Welcome to the Tikva podcast and great Jewish essays and ideas.

I'm your host, Jonathan Silver.

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We're broadcasting this episode of the Tikva podcast in early September 2017, a date that marks

10 years since Israeli air defenses bombed a nuclear reactor in northeast Syria.

The existence of this reactor was a closely kept secret inside of Syria, it was discovered by Israeli intelligence,

and then shared by Ehud Olmer's government with select cabinet and sub-cabinet members of the American administration of George W. Bush.

During the summer months of 2007, American intelligence services corroborated Israel's evidence

of an undisclosed nuclear reactor in the desert of Al-Qibar.

On today's podcast, we step inside two essays that detail the decision-making process in Israel

and in the United States to learn how and why.

President Bush decided to address the prospect of Syrian nuclear proliferation through diplomacy in international agencies.

We'll learn how and why Prime Minister Olmerth could not accept the Bush administration's decision

and in turn President Bush's reaction to Ulmerz's resolve. In the early hours of September 6, 2007, 17 tons of airdropped explosives neutralized

a Syrian reactor that, had it become operational, would have upended the geopolitics

of the Middle East, and threatened the state of Israel with extinction.

The stealth bombing that neutralized this threat, known as Operation Orchard,

can be seen as a signal achievement in Zionist history, when, without the active cooperation

of the United States or any other ally, leaders of the Jewish state took sole responsibility

...