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Could a Nuclear War with Iran Really Happen?
Military personnel stand guard at a nuclear facility in the Zardanjan area of Isfahan, Iran, April 19, 2024. Photo: West Asia News Agency via REUTERS
For the moment, as Iran remains “pre-nuclear,” an Israel-Iran nuclear exchange is out of the question. Nonetheless, if Israel is able to maintain its asymmetrical nuclear advantage, a one-sided nuclear war would still be possible. Circumstances could sometime arise in which Israel felt compelled to launch parts of its “ambiguous” nuclear arsenal against Iran. The most plausible rationale of any such launch would be to (1) prevent Iranian “escalation dominance;” and (2) keep Iran from “becoming nuclear.”
In offering suitable explanations, recent history will show that during April 2024, Israel and Iran engaged in a brief but direct interstate conflict. Looking ahead, it would be reasonable to expect additional rounds of direct warfare between these two bitter adversaries. Conflict durations could be much longer and more protracted. It follows that Israel would be under expanding pressures to dominate escalation during periods of hyper-warfare with Iran and that such potentially existential pressures could precipitate an Israeli resort to nuclear weapons use.
Above all else, Israel’s strategic objective vis-à-vis Iran should be nuclear war avoidance. In a near worst-case scenario, Israel could calculate that nothing short of massive non-nuclear preemption would halt Tehran’s ongoing nuclearization.
An Israeli nuclear preemption is inconceivable. But even if Israel’s determination to launch a non-nuclear preemption were analytically correct and law-enforcing, its tangible results could still be catastrophic.
What should now be done by Jerusalem? How should principal Israeli decision-makers balance these dissuasive results against all calculable risks and benefits?
A best answer should be drawn from conceptual and theoretical fundamentals. Israeli strategists should always examine their country’s available security options as an intellectual rather than political task.
There will be pertinent details, both conspicuous and inconspicuous. Any tactically successful conventional preemption against Iranian weapons and infrastructures could come at more-or-less unacceptable costs. In 2003-2004, when this writer’s Project Daniel Group presented an early report on Iranian nuclearization to then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, prospective Iranian targets were already more directly threatening to Israel than Iraq’s nuclear Osirak reactor had been on June 7, 1981. That was the date of Israel’s law-based preemption, an operation code-named “Opera.”
To the extent that they could be estimated accurately, the risks of an Israel-Iran nuclear war would ultimately depend on whether the conflict was intentional, unintentional, or accidental. Apart from applying this critical three-part distinction, there would be no good reason to expect optimally useful strategic assessments from Tel Aviv (MOD/IDF).
Once applied, however, Israeli planners should fully understand that their complex subject is without any clarifying precedents, and that this absence would present an insurmountable prediction problem.
It will also be obligatory for Israeli strategists and war planners to bear in mind the timeless warnings of Prussian thinker Karl von Clausewitz on the role of “friction.” At its core, friction represents “the difference between war on paper and war as it actually is.”
Peremptory rules of logic and mathematics preclude any meaningful assignments of probability in matters that are unprecedented or sui generis. To come up with any logically-meaningful estimations of probability, these predictions would have to be based upon the determinable frequency of relevant past events. As there have been no occasions of an interstate nuclear exchange, there could be no relevant past events.
Competent Israeli strategic analysts must examine all current and future nuclear risks from Iran. Such a comprehensive examination should take special note of Iran’s radiation dispersal weapons and its potential capacity to attack Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor with non-nuclear missiles. Also worth emphasizing is that North Korea, bolstered by Russia and China, has been a clamorous ally of Iran, and could sometime allow its national nuclear forces to serve as Iranian proxies during a protracted war with Israel.
If any Israeli planners should assume that a “Trump II” presidency could help in such unpredictable scenarios, they ought first to recall Trump’s ambiguous summarizing message after the Singapore Summit: “We [Trump and Kim] fell in love.”
Following their Singapore meeting, Trump and Kim each seemed to assume the other’s decisional rationality and also the mutual primacy of decisional intent. If such an assumption had not existed, it would have made no logical sense for either president to strike existential retaliatory fear in the other. But what are the derivative lessons of “Singapore” for Israel vis-à-vis Iran? Should Israel also assume a fully rational adversary in Iran? Though any such assumption would be more or less reassuring in Jerusalem’s decision-making circles, it could also be incorrect.
