Comment by thatcat
2 days ago
Israel is a known industrial espionage threat to the us, how'd you think they got nuclear weapons? some analysts say they're the largest threat after china. Not to mention theyre currently using ai in targeting systems while under investigation for war crimes.
> how'd you think they got nuclear weapons?
I rather assumed they were able to re-invent them from scratch by the work of their own scientists. I mean, the US did it before the invention of the transistor and what I've heard about the USSR project is their espionage only helped them know the critical mass without needing so many test runs, so it doesn't seem like it would be implausible that Israel could do it themselves about 20 years later.
Whether it is plausible or not is unrelated to what happened.
In 1965 NUMEC owner, Zalman Shapiro - in coordination with israeli intelligence, diverted 100 kg of 95% enriched uranium from the facility and shipped it to Israel. Enriching the material to weapons grade is the technically difficult part - which I would think israel would certainly not have the budget for given the size of its economy.
Thanks for the specifics.
> which I would think israel would certainly not have the budget for given the size of its economy.
Hmm.
I'll buy that. I've seen a lot of wildly different cost estimates for separation work units, so I can only guess how much it might have cost at the time.
If it would have otherwise been the full Manhattan Project, I don't even need to guess, you're definitely correct they couldn't have afforded it: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=gdp+israel+1965