Not Netanyahu, it’s the ‘Begin Doctrine’: Why Israel will never allow Iran to go nuclear

Days before Israel and the US struck Iran – and took out its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of dragging Washington into a wider conflict in West Asia.

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“This is an Israeli plot to drag the US into war in this region. This is a disastrous plan by the Israelis,” Araghchi told India Today.

But Israel’s position that it will never allow its enemies to acquire nuclear weapons is not new – and it did not originate under Netanyahu. 

The doctrine dates back to Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

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Begin, Israel’s sixth prime minister, served from 1977 to 1983. His most notable diplomatic achievement was the peace treaty with Egypt. In November 1977, six months after taking office, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat visited Jerusalem – a breakthrough that led to two years of negotiations and culminated in the Camp David Accords. These called for Israel’s withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula and the establishment of Palestinian autonomy in exchange for peace and normal relations with Egypt.

The Treaty of Peace was signed in 1979. Begin and Sadat were awarded the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize. In 1982, despite widespread protests at home, Begin completed Israel’s withdrawal from Sinai.

Yet even as peace with Egypt held, new threats emerged from Iraq. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had threatened to “drown” the Jewish state in “rivers of blood.” Iraq, with active French assistance, was building a nuclear reactor.

Notably, France had earlier helped Israel build its own reactor in Dimona.

After coming to power, Begin insisted that under no circumstances could Hussein – who had openly called for Israel’s destruction – be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons, writes Daniel Gordis in Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn.

In August 1978, Begin convened the first of dozens of secret cabinet meetings to determine the course of action. Any military strike would be fraught with risk.

Contrary to later perception, US backing was far from assured. Israeli leadership feared Washington – keen to protect its broader interests in the Arab Middle East – might condemn and isolate Israel. As late as 1980, the US State Department maintained there was “no hard evidence that Iraq has decided to acquire nuclear explosives.”

Militarily, the mission was no less dangerous. Israeli pilots would have to fly nearly 1,200 miles across hostile territory at extremely low altitude to avoid radar detection. In fact, several pilots were killed in training.

“Yet for Begin, there was no question that the mission was critical. The Jewish people had not reestablished their national home after two thousand years only to live once again under the threat of extinction,” Gordis writes.

On June 7, 1981, eight Israeli fighter jets flew east toward Iraq. Arriving undetected, they destroyed the Osirak nuclear reactor and returned safely.

The United States initially condemned the strike and supported UN Security Council Resolution 487, which criticised Israel’s strikes.

A decade later, during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, the US reversed its position.

US Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney later sent a satellite photograph of the destroyed reactor to Israel, writing: “For General David Ivri, with thanks and appreciation for the outstanding job he did on the Iraqi Nuclear Program in 1981, which made our job much easier in Desert Storm!”

“The peace treaty with Egypt also survived the attack on Iraq. No Arab armies responded. The reactor was gone, the peace treaty survived,” Gordis states.

Israel now had a policy known as the ‘Begin Doctrine’, which held that Israel would never allow “any of its mortal enemies,” seeking to develop or acquire a weapon of mass destruction.

That doctrine did not end with Begin.

Netanyahu has long argued that Iran represents Israel’s gravest strategic threat. In February 1993, he published an article titled ‘The Great Danger’. “The greatest danger to Israel’s existence is not found in the Arab countries, but in Iran,” he wrote.

Later, in his memoir published in 2023, Netanyahu added: “I consistently argued that we must take action to prevent Iran from realizing its nuclear ambitions.”