On several occasions during his presidential tenure, Donald Trump praised pretended irrationality as a potentially promising US nuclear strategy. But such a strategic preference could never be purposeful for Israel. This is the case despite Moshe Dayan’s much earlier musing about Israel and its enemies: “Israel must be seen as a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.”
Though neither Israel nor Iran might prefer conditions of a steadily escalating war, either or both “players” could still commit catastrophic errors during their obligatory searches for “escalation dominance.” If Jerusalem and Tehran undertake competitive risk-taking in extremis, Israel’s only reliable “ace in the hole” will be its continuing nuclear monopoly.
An unintentional or inadvertent nuclear war between Israel and Iran could take place not only as the result of misunderstandings or miscalculations between rational leaders, but also as the unintended consequence of mechanical, electrical, or computer malfunction. This includes hacking interference and should bring to mind corollary distinctions between unintentional or inadvertent nuclear war and an accidental nuclear war.
Though all accidental nuclear war would be unintentional, not every unintentional nuclear war would be caused by accident. An unintentional or inadvertent nuclear war could sometime be the result of certain misjudgments about enemy intentions.
“In war,” says Prussian strategist Carl von Clausewitz famously in On War, “everything is simple, but the simplest thing is difficult.” Fashioning a successful “endgame” to any impending future nuclear confrontation with Iran, Israel’s leaders will need to understand that a crisis in extremis is inevitably about more than maximizing any “correlation of forces” or “missile-interception” capabilities. It will be about variously antecedent Israeli triumphs of “mind over mind.”
As a nuclear war has never been fought, what will be needed in Jerusalem is more broadly intellectual guidance than Israel could ever reasonably expect from even its most senior and capable military officers.
The reason is simple.
There are no plausible experts on fighting an unprecedented kind of war, not in Jerusalem, not in Tehran, not anywhere. It was not by happenstance that the first serious theoreticians of nuclear war and nuclear deterrence in the 1950s were academic mathematicians, physicists, and political scientists. Having to deal with matters that lacked usable historic or empirical data, these thinkers were forced to rely essentially on deductive logic, deriving their essential strategic theories from meticulously assembled abstractions.
There remains one final point about still-estimable risks of an Israel-Iran nuclear war. From the standpoint of Jerusalem, the only truly successful outcome would be a crisis or confrontation that ends with a reduction of Iranian nuclear war fighting intentions and capabilities. It would represent a serious mistake for Israel to settle for any bloated boasts of “victory” based upon a one-time avoidance of nuclear war. In this geo-strategic conflict with Iran, potentially existential dangers to Israel are foreseeably continuous.
The Israel-Iran strategic conflict is self-propelling. For Jerusalem, providing Israeli national security vis-à-vis a steadily-nuclearizing Iran ought never to become an ad hoc or “seat-of-the-pants” struggle. Without any suitably long-term plan in place for avoiding an atomic war, a nuclear conflict that is deliberate, unintentional or accidental could “sometimes happen.”
At every stage of its corrosive competition with Tehran, Israel should avoid losing sight of the only rational use for its presumptive nuclear weapons and doctrine. That limited use is to maintain Israeli “escalation dominance” during military crisis and to prevent an operationally usable Iranian nuclear force. More generally, nuclear weapons can succeed only as instruments of strategic deterrence and nuclear war avoidance. By reasonable definition, any actual use of a state’s nuclear weapons would “automatically” signify their failure. Israel ought to view ongoing “asymmetrical” conflict with Iran as the preferred context for preventing Iranian nuclear weapons.
There is something else. In the absence of such conflict, an already nuclear Israel could still exercise a preemption option against a pre-nuclear Iran, but only as a “bolt-from-the-blue” attack. Though this particular sort of action could fulfil all authoritative expectations of “anticipatory self-defense” under international law, it would be vastly more difficult to support in political and public relations terms.
