Begin Doctrine

The Begin doctrine is the common term for the Israeli government's preventive strike, counter-proliferation policy regarding their potential enemies' capability to possess weapons of mass destruction (WMD), particularly nuclear weapons.

The roots of this doctrine can be tracked at least to Operation Damocles at the beginning of 1960s. Secret and diplomatic operations against the Iraqi nuclear program were started by the Yitzhak Rabin government in the mid-1970s.

The doctrine itself was enunciated by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin in June 1981, following Israel's attack on Iraq's nuclear reactor Osirak in Operation Opera. The doctrine remains a feature of Israeli security planning.^[1] The initial government statement on the incident stated: "On no account shall we permit an enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction against the people of Israel. We shall defend the citizens of Israel in good time and with all the means at our disposal."^[2]

Two days after the attack in a dramatic press conference in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Begin took full responsibility for the operation, praised its execution as extraordinary, and justified it both on moral and legal grounds. Begin referred to the strike as an act of "anticipatory self-defense at its best." The message Begin conveyed was that the raid on Osirak was not a one-time operation, but rather a long-term national commitment. He ended his press conference with these words:^[3]

"We chose this moment: now, not later, because later may be too late, perhaps forever. And if we stood by idly, two, three years, at the most four years, and Saddam Hussein would have produced his three, four, five bombs. ... Then, this country and this people would have been lost, after the Holocaust. Another Holocaust would have happened in the history of the Jewish people. Never again, never again! Tell so your friends, tell anyone you meet, we shall defend our people with all the means at our disposal. We shall not allow any enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction turned against us."

On June 15, in a television interview on Face the Nation, Begin reiterated this doctrinal point: "This attack will be a precedent for every future government in Israel. ... Every future Israeli prime minister will act, in similar circumstances, in the same way."^[3]

Following the attack and Israeli government comments, many foreign powers opposed it and the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed United Nations Security Council Resolution 487 condemning the attacks.