Former Prime Minister Ehud Barak suggested today (Tuesday) in a Twitter thread on the judicial reform controversy that Israel possesses nuclear weapons.
"It sounds weird to us. But in Israelis' conversations with political parties in the West, their deep concern emerges about the possibility that, if the coup d'état in Israel succeeds, a messianic dictatorship will be established in the heart of the Middle East, possessing nuclear weapons, and which fanatically wishes for a confrontation with Islam centered on the Temple Mount. In their eyes - it's really scary. It's not going to happen. Have a happy holiday," Barak wrote.
Barak's comments violate the principle of strategic ambiguity by which Israel does not confirm or deny its possession of nuclear weapons and refuses to be the first nation to introduce them into the Middle East.
Barak said in a speech last week to the London-based think tank Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs that he believes the current protests against the judicial reforms in Israel can bring the Netanyahu government down.
Referring to the 2021 book “Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict,” by Professor Erica Chenoweth and political scientist Maria J. Stephan, Barak said that Israel has passed the threshold of 3.5% of the population which takes part in the protests.
“At the end the government either falls or capitulates,” Barak said. “We already crossed this number in less than three months so we are heading in the right direction.”