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Israel’s Chief Mission Is to Protect Its Citizens From a Nuclear Iran
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addresses his supporters through a screen during a rally commemorating the annual Hezbollah Martyrs’ Day, in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Photo: Reuters/Aziz Taher
“The safety of the People,” exclaimed Roman statesman Cicero, “is the highest law.”
Accordingly, Israel must do whatever possible to protect its populations not only from Sunni Hamas in Gaza, but also from Shiite Hezbollah in the north. More precisely, though Israel is being forced to accelerate its conflict with Hezbollah, its ultimate adversary is Iran. In essence, safeguarding the country from a nuclearizing Iran must be Israel’s “highest law.”
What should be expected? If Israel’s indispensable counter-terrorism efforts bring it into another direct military confrontation with Iran, the result would likely be a protracted war. In any such unpredictable scenario, it is plausible that even a still pre-nuclear Iran could elicit a “limited” Israeli nuclear reprisal. Foreseeable escalation dangers would lie in Iranian use of radiation dispersal weapons or in Iranian conventional rocket attack on Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor. In a conspicuously worst-case scenario, an already-nuclear North Korea would engage Israeli military forces on behalf of Iran. Ironically, in such a scenario, the already-nuclear ally (North Korea) would be acting as willing surrogate for not-yet-nuclear Iran.
There are multiple details. By definition, all pertinent scenarios would be unprecedented or sui generis. This means, at best, that related strategic predictions could be only superficially scientific. In logic and mathematics, true assessments of probability must always derive from the determinable frequency of relevant past events. But because there has never been a nuclear war (Hiroshima and Nagasaki don’t “count”), nothing science-based could be estimated about an Israel-Iran nuclear war.
Even if Iran were to remain pre-nuclear, Israel could sometime calculate that it should cross the nuclear threshold vis-à-vis Iran. This would be the case in those circumstances wherein non-introduction of Israeli nuclear weapons would allow Iran to gain the upper hand in crisis bargaining. In extremis, this means that Israel could decide to “go nuclear” (though presumably at very limited levels) in order to maintain “escalation dominance.”
These are weighty intellectual matters, not matters for “common sense” resolution. They could never be understood or acted upon correctly by politicians or pundits. Like the much larger United States, Israel needs to guard itself capably from decisions of the strategically illiterate and manifestly unqualified.
For Israel, a country smaller than America’s Lake Michigan, nuclear weapons and strategy remain essential to national survival. Israel’s traditional policy of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” or the “bomb in the basement” goes back to early days of the state. During the 1950s, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, recognized the need for a dramatic “equalizer” vis-à-vis larger and more populous regional enemies. Prudently, he sought to secure his tiny country’s problematic survival in a region of continuous and rancorous anarchy.
Now, facing a recalcitrant and soon-to-be nuclear Iran, Israel needs to update and refine its policy of “deliberate nuclear ambiguity.” The key objective of such urgently needed changes would be credible nuclear deterrence, a goal that will require a sudden or incremental shift to “selective nuclear disclosure.” Though counter-intuitive, Iran will need to be convinced, among other things, that Israel’s nuclear arms are not too destructive for actual operational use.
There will be perplexing nuances. For Israel to fashion reason-based nuclear policies, Iran’s leaders should generally be considered rational. But it is conceivable that Iran would sometime act irrationally, perhaps in alliance with other more-or-less rational states like North Korea or with kindred terror groups such as Hezbollah.
Unless Jerusalem were to consider Pakistan an authentic enemy, Israel has no present-day nuclear enemies. Still, as an unstable Islamic state, Pakistan is potentially subject to coup d’état by assorted Jihadist elements and is closely aligned with Saudi Arabia. At some point, the Sunni Saudi kingdom could decide to “go nuclear” itself, not because of Israel per se, but because Shiite Iran’s steadily accelerating nuclear progress.
For Israel’s nuclear deterrence to work longer-term, Iran will need to be told more rather than less about Israel’s nuclear targeting doctrine and the invulnerability of Israel’s nuclear forces. In concert with such changes, Jerusalem will need to clarify parts of its still opaque “Samson Option.” The point of such clarification would not be to “die with the Philistines” (per the biblical Book of Judges), but to enhance certain “high destruction” options of its nuclear deterrence posture.
Though the only gainful and law-based rationale of Israel’s nuclear weapons could be deterrence at different levels of military destructiveness, there will remain circumstances under which Israeli nuclear deterrence might fail. How might such intolerable circumstances arise? In partial reply, the following four scenarios should be identified and evaluated. All four could result as “by-product” of Israel’s expanding war with Hezbollah, Iran’s terrorist proxy in Lebanon.
For the moment, the only reasonable focus in Jerusalem should be on Iranian capabilities and intentions. But this indispensable focus ought to include variously coinciding intersections with Hezbollah objectives and operations. In the final analysis, the Hezbollah threat to Israel is not “just” a terror threat or strategic threat, but a process that could accelerate conditions leading to eventual nuclear war with Iran.
