"When in the 60s a government spokesperson was asked what was being built near Dimona (an enclave in the Negev desert), they said it was a textile factory." The quote comes from the book A Bomb in the Basement written by Israeli researcher Michael Karpin, who dared to challenge the unwritten code in that country that prohibits acknowledging that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that has equipped itself with a nuclear arsenal, evading the control of international inspectors.
Tel Aviv began building its first nuclear reactor in 1957 in Dimona, in the Negev desert, with the assistance of France, a country with which it then had an excellent relationship that even materialized in the participation of the armies of both countries -along with that of the United Kingdom- in the invasion of Egypt around the same time.
From then on, Israeli authorities developed a sophisticated plan to cover up the details of their project, which only partially came to light through a leak to The New York Times published in December 1960.
However, from the very beginning, many of the American experts tasked with monitoring Dimona understood that the leaders of the United States, including then-President Ike Eisenhower, had no intention of taking action.
"We knew they were trying to deceive us," stated Dino Brugioni, one of the CIA analysts in charge of analyzing photos of the facilities taken by U2 spy planes, as reported by the renowned journalist Seymour Hersh in the book he wrote in 1991 dedicated to "Israel's nuclear arsenal and U.S. foreign policy."
In fact, when Israel emphatically denied in 1961 that Dimona was intended for the production of atomic weapons - Prime Minister David Ben Gurion stated that when completed, it would be a research center "open to students" from other countries - Washington issued a statement simply saying: "the Government of Israel has assured us that its new reactor is solely dedicated to developing scientific knowledge and meeting the needs of its industry, agriculture, health, and science."
A firefighter in front of a residential building in Tehran, Iran, where an explosion occurred this Friday.Vahid SalemiAP
The only international inspections allowed by Ben Gurion from 1964 onwards were a complete exercise in cover-up, starting with the fake control center built inside Dimona or the prohibition of access to the reactor core "for security reasons."
According to Hersh, even the interpreter assigned by Israel was part of the charade, and if he saw that his country's scientists were providing too much information, he would tell them in a monotonous tone and in Hebrew - a language not understood by the Americans - "listen, you son of a b****, don't answer that question." And it seemed like he was just translating.
As far as is known, Dimona did not gain renown in the textile sector, but it was indeed the origin of the many dozens of atomic warheads that experts estimate Israel possesses and the heart of a nuclear program that has never been subjected to the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Tel Aviv not only amassed a devastating arsenal for deterrent purposes. When the first onslaught of the armies of Syria and Egypt overwhelmed its defenses in October 1973, it even declared a "nuclear alert" and mobilized part of its atomic arsenal.
From the 1970s onwards, Israel settled into what it called "nuclear ambiguity," with no Western country attempting to promote the sanctions that Iran has faced, while its leaders began to boast about their "nuclear potential," as President Ephraim Katzir did in 1974, Moshe Dayan in 1981, or Simon Peres in 1998.
With military supremacy assured, Tel Aviv's main effort from those years onwards was to prevent any other state in the region from even approaching those capabilities.
Thus, the Israeli Air Force took it upon itself to bury the nuclear efforts of Iraq and Syria, bombing in 1981 the nuclear plant that Saddam Hussein had ordered to be built in Osirak and the alleged facilities that the regime of Bashar Assad had constructed in the remote province of Deir Ezzor in 2007.
In the latter case, it was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu himself who stated that this action had "prevented Syria from developing nuclear capabilities," although Damascus denied it.
The aerial assault on Osirak was publicly acknowledged by the then Chief of Staff, Menachem Begin, who - as Hersh recounts - explained at a reception with diplomats that Israeli planes had destroyed the underground facilities intended to build atomic weapons that had been hidden from IAEA inspectors. Just as Israel had done in the 1960s.
Paradoxically, the only country that was able to advance in expanding its plan to establish a network of nuclear power plants in the region was Iran, but not under the ayatollahs, but under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who started with a small reactor in 1959 and aimed to have 23 plants throughout the country.
Pahlavi also operated within that space of confusion that allowed him to promise that his program was peaceful and, at the same time, state in 1975 that although Iran had no "intention of acquiring atomic weapons, if other states do so, it may reconsider its policy."
A close ally of the dictatorship, Israel not only did not oppose this grand project but also assisted Reza Pahlavi and in 1977 signed the so-called Flores Plan, which sought the production of Iranian missiles with the help of its Israeli counterpart, capable of carrying "atomic warheads," as Israeli General Ezer Weizman stated in documents released by The New York Times in 1986.
Following the rise of fundamentalists in 1979, both Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his successor, Ali Khamenei, spoke out against the development of weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear ones, based on their religious beliefs.
"We consider the use of such weapons a sin," Khamenei specified in his edict, which, despite the emphasis of that autocracy on dogma, has always been questioned by Tel Aviv and its allies.
For Benjamin Netanyahu, the hypothetical military nuclear program of Iran has always been a political mantra that he has continued to repeat decade after decade, without providing any solid evidence. In fact, the first time he accused Tehran of being just three to five years away from obtaining a nuclear bomb was in 1992, an accusation that history proved to be pure fiction.
A report from U.S. intelligence services indicated that although Iran may have maintained a nuclear program to develop atomic weapons, it was halted in 2003, although uranium enrichment continued.
This is precisely the element that generates special controversy and suspicions from the Western community - the so-called global south does not share this policy - as any civilian nuclear program simultaneously allows for preparation to opt for the development of atomic energy for military purposes. Enriched uranium can be used both to generate fuel for nuclear plants and to produce bombs.
"It is very important to understand that if you develop atomic energy for peaceful purposes, [eventually] you reach the nuclear option. There are not two atomic energies," stated the father of the Israeli nuclear program, Ernst David Bergman, in an interview.
Japan, for example, has the knowledge, industrial development, and a significant amount of plutonium - nearly nine tons on its territory and another 36 in France and England - to equip itself with a huge nuclear arsenal in less than a year, as experts have opined.
Suspicions surrounding the goal of the Persian nation were reinforced by the latest IAEA report, which stated that the country had failed to meet its obligations regarding nuclear non-proliferation after numerous years of disagreements and findings of undeclared traces of atomic material.
Israel's struggle to maintain its nuclear primacy in the Middle East has suffered a new setback in recent years with the emergence of a new contender for that club: Saudi Arabia.
Prince Bin Salman explained in 2018 that his country would build atomic weapons if Iran did the same. "We do not want to have nuclear bombs but, undoubtedly, if Iran develops them, we will follow suit as soon as possible," he stated on CBS.
Riyadh was one of the main financiers of Pakistan's atomic program, and on several occasions, European publications have reported on the latter country's decision to assist the Saudis if they choose the nuclear path.
In September 2023, The Wall Street Journal published a report based on Israeli and American sources indicating that Tel Aviv was willing to assist in the development of a project for the Saudis to enrich uranium, thus becoming the third country in the region to have such capability, after Israel and Iran.