A nuclear war between Israel and Iran would be mutually devastating but Israel might survive as a state, a study found.
Anthony Cordesman of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies published a paper this month analyzing how the sides would fare in a theoretical nuclear war in the next decade.
According to “Iran, Israel and Nuclear War,” the superiority of Israel’s assumed atomic arsenal would offset the disadvantages of its tiny territory.
Iran’s nuclear strikes would likely target the greater Tel Aviv area and Haifa, killing 200,000 to 800,000 people outright, Cordesman wrote. But he added that for Israel, recovery would be “theoretically possible in population and economic terms.”
By contrast, Israeli nuclear attacks on Iran would kill between 16 million and 28 million, making recovery “not possible in the normal sense of the term.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
