Israel Show Us Your Nukes

Several Arab nations are lobbying the European Union for support in their drive to force Israel to open up its secretive nuclear program. The 22-member Arab League has been trying for years to get Israel to admit to processing nuclear weapons, but in recent years it has become more insistent about accomplishing this goal.

Sweden currently holds the EU's rotating presidency, so the letter was addressed to Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt. He was urged to back an Arab resolution entitled "Israel's Nuclear Capabilities." The document is to be submitted for a vote at next month's 150-nation general assembly of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Israel has never confirmed whether it has the bomb. In what is probably the worst-kept secret in the Middle East, Israel is commonly considered to have several nuclear weapons. Most European nations have played some role in allowing Israel to achieve nuclear status.

France offered the most help to Israel. On September 17, 1956, the two nations reached a tentative agreement in Paris for France to build Israel a small research reactor near Dimona, and to supply the Jewish state with uranium fuel. French Prime Minister Guy Mollet, ashamed at having abandoned his commitment to fellow socialists in Israel, supposedly told an aide, "I owe the bomb to them."

When Charles de Gaulle became French president in 1958, French-Israeli nuclear cooperation gradually soured over his insistence that Israel’s plant be opened to international inspectors. By the mid-sixties, Israel found Britain, Norway, and Italy to be helpful. Britain alone shipped 20 tons of heavy water directly to Israel to start up the Dimona reactor.

It wasn't until shortly after the 1967 Six-Day War that Israel achieved the ability to construct a bomb. One CIA report noted that if the Arabs had waited six to eight weeks to launch their surprise attack, they may have been on the receiving end of one nuclear bomb.

There are no hard numbers on how many nuclear weapons Israel has. All estimates are based on the annual production of plutonium by Israel's 150-megawatts nuclear reactor. Israel's arsenal is said to be as high as 400 nuclear warheads.

The experience of the Jews in Nazi Germany is a key factor in Israel's drive to develop nuclear weapons. Ernst David Bergmann, chairman of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission (from 1954 to 1966), reflected this mindset best when he said, “There is no distinction between nuclear energy for peaceful purposes or warlike ones," and that “We [Jewish people] shall never again be led as lambs to the slaughter.”

Israel has a very good reason to remain mum about its nuclear capabilities. According to a statement by the Arab League, Arab states will immediately withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if Israel should ever acknowledge having nuclear weapons and then does not open its facilities to international inspection and destroy its arsenal.

I have great doubts that the Arabs have peaceful intentions in wanting to force Israel to give up its nuclear weapons. Bible prophecy warns that Israel has yet to face three major conflicts with its neighbors. It is very likely that an Israeli nuclear bomb is the reason behind Damascus’ coming destruction: “The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap” (Isaiah 17:1).

At some point, it appears that Israel will do the unthinkable and surrender its nuclear arsenal to some outside force. During the tribulation hour, the Antichrist will be running the show in Israel.

Many scenarios could cause Israel to arrive at the point that it is willing to surrender its security to a European-led peace-keeping force. We can’t be totally certain of the reason Israel decides to outsource its security; however, I do think the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) is a strong candidate for being the main catalyst. If Syria or Iran were to attack Israel with chemical weapons, followed by an Israeli nuclear counterstrike, the world community would have a collective heart attack.

When the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there were no video cameras to record the horrors of this new weapon. If the type of persuasive media we have today had existed in 1945, TV viewers would have been confronted with ghastly images of people so badly injured by radiant energy that they would have looked like burnt marshmallows.

Satan's ultimate goal is to wipe Israel from the surface of the earth. Any move on the part of the Jewish state to uncloak its nuclear arsenal would be a giant step in the direction of the end times.