The author was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971). Born in Zürich at the end of World War II, he is the author of many books, monographs, and articles dealing with Israeli nuclear strategy. Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue, he has lectured on this topic for over fifty years at leading universities and academic centers for strategic studies. Dr. Beres’ twelfth book, Israel’s Nuclear Strategy: Surviving amid Chaos, was published by Rowman and Littlefield, in 2016 (2nd ed., 2018). In December 2016, Professor Beres authored a monograph at Tel-Aviv University (with special postscript by retired USA General Barry McCaffrey), Israel’s Nuclear Strategy and American National Security.
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Columbia University Newspaper Endorses Mamdani for New York City Mayor
Candidate Zohran Mamdani speaks during a Democratic New York City mayoral primary debate, June 4, 2025, in New York, US. Photo: Yuki Iwamura/Pool via REUTERS
Columbia University’s flagship newspaper, The Columbia Daily Spectator, has endorsed a far-left New York City mayoral candidate who has been accused of antisemitism and made anti-Israel activism a cornerstone of his political career.
The Spectator’s editorial board issued the endorsement of Zohran Mamdani, a representative in the New York State Assembly, in a rare moment of summer activity, as most of the university’s student body is on holiday. It comes as the university’s leadership is reportedly taking steps to deal with a surge of campus antisemitism that captured national attention and led the Trump administration to pull federal funding over the school’s alleged failure to combat the crisis.
“Our endorsements reflect the consensus opinion of the editorial board, but we recognize that voters may weigh these issues differently,” the paper said on Tuesday. “As Spectator‘s editorial board, we endorse Zohran Mamdani as our top choice for New York City Mayor. Currently ranked second in most polls, the New York State Assembly member and his campaign have resonated with New Yorkers who have been repeatedly disappointed by the current administration.”
It added, “The Democratic Socialist has grounded his campaign in bread-and-butter issues such as universal child care, free public transportation, and affordable housing, echoing Sen. Bernie Sanders’ brand of economic populism.”
The paper’s choice of Mamdani prompted a slew of responses on social media. A native of Uganda born to parents from India, one of whom is an Oscar nominated filmmaker, Mamdani has refused to recognize the Jewish state of Israel, advocated adoption of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, and suggested that New York City — home to the world’s largest Jewish community outside of Israel — will divest from the country if he is elected.
Earlier this month, he refused to distance himself from the phrase “globalize the intifada,” a slogan that is believed to have inspired a wave of anti-Jewish violence which culminated in the murder of two young Israeli diplomats outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC in May. The Democratic mayoral candidate went as far as comparing the phrase to the motivations behind the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, prompting a rebuke from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.
“I think what’s difficult is that the very word has been used by the Holocaust Museum when translating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising into Arabic, because it’s a word that means struggle,” Mamdani said on the Bulwark podcast. “And as a Muslim man who grew up post-9/11, I’m too familiar in the way in which Arabic words can be twisted, can be distorted, can be used to justify any kind of meaning.”
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was an effort by Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland to fight back as they were set to be deported to concentration camps and killed during the Holocaust. In contrast, the slogan “globalize the intifada” references previous periods of sustained Palestinian terrorism against Jews and Israels known as intifadas, or uprisings.
On another occasion, years before he emerged as a candidate for mayor, Mamdani appeared to threaten that a “third intifada” was forthcoming.
Following the Spectator’s declaration of support for his campaign, Columbia University professor Shai Davidai charged that the paper had violated laws which prevent nonprofit entities, such as the Spectator, from entering the fray of electoral politics.
“The Columbia Spectator has just breached its non-profit status by endorsing a political candidate,” Davidai said. “Please join me in filing a formal complaint with the IRS against the Spectator Publishing Company. It’s time to make our colleges a partisan-free space for education.”
Elisha Baker, who studies Middle East History at Columbia University, said in a statement shared with The Algemeiner and other outlets that the Spectator is essentially throwing its support behind a surge of antisemitic violence called for by anti-Zionists of Mamdani’s mold.
“Zohran Mamdani is a threat to Jews in NYC and Americans everywhere. He marches with the antisemitic and anti-American mob,” Baker said. “A vote for Mamdani is a vote for antisemitism and continued pro-terror chaos on our streets. Especially since the tragic attacks in DC and Boulder, a vote for Mamdani is nothing short of a vote for Jews to stay inside.”
New York City will ultimately determine the merit of the case against the mayoral candidate, who would be the favorite to win the November general election if he prevails over his Democratic opponents, including former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, during Tuesday’s primary.
During the campaign, Cuomo criticized Mamdani’s links to the anti-Zionist movement.
