspectives/hoover-israel-98.htm 5. Crincione, Joseph, Iran and Israel's Nuclear Weapons, Globalist Perspective, Global Politics, Friday, March 11, 2005, On line, Internet, 3 May 2007, http://www.theglobalist.com/DBWeb/StoryId.aspxStoryId=3217 6. Farr, Warner, The Third Temple's Holy of Holies: Israel's Nuclear Weapons, On line, Internet, 3 May 2007, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/cpc-pubs/farr.htm 7. Wikipedia, Iran and Weapons of Mass Destruction, On line, Internet, 3 May 2007, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction 8. Seymour Hersh, The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy, New York,1991, Random House, p. 319 Read More