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Israel and the Bomb, by Avner Cohen. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 1998. xv + 34 pages. Notes to p. 432. Gloss. to p. 442. Index to p. 470. $27.50.
Reviewed by Michael Barnett
Israel's strategic opacity, combined with illusory phrases like "Israel will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East," are intentionally (if not convincingly) deployed to mask Israel's present and future nuclear status. How Israel's path to nuclear status led to this unique declaratory policy is the focus of Avner Cohen's fascinating and fast-paced Israel and the Bomb. Based on years of archival work, recently declassified documents, interviews with many of the key participants and a diligent reconstruction of critical turning points, Israel and the Bomb demands of the reader a reconsideration of Israel's nuclear history and US-Israel relations.
The first part of the book details the climate and personalities in Israel that virtually willed Israel's nuclear program into existence. The Holocaust, the existence of a high threat environment, and the absence of strategic allies spurred Prime Minister David Ben Gurion and a few confidants to develop a nuclear program. Although Cohen is not the first to document these early years, we now have a more complete picture of the determination, deceit and secrecy that enabled Ben Gurion, the Israeli scientist Ernst Bergmann, Shimon Peres, and a handful of others to overcome the otherwise insurmountable bureaucratic obstacles in Israel....