Nuclear Weapons in the
Middle East 1948-2013 is an in depth description and analysis of the nuclear
dimension of Israel's wars and politics since its birth until mid 2013. Born as
the main lesson of the Holocaust and of the extremely high casualties of its
War of Independence, the search for nuclear equalizer to the immense Arab
conventional superiority in the longer run is a key to Israel's unofficial
alliance with France during and after the Suez-Sinai War of 1956. Arab
reactions and superpower intervention on the way to completion of the nuclear
option, missiles included, explain the road to the Six Day War of 1967. Domestic
politics and controversies regarding the viability of Israeli nuclear
deterrence, American and Soviet inputs were studied along the adoption by
Israel of a unique, undeclared status of a fully fledged nuclear power. Further
developments of Israel's nuclear behavior, including the bombing of the Iraqi
nuclear reactor Osiraq in 1981 are discussed until Israel's current campaign
against Iran's nuclear program. Finally, the role of the Israeli nuclear
option, undeclared as it was and remained, is discussed in terms of limiting
the Arab war aims of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, and leading, in due course, to
the Israeli-Egyptian (and Jordanian later on) peace treaty of 1979, tested now
since the ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood and the takeover by Egyptian Army.