The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East: Opacity, Theory, and Reality, 1960-1991 -- An Israeli Perspective

Preface

Preface This book was originally part of a larger manuscript entitled "Jewish Wars." In "Jewish Wars" I attempted to describe and analyze Zionist and Israeli behavior pertaining to war and peace since Hitler's rise to power. The sociocultural history of the Yishuv and the formative years of contemporary Israel were studied in some detail, in order to understand the Yishuv's political behavior and several crucial decisions made by Israeli leadership. The Holocaust loomed heavily over that earlier manuscript, the sociocultural and domestic political issues, when combined with Israel's War of Independence, with regional and international developments, and with decisions of great complexity and autonomous ramifications such as Israel's nuclear program, were too much for one book. I have, therefore, separated the nuclear issue from the much broader context, even if not entirely, and offer it here as a separate book. Nuclear weapons are important enough to be dealt with as a central topic, especially when major actors in the Middle East drama consider them as such. This book began as a historical-theoretical discourse, then contemporary history intervened. I completed the first version of the book in 1989, but developments in 1990 and 1991 added to the manuscript two full chapters and a revised conclusion, which the reader-using a book that was completed in July 1991-may further revise, using some of the data, arguments, terminology, and the perspective offered here. Dr. Oded Brosh, who was my research assistant at the time this book was being written, was very helpful in gathering the primary and secondary sources used here and in offering his own ideas. vii viii The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East I am also indebted to Avner Cohen and Ben Frankel, who cooperated with me for some time in dealing with what I originally called "semicovert" nuclear proliferation. It was Frankel who renamed the phenomenon"opaque." Since our original work together, we have disagreed on several basic issues related to the subject of this book and the methods of studying it. We have continued our work separately. Very few common ideas remain in the first chapter, and I alone carry the responsibility for the book as a whole. I am especially indebted to Dr. Warren H. Donnelly, Senior Specialist in the Congressional Research Service of the U.S. Library of Congress; and to Professor Russell Stone, general editor of the SUNY Series in Israeli Studies, to Clay Morgan, my editor at SUNY Press, and to Janice Byer, who edited the entire manuscript, my wise and patient collaborators from the inception of our common enterprise: the transformation of my Hebrew-German English into a readable book. My wife, Dalia, was the only real victim of the nuclear war waged for five years between me, the sources, and the computer; I am not sure the outcome will reassure her. ...