Little is known about Israel's biological warfare (BW) program. Israel has not signed the 1972 Biological Weapons Conventions (BWC), nor explained the reasons behind its refusal to sign. Moreover, Israel has revealed virtually nothing about its activities and capabilities in the BW field; it has never issued a public policy statement on the question of BW. For all practical purposes, Israel acts as if it maintains a policy of biological ambiguity
It is commonly assumed that Israel maintains an advanced BW program, but the exact nature of the program--and whether any of it could be defined as offensively oriented--is unclear. An effort to reconstruct Israel's BW history, status, and capabilities is inescapably both conjectural and interpretative.
History
In April 1948, only weeks before the State of Israel was declared, David Ben-Gurion, the nation's founding father and first prime minister, wrote a letter to Ehud Avriel, one of the Jewish Agency's operatives in Europe, asking him to seek out and recruit East European Jewish scientists who could "either increase the capacity to kill masses or to cure masses; both things are important." Put in plain language, Ben-Gurion's request implied a search for experts in BW.[1]
Ben Gurion's interest in BW should be placed in context. It so happened that all three scientists, who were close to Ben Gurion at that time, Professor Ernst David Bergmann and the Katachalsky [Katzir] brothers, came from the fields of chemistry and microbiology. Professor Bergmann was already a well-established organic chemist, serving as Ben-Gurion's unofficial adviser on science and technology. The Katachalsky brothers, Aharon and Ephraim, were among the first to study chemistry at the Hebrew University in the 1930s, where they did both undergraduate and graduate work. They conducted molecular research that linked organic chemistry with microbiology. They both received their Ph.D. in macromolecular chemistry in 1941. The outlook of these three scientists reinforced Ben Gurion's view that Israel's leading edge in its struggle with its enemies depended on investing in science and technology. These scientists were founders of the Science Corps within the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), a military branch known by the Hebrew acronym HEMED.[2]
In early 1948, Alexander Keynan, a graduate student in microbiology and the leader of a small Haganah (the pre-state Jewish militia) group of students from the medical school of the Hebrew University, lobbied General Yigal Yadin, the Haganah operations chief, to establish a new unit within HEMED to be devoted to BW. Yadin and Bergmann gave their blessing, and Ben-Gurion needed little persuasion to approve it. On February 18, 1948, by order from Yadin, Keynan left Jerusalem for Jaffa, where he set up his new unit. Soon the new unit was named HEMED BEIT.[3]
The creation of HEMED BEIT was controversial from the outset. Tight secrecy characterized everything related to the activities of HEMED BEIT during the 1948 war. The biological unit was insulated and isolated, physically and organizationally, from all other HEMED units. To this day, all archival material relating to HEMED BEIT is classified, hence, unavailable to scholars. But rumors about secret BW operations in Palestinian villages and towns have persisted for years.[4]
It is believed that one of the largest BW operations was in the Arab coastal town of Acre, north of Haifa, shortly before it was conquered by the IDF on May 17, 1948. According to Dr. Uri Milstein, an Israeli military historian, the typhoid epidemic that spread in Acre in the days before the town fell to the Israeli forces was not due to wartime chaos but rather the result of a deliberate covert action by the IDF--the contamination of Acre's water supply.[5]
Then, on 23 May 1948, Egyptian soldiers in the Gaza area caught four Israeli soldiers disguised as Arabs near water wells. A statement issued by the Egyptian Ministry of Defense on May 29, 1948, stated that four "Zionists" had been caught trying to infect artesian wells in Gaza with "a liquid, which was discovered to contain the germs of dysentery and typhoid." The four Israelis were put on trial, convicted, and executed by hanging three months later.[6]
At the time, Israel denied the Egyptian allegations about "bacteriological warfare," calling it a "wicked libel." It admitted only that the Israeli soldiers were involved in an intelligence operation aimed at monitoring military movements and assessing the morale of the Arab population.[7]
Still, there are many unresolved questions regarding the entire HEMED BEIT activities in the 1948 war: Was the failed Gaza operation an isolated or nearly isolated Israeli experiment with BW that ended with that failure, or part of a larger campaign? If the latter is true, how widespread was the campaign and against whom was it directed? What was the strategic rationale?
It is worth noting that no Palestinian references exist alleging that the epidemics in Acre had resulted from Israeli sabotage. The absence of Arab reports on this incident may suggest either that the "bacteriological warfare" campaign, if it occurred, yielded limited results, or that in the chaos of the war the Palestinian refugees were unaware of the campaign. Also, if the BW operations were aimed primarily at preventing the return of the Palestinian population to their deserted villages, as Milstein claims, this could explain the relative lack of evidence of such operations.
Ultimately, however, the creation of HEMED BEIT must be understood, and judged, in the context of its time. It took place only three years after the end of World War II, at a time when the Zionist movement had just started to grapple with the devastating blow the Jewish people had suffered in the Nazi Holocaust. As a matter of historical context, every major World War II combatant had a BW program.[8]
In 1949, a period of reorganization began both at the IDF and the civilian Ministry of Defense (MOD). By the end of the war, the BW unit, HEMED BEIT, was effectively no longer under HEMED's control. As the military budget shrank in 1950-51, the IDF was determined to rid itself of the burden of supporting HEMED.
As part of the organizational restructuring, HEMED was converted into a group of MOD-sponsored civilian research centers called "Machons." The Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) was founded in 1952, as a result of this restructuring, from the merger of two Machons, one of which was a continuation of HEMED BEIT. The building in the fenced grove outside Ness Ziona, which had served as the base of HEMED BEIT, became the home of IIBR. Alexander Keynan, who had led HEMED BEIT, was IIBR's first director.[9]
Furthermore, while the official mandate and rationale for IIBR's research was national security, it appears that Bergmann and Keynan were trying to extend and broaden the research mandate for the new scientific institute. They apparently hoped to build IIBR as the flagship for "national science": a research center that would conduct defense research but would also serve as the nation's main laboratory for chemistry and biology. It would mirror the functions of the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) and even the National Institute of Health (NIH). These different philosophies about the role of IIBR--a limited scientific infrastructure for chemical and biological weapons (CBW) research versus Bergmann's and Keynan's vision of a "national science" center--resulted in a long dispute within the MOD about the mission and role of IIBR.
As to the role of CBW in Israel's concept of national security, all indications are that from early on Ben-Gurion and his associates viewed the atomic bomb as Israel's ultimate deterrence weapon, not CBW. Nevertheless, in the 1950s and 1960s, when Israeli nuclear capability was still far off in the future, Israeli leaders probably viewed CBW as the nation's doomsday weapons, Israel's weapons of last resort.
Even in those early days, however, it appears that Israeli strategists distinguished clearly between CW and BW. CW were viewed as "nasty" but still usable weapons that Arab armies might use in the battlefield in a meaningful military fashion. The perception of BW was different. Israeli military leaders did not view BW as feasible military weapons for the battlefield, primarily because wars in the Middle East are short. But they recognized that BW could be used in conflict as the ultimate weapons of terror.[10]
From its early days the primary mandate of the IIBR was to serve as the institutional base of Israel's commitment to maintain adequate physical infrastructure and human R&D expertise in the area of CBW to satisfy Israel's national needs in this area. While it was recognized that Israel as a state must have a national infrastructure and expertise in these areas, the BW threat was not perceived as real and/or imminent. This assessment fits well with the relatively small size and budget of IIBR which remained largely steady for decades.[12]
During the 1970s and the 1980s, IIBR, suffered chronic budgetary and organizational difficulties; apparently on at least two occasions, IIBR even faced the possibility of being shut down as an independent research institution. A great deal of the IIBR's budget came from specific scientific projects, many of them were non-classified (often from foreign sources) with no direct bearing on defense. One critical response to these financial difficulties was IIBR's effort to promote the commercialization of its products and services. Since the 1970s, IIBR has become increasingly involved in all kinds of "for profit" unclassified R&D contracts, some of them with non-Israeli entities (such as the U.S. Army).
In 1979, in response to financial difficulties, Dr. Israel Hartmann, a former director of IIBR, set up a commercial subsidiary, Life Science Israel Research (LSIR), at the IIBR campus. Its purpose is to promote chemical and biomedical projects and to market products and services developed by IIBR. LSIR also represents IIBR in all kinds of collaborations, joint ventures, and partnerships with private and public companies, all done on a commercial basis and with non-classified research. According to the IIBR website, IIBR/LSRI annual average revenues amount to $3 million, with exports contributing 60 percent of this total.
Saddam Hussein is probably the single man most responsible for the dramatic growth of Israel's BW defensive infrastructure. Over the last decade, under the energetic leadership of IIBR director Dr. Avigdor Shafferman, IIBR as the institutional base of Israel's CBW infrastructure has witnessed an unprecedented period of expansion. When the Gulf War started in January 1991, it became evident that Israel was totally unprepared for the possibility of being attacked by Iraqi Scud missiles with CW or BW warheads. Thus Israel's policy-makers decided that those major national deficiencies must be repaired.
