--- category: Country created: 2025-07-22 summary: Middle Eastern state whose undeclared nuclear arsenal, intelligence operations in the United States, covert arms sales to Iran and Latin America, and surveillance-technology industry run through much of this vault. tags: - Country - MiddleEast - Intelligence - NuclearWeapons - ArmsTrade updated: 2026-09-22 --- The State of [Israel](/places/israel/) was established in 1948. Its intelligence services are the [Mossad](/organizations/mossad/) (foreign intelligence), [Shin Bet](/organizations/shin-bet/) (internal security) and military intelligence, [Aman](/organizations/aman/), whose signals arm is [Unit 8200](/organizations/unit-8200/); a fourth agency under the defense ministry, the Science Liaison Bureau, [LAKAM](/organizations/lakam/), collected technical information abroad until the [Jonathan Pollard](/people/jonathan-pollard/) case of 1985.[^1][^2] ### Nuclear Weapons The chemist [Ernst David Bergmann](/people/ernst-david-bergmann/), director of the chemistry division of the [Weizmann Institute of Science](/organizations/weizmann-institute-of-science/), chaired the Israeli [Atomic Energy Commission](/organizations/atomic-energy-commission/) from its founding in 1952; the commission sat under the defense ministry and [Shimon Peres](/people/shimon-peres/). [France](/places/france/) supplied the reactor and the underground reprocessing plant at [Dimona](/places/dimona/) after the [Suez Crisis](/events/suez-crisis/) of 1956, in which Israel attacked [Egypt](/places/egypt/) in concert with France and [Britain](/places/united-kingdom/) and was forced by [Eisenhower](/people/dwight-d-eisenhower/) to withdraw. Senior figures of the ruling [Mapai Party](/organizations/mapai-party/), among them [Levi Eshkol](/people/levi-eshkol/) and [Pinhas Lavon](/people/pinhas-lavon/), opposed the program on grounds of cost. By 1968 [Moshe Dayan](/people/moshe-dayan/) had moved Dimona into full production without a formal cabinet decision.[^1] In the first days of the [Yom Kippur War](/events/yom-kippur-war/) of October 1973 the leadership under [Golda Meir](/people/golda-meir/) and Dayan armed and targeted the arsenal and informed [Washington](/places/washington-dc/), a step that also served to force an American resupply of the army.[^1] In 1986 the Dimona technician [Mordecai Vanunu](/people/mordecai-vanunu/) gave photographs of the plant's underground production units to the *[Sunday Times](/organizations/the-sunday-times/)*; they gave American analysts their first extensive evidence of an Israeli capacity for thermonuclear weapons. Vanunu was lured from [London](/places/london/) to [Rome](/places/rome/) by a woman working for the Mossad, [Cindy Hanin Bentov](/people/cindy-hanin-bentov/), drugged, and taken to Israel by ship for trial.[^1][^3] ### What Washington Knew The [CIA](/organizations/central-intelligence-agency/)'s photographic interpreters [Arthur C. Lundahl](/people/arthur-c-lundahl/) and [Dino A. Brugioni](/people/dino-a-brugioni/) saw the first signs of the Dimona reactor on U-2 imagery and had no doubt by the end of 1959 that Israel was pursuing a bomb. [John F. Kennedy](/people/john-f-kennedy/) demanded inspections of Dimona and in 1962 authorized the first sale of [American](/places/united-states/) weapons to Israel, Hawk missiles, linked to Israel's consent to inspection visits that Israel controlled. Ambassador [Walworth Barbour](/people/walworth-barbour/), in [Tel Aviv](/places/tel-aviv/) from 1961 to 1973, ordered his staff after the [Six-Day War](/events/six-day-war/) to stop reporting on nuclear weapons, told an intelligence briefer "Gentlemen, I don't believe a word of it," and after retiring joined the board of the American branch of [Bank Leumi](/organizations/bank-leumi/). [Carl E. Duckett](/people/carl-e-duckett/), whose CIA [Office of Science and Technology](/organizations/office-of-science-and-technology/) received the intelligence on the program, concluded in 1968 that Israel had three or four bombs; [Johnson](/people/lyndon-b-johnson/) had the estimate buried. The estimate rested in part on the suspicion that [Zalman Mordecai Shapiro](/people/zalman-mordecai-shapiro/) of the [Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation](/organizations/nuclear-materials-and-equipment-corporation/) had diverted more than two hundred pounds of enriched uranium to Israel; the [Carter](/people/jimmy-carter/) [White House](/places/white-house/) announced in 1977 that investigations had "failed to reveal" a diversion.