Israel itself repeatedly deceived the United States in its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The Dimona Nuclear Facility Built in Israel’s Negev Desert. August 6, 2000. Photo: Reuters
“Remember, Iran will never be allowed to obtain nuclear weapons. It’s that simple. No need to go any deeper. They cannot have this weapon.”
— Donald Trump, U.S. President, June 17, 2025.
“Iran’s leaders should understand, I do not subscribe to a policy of containment. My policy is to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.”
— Barack Obama, U.S. President, March 4, 2012.
“I believe they (Iran) want to acquire the capability and knowledge to build nuclear weapons. And I’m certain, for the sake of the world, they must be stopped.”
— President George W. Bush, October 17, 2007.
Since Iran’s uranium enrichment program became public in 2002, U.S. presidents have consistently declared that Iran will not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran has been a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) since 1970. The treaty stipulates that non-nuclear states will not pursue nuclear weapons and will remain under international inspection.
However, even before the 1979 revolution, Iran’s then-leader Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi expressed a desire to acquire nuclear capabilities. The U.S. already suspected he was secretly aiming to build nuclear weapons.
Just five years after the Shah’s fall, the Islamic Republic began covert efforts to develop nuclear fuel and components for weaponry.
Thus began a long game of “hide and seek”—negotiations, agreements, and inspections. Finally, in 2015, under U.S. leadership, an international agreement was reached where Iran pledged not to develop nuclear weapons and agreed to heightened oversight.
The deal faced heavy criticism (especially from Israel). In 2018, President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement, claiming he would secure a better deal. But that deal never materialized.
During his second term, Trump ordered a bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities. This effectively linked the U.S. to Israel’s military actions against Iran. Ironically, it was also Trump who later played a role in enforcing a ceasefire.
If Iran indeed pursued deception in its nuclear program, then Israel itself was the first and original role model on that path.

Israel’s Arsenal
Researchers from the Federation of American Scientists estimate that as of 2021, Israel possesses approximately 90 nuclear warheads. These can be delivered via aircraft, missiles, and possibly submarines.
Israel’s first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion began considering nuclear weapons essential to Israel’s security in the mid-1950s.
From that time, Israel began covertly acquiring nuclear technology, repeatedly misleading the U.S. and other countries.
After the 1956 Suez Canal crisis, France offered to assist Israel’s nuclear program. Secretly, France helped build the Dimona nuclear reactor in Israel’s Negev desert.
Under the agreement with France, an underground chemical processing plant was also constructed at Dimona. However, no official documents acknowledged this nuclear site.
At one point, France hesitated about continuing the project. Israel reassured them that it had no intention of building nuclear weapons. France, then, without demanding international inspection, helped complete the construction.
Meanwhile, Norway supplied heavy water, used to moderate nuclear reactions, after Israel claimed the program was for peaceful purposes.

Deception
In the late 1950s, U.S. intelligence discovered the hidden nuclear facility at Dimona. Israel misled the U.S. embassy, claiming it was just a textile factory.
When the lie was uncovered, Israel claimed it was a metallurgical research center, denying the presence of any chemical plant capable of producing nuclear weapons.
In December 1960, Ben-Gurion told Israel’s parliament the facility was a 24-megawatt research reactor and would only be used for peaceful purposes.
Newly elected U.S. President John F. Kennedy, concerned about nuclear proliferation, insisted on regular inspections of Israel’s nuclear program.
In 1961, an American inspection team reported no signs of nuclear weapons production. Still, the U.S. insisted inspections continue, mainly to reassure Arab nations like Egypt that Israel wasn’t building nuclear bombs.
In 1963, Kennedy sent a strong message to Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, warning that the U.S.-Israel relationship would suffer seriously without credible information about Israel’s nuclear ambitions.
Eshkol replied that the facility was being used only for peaceful purposes. A U.S. team inspected it again in 1964 but found no plutonium reprocessing plant.
What the team didn’t know was that Israel had already built a secret underground plutonium reprocessing plant. They cleverly constructed walls around the elevator so that inspectors wouldn't realize it led to the real nuclear facility.

Fake Control Room
In journalist Seymour Hersh’s 1991 book The Samson Option, he described how Israel created a fake control room at Dimona. It included mock panels and computer-controlled instruments to simulate the operations of a 24-megawatt reactor.
Israeli technicians rehearsed for months to fool American inspectors, ensuring they saw nothing suspicious.
The aim was clear: to convince inspectors there was no chemical processing plant and that such production wasn’t even possible at the site.

The Nixon–Golda Meir Secret Agreement

In 1968 , the CIA confirmed that Israel possessed nuclear weapons, just as the NPT was being finalized.
The U.S. realized it was too late to stop Israel’s program.
On September 26, 1969, U.S. President Richard Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir reached a secret agreement at the White House.
Under the deal: