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Israel
Nuclear and Conventional Deterrents
The concept of deterrence assumed a new dimension with the introduction
of nuclear weapons into the equation. In December 1974, President
Ephraim Katzir announced that "it has always been our intention
to develop a nuclear potential. We now have that potential." Ambiguously,
Israeli officials maintained that Israel would not be the first
nation to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. Experts
assumed that Israel had a rudimentary nuclear capability. In September
1986, the testimony and photographs provided by Mordechai Vanunu,
a technician who had worked at Israel's Dimona nuclear facility
in the Negev Desert, led experts to conclude that Israel had a
nuclear capability far greater than previously thought (see Nuclear
Weapons Potential , this ch.).
Although viewed as its ultimate guarantor of security, the nuclear
option did not lead Israel to complacency about national security.
On the contrary, it impelled Israel to seek unquestioned superiority
in conventional capability over the Arab armies to forestall use
of nuclear weapons as a last resort. The IDF sought to leverage
its conventional power to the maximum extent. IDF doctrine and
tactics stressed quality of weapons versus quantity; integration
of the combined firepower of the three branches of the armed forces;
effective battlefield command, communications, and real-time intelligence;
use of precision-guided munitions and stand-off firepower; and
high mobility.
The debate over secure borders rested at the heart of the controversy
over Israeli's national security. Some strategists contended that
only a negotiated settlement with the Arabs would bring peace
and ensure Israel's ultimate security. Such a settlement would
entail territorial concessions in the occupied territories. Proponents
of exchanging land for peace tended to be skeptical that any border
was militarily defensible in the age of modern warfare. In their
eyes, the occupied territories were a liability in that they gave
Israel a false sense of security and gave the Arabs reason to
go to war.
Others believed Israel's conflict with the Arab states was fundamentally
irreconcilable and that Israeli and Arab territorial imperatives
were mutually exclusive. They held that ceding control of the
occupied territories would bring at best a temporary peace and
feared that the Arabs would use the territories as a springboard
to attack Israel proper. Israeli military positions along the
Golan Heights and the Jordan Rift Valley were said to be ideal
geographically defensible borders. Others viewed the occupied
territories as an integral part of Israel and Israeli withdrawal
as too high a price to pay for peace. Extending beyond national
security, the controversy was enmeshed with political, social,
and religious issues--particularly the concept of exchanging "land
for peace" that formed the basis of UN Security Council resolutions
242 and 338.
Data as of December 1988
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