cover image The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East: Opacity, Theory, and Reality, 1960-1991: An Israeli Perspective

The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East: Opacity, Theory, and Reality, 1960-1991: An Israeli Perspective

Shlomo Aronson. State University of New York Press, $74.5 (398pp) ISBN 978-0-7914-1207-7

This dense, scholarly history doesn't offer dramatic revelations such as those in Seymour Hersh's The Samson Option, but rather a comprehensive portrait of the role of nuclear strategy in Israel's foreign policy. Aronson, a political scientist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, has drawn on a wealth of disciplines and sources--including some in Hebrew and Arabic--to emphasize Israel's use of ``opacity,'' its undeclared but strongly hinted possession of nuclear weapons. He suggests that Israeli leader Ben-Gurion pursued the bomb in order to allow Arabs to reconcile themselves to coexistence ``without losing face.'' After discussing Arab-Israeli wars, the peace with Egypt, and the Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor, the author argues that Defense Minister Ariel Sharon ``used a new language of opacity'' to extend the nuclear threat over the Occupied Territories. Aronson predicts that opacity will remain a strategy until a new Middle East order is established. For comparative purposes, he also looks at nuclear proliferation in India, North Korea and other emerging nuclear nations. (Aug.)