Abstract
Iran’s apparent interest in a nuclear weapons capability, which it denies, has sparked concerns in Israel mirroring those of the United States, the Gulf Cooperation Council, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. Yet there is a unique edge to Israel’s worries: the concentration of three quarters of its population on a narrow strip of coastline from Ashkelon to Haifa makes it extremely vulnerable to nuclear strikes. Israel’s presumed second-strike capability might severely damage its attacker, but there would be no Israeli state left to take satisfaction. Israelis are not the first to notice this asymmetry. Former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani remarked five years ago that ‘the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality’. Now, several converging developments have reignited Israeli concerns about the prospect of an undeterrable adversary in its vicinity.
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