‘IRRESPONSIBLE’: Former Prime Minister reveals Israel has nuclear weapons 

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich slammed Ehud Barak as “delusional and irresponsible.”

By World Israel News Staff

Former prime minister Ehud Barak confirmed Israel has nuclear weapons in a since deleted tweet this week, breaking with decades of Israeli policy of ambiguity.

The former Israeli premier warned of the dangers of the government’s plans for judicial reform, tweeting: “It sounds strange to us but in conversations between Israelis and Western diplomatic officials, there are deep concerns emerging of the possibility that if the coup d’etat in Israel succeeds, a messianic dictatorship — that possesses nuclear weapons and fanatically wishes for a confrontation with Islam centered on the Temple Mount — will be established in the heart of the Middle East. In their eyes, it’s really frightening. It’s not going to happen. Have a happy holiday.”

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich expressed outrage over the tweet, calling Barak “delusional and irresponsible.”

“He, along with Yair Lapid and several hundred BDS activists from the left, have been traveling the world in recent weeks, establishing contact with foreign government officials, Jewish leaders and economic agents, selling this abominable lie, sowing terror, and mobilizing everyone to harm foreign relations and the economy of the State of Israel,” he wrote on Twitter.

While foreign estimates have put Israel’s stockpile between 80 and 400 nuclear warheads, the country has always maintained a policy of deliberate ambiguity on its nuclear status for strategic reasons. Its administrations throughout the years have said that Israel would never be the first to introduce weapons of mass destruction in the region.

In December, the UN’s General Assembly voted Wednesday 149-6 that Israel should accede to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and rid itself of its nuclear weapons cache.

The only five nations who voted with Israel against the resolution were the United States, Canada, Liberia, Micronesia and Palau. While 26 countries abstained, including several from the European Union and India, Ukraine was notable for absenting itself from the plenum at the time.

Barak last month wrote a social media post compared President Isaac Herzog’s judicial reform compromise to former British premier Neville Chamberlain’s efforts to appease German fuhrer Adolf Hitler. He later deleted the post.

Ehud BarakIsraeli nuclear programJudicial reformNuclear Nonproliferation Treaty