With this in mind, the military echelon recommended that the operation be executed no later than September-October 2007, both to preempt the reactor's activation and to give the IDF, especially the IAF, the best operational conditions were the attack to escalate into an all-out Syrian-Israeli war. Given the site's proximity to the Euphrates River, the Israeli atomic energy committee estimated that the radioactive contamination from the destruction of a hot reactor would endanger millions of people. What remained to be done was only to decide when to destroy the nuclear reactor and how to do so in the most effective and least costly way.įoremost, it was vitally important to know when the reactor would become operational so as to avert an ecological and environmental disaster. Upon hearing the disturbing news, he concluded that the possession of nuclear weapons by the Assad regime would pose an existential threat to Israel, both because it was impossible to predict how the regime would behave with a bomb and because a nuclear-armed Syria would further undermine Middle East stability. The team concluded that the Deir ez-Zor site was indeed a nuclear reactor, which would pose an existential threat to Israel upon its completion and which should, therefore, be destroyed without delay. He also set up a small team of experts led by Yaakov Amidror, a former head of Aman's research division, to verify the newly-gained information and assess its implications. On March 13, Dagan reported the striking findings to Olmert, who quickly shared it with his senior ministers-Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni-together with IDF chief of general staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Shin Bet director Yuval Diskin. The materials found in the director's computer proved beyond a shadow of doubt that the Assad regime was busy building a nuclear reactor, almost an exact replica of North Korea's Yongbyon nuclear plant. As Yadlin persisted, in early March 2007 Olmert authorized the Mossad to hack the computer of the director of Syria's atomic energy commission who was passing through Vienna for a professional meeting. This assessment was dismissed by Mossad director Meir Dagan and his deputy, Ram Ben-Barak, who deemed Damascus as lacking the scientific knowhow and logistical capabilities to build a nuclear reactor, let alone to do so undetected by Israeli intelligence services. The Mossad director deemed Damascus lacking the scientific knowhow and logistical capabilities to build a reactor. Suspecting that the remote site might be a nuclear reactor in the making, especially in view of Damascus' growing covert collaboration with North Korea, Aman's director, Amos Yadlin, shared his concerns with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and while he had no conclusive evidence to back this supposition, by November 1, 2006, Aman had looked further into the matter and assessed that the site was probably used for nuclear-related activities. In the summer of 2006, the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) intelligence directorate (or Aman as it is known by its Hebrew acronyms) discovered the construction of an isolated, well-hidden facility near the northeastern Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor. Exploring the decision-making process behind this latter episode sheds intriguing light on both domestic and external political constraints confronting Israeli policymakers as they contend with the unique existential threats to the Jewish state. This article describes the sequence of events that led to the bombardment of the Syrian nuclear reactor, from its discovery by Israeli intelligence until the Israeli security cabinet's decision to destroy the facility. Twenty-six years later, on September 6, 2007, the Begin Doctrine was put into effect again when IAF aircraft destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor in a remote desert location, underscoring Jerusalem's continued resolve to fend off all existential threats, come what may. This stipulated that the Israelis would not tolerate the attainent of nuclear weapons by their implacable enemies and would do whatever possible to prevent this eventuality. On June 7, 1981, the Israeli airforce (IAF) destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor outside Baghdad, inaugurating what came to be known as the Begin Doctrine. Of the many security challenges facing Israel over the past decades, none has constituted a clearer and more direct existential threat than the possible attainment of nuclear weapons by enemy states openly committed to the Jewish state's destruction. The Israeli air force destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor, outside Baghdad, June 7, 1981, inaugurating the Begin Doctrine, which stipulated that Israel would never allow its enemies to attain nuclear weapons.
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