Love of the Land: The Armageddon Scenario: Israel and the Threat of Nuclear Terrorism

The Armageddon Scenario: Israel and the Threat of Nuclear Terrorism

Chuck Freilich
BESA
Perspectives 104
08 April '10

EXECUTIVE SUMMERY: The Iranian nuclear threat has obscured the possibility of waging nuclear terrorism against Israel. There is a clear rationale for employing nuclear terrorism and countering it needs calibrated policies of prevention and possibly US-Israeli cooperation. The time to prepare for the Armageddon scenario is now.

For the past 15 years, Israel's focus on the Iranian nuclear threat has been nearly all-encompassing, eclipsing virtually all other threats. While understandable, this preoccupation may have distracted Israel from a threat which may be no less likely and actually far more dangerous; nuclear terrorism. Unlike "traditional" terrorism, nuclear terrorism poses a catastrophic threat to the state.

Moreover, those most likely to conduct nuclear terrorism (al-Qaeda, Hizballah, Hamas, Iran, and others) may be fundamentally nihilistic and thus undeterrable. As millennial movements who believe that Israel's destruction is a sacred mission, they may view a nuclear attack, even assuming a devastating Israeli response, to be a worthy means of ushering in a messianic era.

A nuclear terrorist threat against Israel might be designed for:

Actual Use – to deal Israel a devastating blow

Deterrence – to counter Israel's conventional superiority and purported nuclear capability, to deter Israeli attacks, or to conduct attacks with relative impunity

Compellence – to exert a decisive influence on Israeli decision making during crises or over fundamental issues, holding it hostage by the threat of an attack

Weakening – to severely erode Israel's national resilience due to the ongoing need to live in the shadow of nuclear terrorism

Back Up – to strengthen the deterrent value of a state-based (Iranian or Syrian) capability

Decapitation – to remove the Israeli political and/or military leadership

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Love of the Land: The Armageddon Scenario: Israel and the Threat of Nuclear Terrorism