Historian Michael Oren Rejects Claim Israel Considered Atom Bomb Attack in Six Day War

The Times of Israel reports: A government deputy minister and historian on Sunday dismissed a media report claiming Israel was prepared to detonate an atom bomb to deter invading Arab armies as a “doomsday” plan during the 1967 Six Day War.

Deputy Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office Michael Oren, author of an acclaimed history on the Six Day War, said in a statement that thousands of declassified documents from the war lend no support to the purported last-ditch plan to drop a nuclear bomb in Sinai, as reported by The New York Times on Saturday.

The NY Times report was based on an interview conducted by leading Israeli nuclear scholar Avner Cohen with retired IDF brigadier general Itzhak Yaakov, who allegedly oversaw the plan.

Kulanu party lawmaker Oren, a former ambassador to the US who is in charge of public diplomacy, pointed out that Cohen had based his report on just one source.

“Among serious researchers, that is something unacceptable,” Oren said.