What if Israel and Iran were both “already nuclear”? In such a next-to-worst case scenario, Israel, having failed to act in a timely fashion, could have to strike preemptively against a more menacing adversary. In a worst case scenario, Israel would fail to prevent a nuclear Iran, and Iran would become the first adversary to fire its nuclear weapons. Certain specific Arab states could rush to join the “nuclear club.” In all likelihood, these states — potentially joined by Turkey — would be Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Summarizing all these “strategy of conflict” issues in policy-relevant terms, Israel’s only cost-effective strategy would be to prevent Iranian nuclearization and correlative Arab state nuclearization by dominating escalations during a non-nuclear war or an asymmetrical nuclear war. Ideally, such a strategy would be exercised during the course of an already-ongoing armed conflict, though Israel could, as last resort, plan “bolt-from-the-blue” strikes against Iranian hard targets that are convincingly lawful expressions of national survival options. Under international law, these permissible strikes would be examples of “anticipatory self-defense.”
In the end, we are all creatures of biology. For Israel and Iran, a nuclear war would resemble any other incurable disease. For both, therefore, the only reasonable survival strategies must lie in prevention.
Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books, monographs, and scholarly articles dealing with military nuclear strategy. In Israel, he was Chair of Project Daniel. Over recent years, he has published on nuclear warfare issues in Harvard National Security Journal (Harvard Law School); Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence; Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs; The Atlantic; Israel Defense; Jewish Website; The New York Times; Israel National News; The Jerusalem Post; The Hill and other sites. A different version of this article was originally published by Israel National News.
The post Could a Nuclear War with Iran Really Happen? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Belgian Prime Minister Shows Solidarity With Jewish Community, Calls for Caution on Palestinian State Recognition

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever attends a press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (not pictured), at the Chancellery, in Berlin, Germany, Aug. 26, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Annegret Hilse
Amid rising antisemitism across Europe and increasing hostility toward Israel from several European governments, Prime Minister Bart De Wever expressed Belgium’s sympathy and respect for the Jewish community this week, honoring the millions of victims of the Holocaust.
During his trip to Berlin on Tuesday, De Wever visited the Holocaust Memorial and left a moving message in its guestbook.
“On behalf of the Belgian government and all people and communities living together in peace in Belgium, I express my deepest sympathy and my respect,” the Belgian leader wrote in a note in German.
“We will remember all the victims. I stand here humbly at this place of remembrance. The Jewish community will always have a home in Europe,” he continued.
Rabbi Menachem Margolin, chairman of the European Jewish Association (EJA), commended De Wever’s remarks and his support for the Jewish community, highlighting his leadership as a model.
“We sincerely thank Prime Minister De Wever for his moving message in Berlin. At a time when antisemitism is once again spreading across Europe, his clear and unwavering statement that the Jewish community will always have a home here is deeply important,” Margolin said in a statement.
“Such leadership not only honors the memory of the six million victims of the Holocaust but also strengthens the sense of security and belonging for Jews in Belgium and across the continent,” he continued.
“We also commend the Prime Minister’s principled leadership on Israel, where he consistently calls for security guarantees and a realistic path to peace. His voice carries moral weight in Europe, and we deeply appreciate it.”
During a visit to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Belgian Prime Minister @Bart_DeWever left an important message in the guestbook. Written in German, his note expressed Belgium’s sympathy and respect for the Jewish community and commemorated the millions… pic.twitter.com/ZcuEfKCavi
— EJA – EIPA (@EJAssociation) August 26, 2025
During his visit to Berlin, De Wever met with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz to discuss the recent push by several European countries to recognize a Palestinian state at next month’s UN General Assembly.
At a joint press conference, De Wever stressed that recognizing a Palestine state is only meaningful under strict conditions, warning that doing so without such guarantees would be “pointless and even counterproductive.”
“Hamas must disappear completely, there must be a credible Palestinian Authority, an agreement must be reached on borders, and Israel must receive security guarantees. Without that, recognition makes no sense,” De Wever said.
In Belgium, De Wever’s more cautious approach to Palestinian statehood and support for Israel have fueled clashes within the government, with Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot threatening to block government initiatives if the coalition continues to hinder a firmer stance on Israel and the recognition of a Palestinian state.
