“It would be like Israel coming out and declaring it has nukes. Some noise would be made but everyone serious already knew about it.”
It’s an open secret, otherwise it couldn’t act as a deterrent. Word was that Saddam Hussein was threatened with them during the first Gulf War; that if he used anything like non-conventional weapons, chemical, etc., in the scuds he was firing at Israel, they wouldn’t restrain themselves from using their capability. He abstained on the non-conventional part.
Israel is in a position where if they admit officially they have them though, America is unable to provide certain kinds of aid anymore, financial is the one I’d heard but maybe also military, due to some directive we have about proliferation and membership in the body regulating it, from what I recall. They were obtained by fooling the French, and then later America, at Dimona, which was built on the conditions it would only be a peaceful atomic energy plant.
Good post.
Didn’t they also try to help South Africa develop a program?