“Yesterday when Zohran Mamdani was asked a direct question about what he thought of the phrase ‘globalize the intifada,’ he dismissed it as ‘language’ ‘that is subject to interpretation,’ Cuomo said in a statement earlier this month. “That is not only wrong – it is dangerous. At a time when we are seeing antisemitism on the rise and in fact witnessing once again violence against Jews resulting in their deaths in Washington DC or their burning in Denver – we know all too well that words matter. They fuel hate. They fuel murder. As the US Holocaust Museum so aptly said, all leaders or those running for office must condemn the use of this battle cry. There are no two sides here.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Gaza Humanitarian Foundation Calls for UN to Condemn Attacks on Aid Workers, Collaborate Amid Mass ‘Disinformation’
Palestinians collect aid supplies from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has called on the United Nations to publicly condemn the killing of aid workers in Gaza and to collaborate in order to provide relief to the enclave’s population, accusing the UN of perpetuating a “vast disinformation campaign” aimed at tarnishing the US- and Israel-backed foundation’s image.
In a letter sent to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday, GHF executive chairman Rev. Johnnie Moore defended the foundation’s efforts to distribute aid to the civilians of Gaza, the Palestinian enclave that has been ruled by the Hamas terrorist group for nearly two decades.
“Nearly 40 million meals have been distributed in our first month of operations from our Secure Distribution Sites,” Moore wrote, adding that the program has successfully distributed emergency aid to Palestinians in “desperate need” despite constantly operating “under grave threat.”
Moore also criticized the UN, saying that the GHF has “shared our data and our logistical approach” with the global body in hopes of forging a collaboration effort between the two entities. He lamented that the UN has “neither partnered with GHF nor even acknowledged our operational successes.”
“Our work has continued with normal operations amidst an expanding regional conflict, and also a vast disinformation campaign which has sought to stop us from feeding people from the moment we started,” Moore continued. “We regret that your own office has been a victim of this disinformation campaign which has only threatened to further harm the Gazan people.”
The GHF was created because Hamas routinely steals humanitarian aid, leaving civilians facing severe shortages. Documents released by the Israeli military earlier this month showed that Hamas operatives violently took control of approximately 25 percent of incoming aid shipments, which they then resold to civilians at inflated prices.
The GHF operates independently from UN-backed mechanisms, which Hamas has sought to reinstate, arguing that these frameworks are more neutral. Israeli and American officials have rejected those calls, saying Hamas previously exploited UN-run systems to siphon aid for its war effort. The UN has denied those allegations while expressing concerns that the GHF’s approach forces civilians to risk their safety by traveling long distances across active conflict zones to reach food distribution points.
Since the GHF launched operations in late May, there have been reports of Palestinians being shot near distribution sites. In specific cases, Israel has acknowledged targeting what it believed to be armed Hamas operatives using civilians as cover.
In his letter, Moore also criticized the UN for staying “absolutely silent in the wake of a targeted killing of GHF personnel nearly two weeks ago.”
“Their murder was not only a violation of international law, it was an affront to the very principles the UN purports to defend,” the GHF chairman added. He called on the UN to “publicly condemn the targeting of humanitarian workers in Gaza, and to denounce the obstruction of aid by Hamas and other armed factions.”
Moore’s letter came about two weeks after the GHF said that, on the night of June 11, several of its aid workers were killed when Hamas gunmen attacked a bus transporting local staffers.
The group said the vehicle was targeted as it carried more than 20 workers to a distribution site near the city of Khan Younis. In a statement Thursday, GHF said that at least people people were killed and several more were injured.
The bus attack followed days of threats from Hamas directed at the foundation and its workers.
According to Moore, the UN can help the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by working directly with GHD to help distribute aid “at scale” to needy civilians while bypassing “intermediaries.”
“The only credible response to food insecurity is food delivery. Anything less is a deferral of responsibility. We are ready to work with other humanitarian providers to deliver food straight to the Palestinian people and restore order to a system plagued by desperation and disorder,” Moore wrote.
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Netanyahu Declares Historic Win, Says Israel Removed Iran’s Nuclear Threat in 12-Day War
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a press conference, in Jerusalem, May 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun/Pool
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that Israel in its 12 days of war with Iran had removed the threat of nuclear annihilation and was determined to thwart any attempt by Tehran to revive its program.
“We have removed two immediate existential threats to us – the threat of nuclear annihilation and the threat of annihilation by 20,000 ballistic missiles,” he said in video remarks issued by his office.
“If anyone in Iran tries to revive this project, we will work with the same determination and strength to thwart any such attempt. I repeat, Iran will not have nuclear weapons.”
Netanyahu called it a historic victory that would stand for generations.
He said Israel never had a better friend in the White House than President Donald Trump, whose US military had dropped massive bunker-buster bombs on Iran’s underground nuclear sites in an attack over the weekend.
“Our friend President Trump has rallied to our side in an unprecedented way. Under his direction, the United States military destroyed the underground enrichment site at Fordow,” Netanyahu said.
He spoke hours after Trump directed stinging criticism at Israel over the scale of strikes Trump said had violated a truce with Iran negotiated by Washington, Israel‘s closest ally.
Netanyahu said Israel‘s work was unfinished. He cited the war against Iran’s ally Hamas in Gaza, where 50 hostages remain in captivity since the Palestinian terrorist group carried out a surprise attack on October 7, 2023.
About 20 are believed to be alive.
“We must complete the campaign against the Iranian axis, defeat Hamas, and bring about the release of all the hostages, both living and dead,” he said.
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