France, Implementation of the Israeli Nuclear Program and the Discussion on this Issue

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the consideration of some aspects related to the development of the Israeli nuclear program. In the first part of it, the main literature and sources on this subject are considered and classified. The second part of the work presents an author’s analysis of the reasons why the newly independent state of Israel decided to implement an unprecedented project in terms of its scale and level of risk. The third part of the article is devoted to the study of France’s role in the formation and development of the Israeli nuclear program. The paper shows that all information about the Israeli nuclear program can be divided into five groups: personal documents of people who somehow related to the formation of the concept of the country’s nuclear program and its implementation; Israeli and foreign official documents relating to the subject matter under study, including transcripts of meetings and speeches; articles, notes, blogs on the Internet in various languages; mentions of the Israeli nuclear program in monographs devoted to a different subject; monographs devoted directly to issues related to the development of the Israeli nuclear program. To the reasons that prompted Israel to launch its own project on creating nuclear weapons, it should be attributed: the trauma of the Holocaust, the irrational fear of total destruction of the Jewish people and the consequent need to ensure the security of the only Jewish state. The paper shows the key role of France, and especially the military establishment of the Fourth Republic, in the emergence of the Israeli nuclear program; the motives that prompted the French elite to render effective assistance to the young state in implementing such an ambitious project are examined as well.