“If there is no stronger tone within the government regarding the human rights violations committed by the Israeli government, or if no measures are taken in favor of recognizing Palestine, a major crisis is looming,” Prévot said during an interview with De Standaard.
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Amid War, Olim-Owned Businesses in Jerusalem Thrive, Showcasing Resilience, Community Spirit

Olim gather at JFK Airport, ready to board a charter flight to Israel and begin their new lives in the Jewish state. Photo: The Algemeiner
JERUSALEM — Despite the strains of war and the obstacles of starting over in a new country, businesses in Jerusalem owned by Jewish immigrants are thriving — a testament to resilience, Zionist commitment, and the power of community.
New immigrants, or olim, who make aliyah to Israel face steep challenges even in times of peace, navigating strict regulations, endless permits, and financial hurdles, though the Israeli government offers some support and incentives to promote new businesses.
Aliyah refers to the process of Jews immigrating to Israel, and olim refers to those who make this journey.
In recent years, the road has become even more difficult for entrepreneurs, first with the economic disruption of COVID-19 and now amid the uncertainty of the war in Gaza.
For many olim, launching a business in Israel is about more than entrepreneurship — it’s a way to start a new life, serve their country, build a community, and make a meaningful impact.
Last week, 225 new olim arrived in Tel Aviv on the first charter aliyah flight since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN) — a nonprofit that promotes and facilitates aliyah from the US and Canada — brought its 65th charter flight from New York, which The Algemeiner joined.
Founded in 2002, NBN helps olim become fully integrated members of Israeli society, simplifying the immigration process and providing essential resources and guidance.
In partnership with Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth, and the Jewish National Fund, NBN has helped nearly 100,000 olim build thriving new lives in Israel.
Eager to start their next chapter in Israel, these immigrants bring fresh ideas, culinary creativity, and cultural richness, strengthening the country’s social fabric every day.
Originally from New Orleans, Louisiana, Diana Shapira brought her passion for baking and warm hospitality to Israel, turning her aliyah dream into a popular destination for both locals and tourists.
She and her husband created Infused JLM, located near Jerusalem’s Mahaneh Yehuda Market, blending American and Israeli culture and creating a space that brings people together.
“We want people to see that an oleh’s dream can happen,” Shapira told The Algemeiner. “Even without family and facing many challenges, starting a business in Israel is possible — especially when you have the support of the community.”
“Before we made aliyah, so many people told us it was a bad financial decision. But you have to push past the doubt and keep striving,” she continued.
Another olim-owned business located in Jerusalem, Power CoffeeWorks, has become a favorite destination for coffee enthusiasts across the city.
Owned by Stephanie and Brandon, who made aliyah from Cape Town, South Africa, in 2016 with their four children at the time (now seven), the couple has turned their venture into a hub for coffee lovers and a gathering place for the community.
“We made aliyah because we believed Israel was the best place to raise our children,” Stephanie told The Algemeiner. “Despite all the challenges along the way, it has been an incredible journey.”
Crave, another oleh-owned restaurant in Mahaneh Yehuda, has gained increasing attention with its strictly kosher gourmet street food, blending American, Mexican, and Asian flavors in a way that hasn’t been seen before.
American-born Yoni Van Leeuwen, who made aliyah more than 20 years ago with his wife and eight children, views food not just as a business, but as a way to bring cultures and communities together.
Following the Oct. 7 atrocities, the war in Gaza dealt a harsh blow to Israeli businesses, forcing many to cut hours, adapt operations, and manage shortages.
Yet these olim-owned establishments have shown resilience, proving that passion, creativity, and commitment to the Zionist dream can overcome even the toughest challenges.
Whether by serving comfort food, offering a safe space for neighbors, or organizing fundraisers for soldiers in Gaza and Lebanon, these business owners described a spirit of perseverance deeply rooted in Jewish history.