[^1] During the Six-Day War, on June 8, 1967, Israeli forces attacked the American intelligence ship [USS Liberty](/events/uss-liberty-incident/), and Barbour urged Washington to play the incident down.[^1] ### Intelligence Operations in the United States [James Jesus Angleton](/people/james-jesus-angleton/) ran the CIA's liaison with Israeli intelligence under the cryptonym [KK MOUNTAIN](/programs/kk-mountain/), its channel for the text of [Nikita Khrushchev](/people/nikita-khrushchev/)'s 1956 "secret speech." [Richard Helms](/people/richard-helms/) told his deputies that he believed Israel was "an open pipeline for pumping intelligence to Moscow."[^4][^5] After the [Osirak bombing](/events/osirak-bombing/) of June 7, 1981, [William Casey](/people/william-j-casey/) ordered a review that found Israel had used its [KH-11](/concepts/kh-11/) satellite-sharing arrangement to obtain coverage of western Russia and Moscow.[^1] [Rafael Eitan](/people/rafael-eitan/), head of LAKAM, recruited Pollard, a [Navy](/organizations/us-navy/) intelligence analyst, in October 1981 according to [Seymour Hersh](/people/seymour-hersh/), three years earlier than Pollard and the government admitted; material from LAKAM reached Israeli intelligence in such volume that a code name, JUMBO, was added to its markings. Pollard's handler from 1984, the Air Force colonel [Aviem Sella](/people/aviem-sella/), was indicted in the United States in 1987; Israel refused his extradition, promoted him and gave Eitan a senior post at the [Israel Chemicals Company](/organizations/israel-chemicals-company/). Israel retained [Leonard Garment](/people/leonard-garment/) to represent Sella; Garment withdrew, saying he was not sure whether his client was Sella or the Israeli government.[^1] Eitan is also the figure alleged to have obtained the [PROMIS](/programs/promis/) case-management software from the [Justice Department](/organizations/department-of-justice/) in 1983 and to have had it fitted with a hidden access point; the Justice Department's memoranda record only the delivery of a public-domain version to a "Dr. Ben Orr, a representative of the Government of Israel."[^6][^7] ### Arms to Iran Israel sold arms to [Iran](/places/iran/) after the revolution of 1979. [Yaacov Nimrodi](/people/yaacov-nimrodi/), military attaché in [Tehran](/places/tehran/) from 1955 to 1968, sold the Iranian defense ministry Hawk missiles worth 135.8 million dollars in 1981; with [David Kimche](/people/david-kimche/) and [Al Schwimmer](/people/al-schwimmer/) he managed the first shipment of the [Iran-Contra](/events/iran-contra-affair/) channel, 96 [TOW](/concepts/tow-missile/) missiles from Israeli stocks in August 1985.[^8][^9] According to [Ari Ben-Menashe](/people/ari-ben-menashe/), Prime Minister [Menachem Begin](/people/menachem-begin/) had a committee formed in the fall of 1980, the [Iran-Israel Joint Committee](/organizations/iran-israel-joint-committee/), to supply Iran in its war with [Iraq](/places/iraq/), financed from its own profits through the [Ora Group](/organizations/ora-group/), with funds held at [Drexel Burnham](/organizations/drexel-burnham/); the Justice Department's 1994 review of the [PROMIS Software Scandal](/events/promis-software-scandal/) recorded the broker John A. Belton's description, given without documents, of Ora as "the Israeli half of a multi-billion dollar slush fund."[^2][^7] Ben-Menashe's account of Israeli participation in the [October Surprise](/events/october-surprise/) was rejected by the House October Surprise Task Force in its report of January 3, 1993, which described his testimony as lacking credibility.[^2][^10] ### Latin America and Southern Africa The former Mossad officer [Mike Harari](/people/mike-harari/) was named by José Blandón before the Senate in February 1988 as the head of a network supplying arms to [Central America](/places/central-america/) and the [Contras](/organizations/contras/) from [Panama](/places/panama/), whose aircraft returned with drugs; the Israeli embassy said he acted "as a private citizen."[^11] According to Ben-Menashe, the arms company [Eagle](/organizations/eagle/) sold weapons to the [Guatemalan](/places/guatemala/) military with Harari and [Pesach Ben-Or](/people/pesach-ben-or/), [Alfredo Stroessner](/people/alfredo-stroessner/)'s [Paraguay](/places/paraguay/) served as a conduit for materiel from [South Africa](/places/south-africa/) to Dimona, and the [South African Defense Force](/organizations/south-african-defense-force/) signed the mutual wartime agreement [SIMWA](/misc/simwa/) with the Israel Defense Forces and invested in the nuclear program.