Throughout the mid-1990s, revelations about Iraq's BW program (especially the fact that Saddam considered Israel as the target for his BW program), prompted further secret expansion of Israel's BW infrastructure. In the late 1990s, major new funds were allocated to develop an adequate defensive response, at the national level, to the Iraqi CBW threat as well as to other new bioterrorism threats. The IIBR has become the primary body responsible for formulating and executing a national concept of defense against various scenarios of BW threats (primarily Anthrax bacterium [Bacillus anthracis]). The IIBR campus has been expanded with new buildings, laboratories, and scientific equipment, and its staff has grown with the hiring of many new scientists.
It remains to be seen whether, and to what extent, the new strategic environment in Iraq after Saddam's fall will affect these multi-year development plans.
Status
Israel has not signed the 1972 Biological Weapons Conventions (BWC), nor has it ever explained the reasons behind its refusal. In fact, Israel has never issued a public policy statement on BW, and it acts as if it maintains a policy of biological ambiguity.
The official unclassified version of the 2006 U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report on WMD does not name Israel as having a BW program. However, unofficially, and based on most previous intelligence reviews, U.S. government officials acknowledge that Israel is believed to possess biological weapons. Although there are clear indications that Israel operates an advanced biodefense program and possibly even maintains some sort of BW production capability, it is very doubtful that Israel actually produces or stockpiles BW agents beyond the small quantities required for defensive research.
Key Sources:
[1] Ben-Gurion's letter to Avriel, dated March 4, 1948, is cited in Michael Keren, Ben-Gurion and the Intellectuals (Sdeh Boker: The Ben-Gurion Research Center Press, 1988 [in Hebrew]), p. 32.
[2] Avner Cohen, "Israel and Chemical/Biological Weapons: History, Deterrence, and Arms Control," The Nonproliferation Review 8 (Fall-Winter 2001), pp. 29-30.
[3] Ibid, p. 31.
[4] Sara Leibovitz-Dar, "Haydakim Besherut Hamedinah" [Microbes in State Service], Hadashot, August 13, 1993, pp. 6-10.
[5] Cohen, "Israel and Chemical/Biological Weapons," p. 31-33.
[6] Thomas J. Hamilton, "Arab Assails the Idea of Minority Shifts," New York Times, July 24, 1948; see also Leibovitz-Dar, "Haydakim Besherut Hamedinah."
[7] In 1993, however, when Israeli journalist Sarah Leibovitz-Dar asked the commander of Gaza operation whether the soldiers had been sent to gather intelligence or on a poisoning mission, he refused to respond. "You will not get answers on these questions," he said angrily. "Not from me, and not from anyone...." Leibovitz-Dar concluded that many people knew something about these operations; it was one of those open secrets that over time becomes a national taboo. Yet both participants and later historians chose to avoid the issue. See, Leibovitz-Dar, "Haydakim Besherut Hamedinah."
[8] Also, one should look at the military situation as was perceived by the Haganah leaders in early 1948, the time when HEMED BEIT was created. In response to the imminent possibility of invasion of the Arab states, the Haganah prepared a broad strategic plan, known as Plan D, to face such a contingency. While it was not a grand plan of massive expulsion, it allowed the expulsion of hostile or potentially hostile Palestinian villagers. Until mid-1948 fears of Zionist defeat, possible even annihilation, were still held in the psyche of the Yishuv's leadership. The creation of a Jewish state was not a sure proposition. The founders of HEMED BEIT shared this mind-set. They were committed to do whatever was necessary to establish a Jewish state in the land of Israel. They firmly believed that, after the Holocaust, that sacred mission could not be derailed by the luxury of moral revulsion against "dirty weapons." If microbiology could help in providing the means to establish the Jewish state, so be it.
[9] Cohen, "Israel and Chemical/Biological Weapons," pp. 32-33.
[10] It is not known if, and to what extent, Bergmann and his IIBR colleagues made a distinction between defensive and offensive R&D. Given the climate of the times, and given the intrinsic dual nature of such research, it is highly doubtful. One might assume that they, like their CBW contemporaries in the West, thought about CBW primarily in terms of "offensive" use, and most likely in the context of retaliation. One should keep in mind that in those days, national CBW programs were not illegal, nor even at odds with international norms.11 In fact, by the 1950s all three major Western (and NATO) powers—the United States, the United Kingdom, and France—had significant offensive CBW capabilities.
[12] Zafrir Rinat, "The Activity of IIBR focuses on Study of Disease Prevention," Haaretz, December 12, 1997.
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Updated September 2007 |
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