It is easier to detonate a nuclear weapon on the Moon than on Israeli soil

It sounds like science fiction, but in the late 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, the U.S. government considered detonating a nuclear bomb on the Moon. The purpose was to demonstrate U.S. technological and nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union, which was clearly on the rise in nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities.

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik 1 satellite into space by means of an R-7 Semiorka missile. It was an event that dealt a severe blow to the morale of the American government and people. On that day, the Soviet Union became the country to launch a satellite into space for the first time by means of what was also the first international ballistic missile (ICBM).

Project A119 was a top-secret project that aimed to detonate a hydrogen bomb at the boundary of the bright and dark side of the Moon, also called the “Terminator line”, so that all of Russia could see it one way or another. The United States wanted to be the first to leave the “stamp” of its nuclear power on the lunar surface.

Carl Sagan was involved in this project and it was he himself, in the 1990s, who revealed its existence by mentioning it in an application to an elite U.S. university.

The project led by nuclear physicist Leonard Reiffel was never completed because the ultimate goal in the minds of all Americans was the landing of man on the Moon, something the United States achieved on July 20, 1969 through the Apollo 11 mission.

If it had not been possible by any means to reach the Moon, it is likely that the United States would have continued with Project A119 until its successful completion and the American public would have applauded it. The rivalry between these two nuclear powers grew over the years and people had it in their blood.

However, the political decision to attack Israel with nuclear weapons is much more complex than detonating a nuclear bomb on the Moon.

The territory to be bombed is very small, and Israelis and Palestinians live virtually side by side. From a strictly political perspective, there should be no government in the world willing to attack Israel with nuclear weapons at this time.

To think of a scenario in which Israel is surprised by its enemies with a nuclear attack would also be to think of the worst political failure of all time, to destroy the project for which so many countries and world institutions worked together for so many decades: the State of Palestine with a democratic government with its borders well delimited. Only the most abject anti-Semitism would be able to cope with the consequences of the detonation of nuclear weapons between Israelis and Palestinians.

Of the nine nuclear powers technically capable of doing so, Russia, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea recognize Palestine as an independent state, while the United States, France, the United Kingdom and Israel do not.

Iran, Israel’s bitter enemy, does not yet possess nuclear weapons, but its authorities have expressed a desire to wipe Israel off the face of the earth and its nuclear program is still being handled with a high degree of secrecy.

Using Alex’s interactive Nuke Map tool (https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/), an intentional or accidental attack on Jerusalem with a 500-kiloton thermonuclear bomb would produce hundreds of thousands of deaths and injuries in both West and East Jerusalem, and a radioactive fallout that would affect depending on the direction of the wind, countries like Jordan and Syria.

Radioactive fallout after a 500 kt nuclear detonation on Jerusalem

The destruction would be incalculable, centuries of history of what was once the cradle of all civilizations, religious shrines, archeological structures and many scientific advances in the region would be lost forever.

The Jewish, Christian and Muslim worlds would be shaken in an unimaginable way by an event of such dimensions. The secular world that has fought so hard against Zionism and for Palestine would also be equally shaken. The whole world would be in shock.

Israel would immediately respond to the attack by destroying Iran’s major cities along with its nuclear program and the ramifications of the conflict would turn the Middle East into something worse than a movie version of “Mad Max”. The medium- and long-term political, social, public health and global economic effects of a nuclear conflict in the Middle East are not part of the discussion in this article.

All nuclear powers are preparing to one day enter into a nuclear conflict and Israel is no exception, with the difference that it has an unexpected demographic “defensive advantage” that the other nuclear powers do not have, but predicting how a war will unfold can be a difficult task, something the Israeli government is well aware of.

On the other hand, approximately 60% of Gaza’s infrastructure has been destroyed and around 45,000 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the war.

Without a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, tensions between Israel and its neighbors could escalate to a point of no return, where Israel, despite its small size, is the only country in the Middle East capable of annihilating another country quickly and effectively if its existence as a nation is threatened by means of one or more nuclear attacks. Israel has an estimated 90 nuclear bombs, but could have more since it is not a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

How the war in Gaza should have been conducted by the Israeli government to neutralize a terrorist group inside one of the most intricate and sophisticated tunnel networks in the world, under more than 2 million civilian Gazans concentrated in just 360 km2 of territory, and recover all the hostages from that fateful October 7, 2023, the day the current war began, is also beyond the scope of this article.

However, the return of the hostages and the cessation of mutual hostilities are essential to cool down the conflict, at least temporarily.

But the problem does not end with the return of the hostages and an indefinite ceasefire. The reconstruction of Gaza would cost some $50 billion and would take several decades of work, peace and regional stability to achieve, something that is hardly in sight in the short, medium and long term as long as Hamas and its sophisticated network of tunnels continue to exist.

The proposal of two separate states living side by side in peace to achieve peace will never work if political, ethnic and religious differences remain fuel for more mutual aggression.

As long as the war continues in Gaza, pogroms like the one in Amsterdam will continue to happen in other cities around the world. Anti-Zionist students in American universities and around the world will continue to chant in their protests against the State of Israel “From the River to the Sea” without having the slightest idea of what that would really mean for the Palestinians and the rest of the region.

In conclusion, detonating a nuclear bomb on the Moon will always be easier than in Israel or any country in the world since it does not entail any moral conflict in the person in charge of giving the order.