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In 2009, The Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR- nuclearfiles.org) published Steinbach's paper titled, "The Israeli Nuclear Weapons Program," saying:
"With several hundred weapons and a robust delivery system, Israel has quietly supplanted Britain as the world's fifth largest nuclear power, and now rivals France and China in terms of the size of its nuclear arsenal," despite an official ambiguity about an advanced sophisticated program. As a result, a combination of expert analysis and whistleblower revelations provided what's known. Also occasional slips, like in December 2006 when Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Germany's Sat. 1 channel:
"Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly, threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel and Russia?" Backtracking after a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel, he said:
"Israel has said many times - and I also said this to German television in an interview - that we will not be the first country that introduces nuclear weapons to the Middle East....That was our position (earlier). That is our position (now) - nothing has changed."
Since the 1970s, Israel's official position is that it chose "an option to produce electricity using nuclear reactors. (This) requires promoting nuclear knowledge and research, preparing sites suitable for building nuclear power plants," and weighing the economic benefits.
According to Steinbach:
"Despite this claim, an exhaustive search of publicly available sources indicates the existence of no meaningful Israeli civilian nuclear energy program, past or present....From its inception, the Israeli nuclear program has centered on developing a nuclear weapons program, with any other nuclear program being incidental."
Steinbach also cites estimates of Israel's arsenal at "from 100 to over 400 bombs," there being "little doubt that (its) weapons are among the world's most sophisticated, and largely designed for war fighting." They include:
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