[^2] ### Maxwell and Vanunu [Robert Maxwell](/people/robert-maxwell/), owner of the *[Daily Mirror](/organizations/daily-mirror/)*, controlled the Israeli computer company [Degem](/organizations/degem/). Hersh alleged in October 1991 that Maxwell and his foreign editor [Nicholas Davies](/people/nicholas-davies/) had links to Israeli intelligence and that Maxwell had relayed information to the Israeli embassy in London that led to Vanunu's capture; Maxwell called the claim a total invention. He died the following month and was buried on the Mount of Olives in the presence of the president, the prime minister and serving and former intelligence chiefs.[^1][^12] ### Surveillance Technology Unit 8200 is the recruiting ground of the Israeli private surveillance industry; the founders of the spyware maker [NSO Group](/organizations/nso-group/) are its alumni.[^13] In 2015 the former prime minister [Ehud Barak](/people/ehud-barak/) arranged an investment of about one million dollars by [Jeffrey Epstein](/people/jeffrey-epstein/) in Reporty, later [Carbyne](/organizations/carbyne/), which also had backing from [Peter Thiel](/people/peter-thiel/)'s [Founders Fund](/organizations/founders-fund/).[^14] On January 12, 2024, [Palantir Technologies](/organizations/palantir-technologies/) announced "a strategic partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense to supply Palantir technology to help the country's war effort."[^15] [^1]: Hersh, Seymour M. *The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy.* Random House, 1991: chapters 2, 3 and 5 (Bergmann, Suez, Dimona), 4, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 16 and 18 (U-2 imagery, Kennedy, Barbour, Duckett, Shapiro, the Liberty), 17 (the Yom Kippur War), 1 (Osirak and the KH-11 review), 21 and 22 (Pollard, Eitan, Sella, Garment), and pp. 313-314 (Vanunu). [^2]: Ben-Menashe, Ari. *Profits of War: Inside the Secret U.S.-Israeli Arms Network.* Sheridan Square Press, 1992. Sole source for the Joint Committee, Eagle, Paraguay and SIMWA passages. [^3]: Cohen, Yoel. *The Whistleblower of Dimona: Israel, Vanunu, and the Bomb.* Holmes and Meier, 2003. [^4]: Mangold, Tom. *Cold Warrior: James Jesus Angleton, the CIA's Master Spy Hunter.* Simon and Schuster, 1991, as cited on the Angleton page, whose KK MOUNTAIN passages carry no specific page citation. [^5]: Powers, Thomas. *The Man Who Kept the Secrets: Richard Helms and the CIA.* Knopf, 1979. [^6]: Thomas, Gordon. *Gideon's Spies: The Secret History of the Mossad.* St. Martin's Press, 1999. [^7]: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary. *The INSLAW Affair,* H. Rept. 102-857, September 10, 1992, reproducing the memoranda of Jack Rugh of May 6 and 12, 1983; U.S. Department of Justice, *Report on the Review of Special Counsel Nicholas J. Bua's Report,* September 27, 1994. [^8]: Sick, Gary. *October Surprise: America's Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan.* Times Books, 1991. [^9]: Walsh, Lawrence E. *Final Report of the Independent Counsel for Iran/Contra Matters.* 1993. [^10]: "Probe by House finds no 'October surprise,'" *The Baltimore Sun,* January 13, 1993. https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1993-01-13-1993013111-story.html [^11]: "Ex-agent of the Mossad Implicated in Drug Deals with Panamanian," *Jewish Telegraphic Agency,* February 1988. https://www.jta.org/archive/ex-agent-of-the-mossad-implicated-in-drug-deals-with-panamanian [^12]: "Media Baron Sues Seymour Hersh," *The Washington Post,* October 25, 1991. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1991/10/25/media-baron-sues-seymour-hersh/c16c29e2-04ba-4038-9fff-08113fa33b77/ ; "Maxwell, Colossus Even in Death, Laid to Rest on Mount of Olives," *Jewish Telegraphic Agency,* 1991. https://www.jta.org/archive/maxwell-colossus-even-in-death-laid-to-rest-on-mount-of-olives [^13]: "Where NSO Group Came From and Why It's Just the Tip of the Iceberg," OCCRP. https://www.occrp.org/en/project/the-pegasus-project [^14]: Brewster, Thomas. "Epstein Could Have Made $100 Million On A Secret Police Tech Investment With Ehud Barak." *Forbes,* February 2026. [^15]: "Palantir, Israel Agree Strategic Partnership for Battle Tech." *Bloomberg,* January 12, 2024.