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Police in England Investigate Air Rifle Attack Against Jewish Teenager, Swastika Spray Painted at Rabbi’s Home

Friday night saw a string of swastika vandalism resulting in four reports, including from Rabbi Bentzion Alperowitz, a Chabad leader who discovered the Nazi symbol spray painted in black on his home’s white wall as he left for synagogue the next morning with his two young daughters. Photo: Screenshot
Multiple antisemitic incidents reported this past weekend targeted the Jewish community of Bournemouth in the southern region on the coast of the United Kingdom.
On Saturday afternoon, a driver stopped to harass and yell obscenities at two pedestrians before shooting one, a Jewish teenage boy, in the forehead with an air rifle and fleeing. The victim suffered swelling but has otherwise recovered.
“Detectives are leading the investigation to locate the occupants of the vehicle and to establish the full circumstances of the incident,” a spokesman for Dorset Police said. “The incident is being treated as a hate crime. Officers are engaging with the local community and carrying out patrols in the area. We would encourage anyone with information or concerns to please speak with an officer.”
Rabbi Alan Lewis, who leads the Bournemouth Hebrew Congregation, said that “the young man who was shot is a religious Jew who was wearing a skull cap. It was very obvious he was Jewish. Then several people living on Manor Road woke up to find that swastikas had been painted on their homes. The homes had a mezuzah outside, so it was obvious that Jewish people lived there.”
Friday night saw a string of swastika vandalism resulting in four reports, including from Rabbi Bentzion Alperowitz, a Chabad leader who discovered the Nazi symbol spray painted in black on his home’s white wall as he left for synagogue the next morning with his two young daughters.
“We will continue to live as proud Jews here in Bournemouth … I want to encourage everyone to do exactly the same,” Alperowitz said. “This is not the Bournemouth I know. Bournemouth is a kind, beautiful place and I feel this is still the truth for the vast majority of people here.”
Other members of the Jewish community came to assist the rabbi with removing the graffiti.
“[The] good news is that by the time you’re watching this video our wall will have been cleaned, thanks to some amazing people from the community, who came around to help clean it,” Alperowitz said.
Author Dov Forman wrote that “on Saturday morning, my friend Rabbi Benzion Alperowitz of Bournemouth Chabad walked outside to find a swastika on his home. Antisemitism is alive on our streets, yet it is too often excused and ignored. But it will not break us. We will continue to live proudly as Jews.”
Law enforcement has reportedly stepped up patrols in the town’s Jewish neighborhoods which include an estimated 2,000 people.
On Monday, the Community Security Trust (CST), an organization focused on monitoring antisemitic threats in the UK, released a statement saying that it was “appalled by a series of anti-Jewish hate crimes in Bournemouth over the weekend. These are abhorrent acts of racism that are deeply distressing for the Jewish community and should alarm everybody. We are supporting the local Jewish community and working with Dorset Police to assist their investigation. We urge anyone with information about these incidents to contact the police and CST.”
CST released a report of antisemitic incidents in the UK during 2024, finding 3,528 — the second highest ever — showing an 18-percent decrease from the all-time high of 4,296 in 2023.
Earlier this month, CST released a separate report noting the group recorded 1,521 antisemitic incidents in the UK from January to June of this year. It marks the second-highest total of incidents ever recorded by CST in the first six months of any year, following the first half of 2024 in which 2,019 antisemitic incidents were recorded in the aftermath of the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel.
“These hateful attacks on people and property in Bournemouth are extremely concerning. We have been informed that the police are investigating and hope that the perpetrators will be arrested and face the full force of the law,” Andrew Gilbert, vice president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said in a statement.
Maurice Michaels, who served as rabbi at Bournemouth Reform Synagogue, said that the community felt “very pressurized and anxious.” He added, “We’re getting terrified calls from people across the UK asking, ‘Is this really happening in Bournemouth?’ I’d never go out wearing my usual skull cap, I don’t show outward signs of being Jewish. I know community members who have even removed their mezuzah from their front door.”
Michaels described the antisemitic crimes as “a measure of what’s going on across the country, demonstrations where people cover their faces. They don’t want to be recognized because they know what they’re doing is wrong. We do the best we can to secure our safety. But when people attack our homes, when they shoot pellets — it gets to a point where it’s no longer a manageable situation. We’re frightened.”