Arms Control and Proliferation Profile: Israel

This profile summarizes the major arms control agreements, regimes, initiatives, and practices that Israel subscribes to and those that it does not. It also describes the major weapons programs, policies, and holdings of Israel, as well as its proliferation record. This profile is one of a series focused on the arms control record and status of key states, all of which are available on the Arms Control Association’s Website at http://www.armscontrol.org.

Major Multilateral Arms Control Agreements and Treaties

Export Control Regimes, Nonproliferation Initiatives, and Safeguards

Australia Group: Not a member.

Missile Technology Control Regime: Not a member, but Israel has committed to maintaining export controls consistent with the regime.

Nuclear Suppliers Group: Not a member. Israel is prohibited from importing key nuclear materials and technologies from the 45 group members because Israel does not subject its entire nuclear enterprise to safeguards administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Wassenaar Arrangement: Not a member, but Israel has pledged its “adherence to the principles” of the arrangement.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Additional Protocol: No, Israel has not negotiated such an agreement.

Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism: Participant.

Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation: Not a participant.

Proliferation Security Initiative: Participant.

UN Security Council Resolutions 1540 and 1673: Israel has filed the requested reports on its activities to fulfill the resolutions and volunteered to provide assistance to other states.

Major Weapons Programs, Policies, and Practices

Biological Weapons:
The Israeli government operates an extensive and sophisticated biodefense program. It has not made public pronouncements on its biological weapons policy nor signed the Biological Weapons Convention, which is widely interpreted as an indication that Israel has some offensive capabilities.

Chemical Weapons:
Israel has signed, but not ratified, the Chemical Weapons Convention. Although the status of its formerly extensive offensive weapons program and stockpile is unknown, there is no doubt that Israel is active in defensive research. Russian intelligence claimed in 1993 that “Israel has a store of chemical weapons of its own manufacture... [and] is capable of producing toxic substances of all types, including nerve-paralyzing, blister-producing and temporarily incapacitating substances and so forth.”[2]

Missiles:

• Ballistic Missiles: Israel fields an arsenal of nuclear-capable Jericho missiles, which are based on French technology and road- and rail-mobile. The Jericho-1 was first deployed in the early 1970s and the 1,500 kilometer-range Jericho-2 followed in 1990. Israel’s space-launch capability indicates it could develop a missile with intercontinental reach.



• Cruise Missiles: Israel has purchased U.S.-origin Harpoon cruise missiles with a range of 120 kilometers. Reports suggest that Israel has modified the Harpoon system to deliver nuclear payloads.[3] It also is believed to have indigenously developed a submarine-launched cruise missile system with a range of up to 900 kilometers.

Nuclear Weapons:
Israel is suspected of having a nuclear arsenal ranging from 75 to 200 nuclear warheads, although it has never officially acknowledged possessing such arms or demonstrated its capability through a nuclear test. Israel officially maintains that it “will not be the first country to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East.”

In addition to its Jericho missiles, Israel maintains a fleet of nuclear-capable fighter combat aircraft, including U.S.-origin F-16s and F-15s. Independent analysts also believe Israel’s Dolphin-class submarines have been outfitted to deliver nuclear weapons.

How much plutonium Israel has produced is unknown. One independent analyst calculates the amount as roughly 600 kilograms.[4] It is assumed by some analysts that Israel has a uranium-enrichment program, although there is not enough evidence to support a credible estimate of how much highly enriched uranium Israel might have produced.

Conventional Weapons Trade:
Israel has been an important and leading arms client of the United States, but Israel also is stepping up its arms sales abroad. In the process, Israel upset the United States by transferring certain weapons and technologies, including spare parts for unmanned aerial vehicles, to China. Israel and the United States signed a secret memorandum in August 2005 aimed at restricting certain Israeli exports to other countries.[5]

Israel is the one of a few Middle East states that has consistently volunteered its annual arms export and import data to the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms.

In January 2007, the United States made a preliminary finding that Israel might have violated the use terms of imported U.S. arms, specifically cluster munitions. In a summer 2006 conflict with Hezbollah guerillas located in southern Lebanon, Israel employed U.S.-origin cluster munitions, which are reportedly authorized exclusively for use against clear military targets. Allegations were made that Israel used the weapons more indiscriminately. The United States had suspended cluster munitions exports to Israel for several years during the 1980s because of a finding that Israel had misused the weapons.

Proliferation Record

Israel is not known to have deliberately or significantly contributed to the spread of biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons to other states, although the extent of Israel’s involvement in South Africa’s previously secret, now abandoned, nuclear weapons program is uncertain.

Other Arms Control and Nonproliferation Activities

On June 7, 1981, Israeli planes bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor, which Israel charged would contribute to an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. That attack did not halt the secret Iraqi nuclear weapons program, which was not exposed and dismantled until the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Israel has not threatened to block negotiation of a fissile material cutoff treaty at the 65-member Conference on Disarmament, but Israeli leaders have voiced reservations about the initiative.

-Researched and prepared by Alex Bollfrass.

ENDNOTES

1. Israel has not ratified Protocol III on Incendiary Weapons and Protocol V on Explosive Remnants of War. It also has not approved an amendment that extends the convention’s application beyond just interstate conflicts to intrastate conflicts.

2. Russian Federation Foreign Intelligence Service, A New Challenge After the Cold War: Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, 1993.

3. Boese, Wade, “Israel Allegedly Fielding Sea-based Nuclear Missiles,” Arms Control Today, November 2003, p. 26.

4. Albright, David, “Global Stocks of Nuclear Explosive Materials,” Institute for Science and International Security, June 30, 2005.

5. Pomper, Miles, “U.S., Israel Reach China Arms Deal,” Arms Control Today, September 2005, p. 34.