Israeli Nuclear Policy

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sion (IAEC), this outfit was under the administration of the Defense Ministry and was headed by Dr. Ernst Bergmann, a prominent scientist who was also the former head of the Weizmann Institute (Jabber, 1971). Also making up the first Commission were five other well-known Israeli scientists: Shmuel Sambursky, Giulio Racah, Saul Cohen, Franz Ohlendorf, and Israel Dostrovsky. Perhaps a result of the high-profiles involved, there was initial disagreement over the Commission’s responsibilities. For Bergmann, the Commission was to devote its energy towards planning and building a nuclear infrastructure with the end goal of embarking on a national nuclear project. For other members of the IAEC, however, the Commission’s role was as a supervising research body to coordinate the academic research and training of scientists in the field of nuclear energy (Cohen, 1998). Amos de Shalit, a famous physicist at the Weizmann Institute, also argued against Bergmann in this debate, stating that Israel was not yet capable of launching a nuclear reactor project. In the midst of the disputed role of the IAEC, a political development in Israel in the summer of 1953 put the issue to rest. At this time, Ben Gurion announced his retirement as prime minister and minister of defense, handing the positions over to Moshe Sharett and Pinhas Lavon, respectively. Under Lavon, the reactor project was terminated and IAEC nuclear physicists were moved to the Weizmann Institute (1998).
The nuclear project did not stay under wraps for long, however, mainly because of Ben Gurion’s return as minister of defense in early 1955 as requested by the Mapai leadership (Cohen, 1998). Still fearing a united Arab world against Israel, Ben Gurion was quick to determine that it was time to unleash a nuclear project with the end purpose of designing nuclear weapons. At the same time, international developments in the United States made the massive nuclear undertaking ...