1979–1983: When Israel was ready to help India denuclearise Pakistan but the plan was called off
In the early 1980s, Israel offered India a plan to bomb Pakistan's fast-developing nuclear site at Kahuta. Motivated by concerns about an 'Islamic bomb' and its implications for West Asia, the proposed operation would have mirrored Israel's 1981 strike on Iraq's Osirak reactor.
India came close. Plans were drawn, bases selected, aircraft prepared. But in the end, New Delhi pulled back. That decision, once largely forgotten, is now under fresh political scrutiny.
Himanta Biswa Sarma: 'A historic window was squandered'
On 15 June 2025, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma reignited a long-dormant strategic debate. Writing on X, he said, 'A historic window to safeguard India's long-term security was squandered, for short-term diplomatic comfort.'
He claimed that India had the intelligence and operational readiness in the 1980s to strike the
Kahuta nuclear facility
. R&AW had confirmed uranium enrichment activity there. Israel had offered support, including operational planning. Military agencies were on board. The launch point: Jamnagar air base in Gujarat.
According to Sarma,
Indira Gandhi
had initially approved the strike. But then she backed out. Her son,
Rajiv Gandhi
, later shelved it permanently under pressure from global powers.
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What Israel offered and why
According to Deception: Pakistan, the US, and the Global Weapons Conspiracy by Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, Israel saw Pakistan's nuclear progress as an existential threat — not just to India, but to the entire Middle East.
In 1979, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin even wrote to UK PM Margaret Thatcher to warn of Pakistan's ties with Libya's Colonel Gaddafi. He feared Pakistan could pass nuclear weapons to Libya.
Israel, still fresh off its own successful bombing of Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981, suggested a similar strike on Kahuta. The plan involved Israeli F-16s and F-15s flying into Indian airspace. They would refuel at Jamnagar and Udhampur, while Indian Jaguar deep-strike aircraft would assist the mission.
Why the plan was shelved
Though Indira Gandhi reportedly gave initial approval, the strike never materialised. A combination of domestic unrest, geopolitical risks, and American pressure weighed in.
India in the 1980s was boiling. Punjab was in ferment with the Bhindranwale insurgency. Kashmir was simmering after the execution of JKLF co-founder Maqbool Bhat. The aftermath of the Emergency still hung over Delhi. And in the background, India and Pakistan were edging toward confrontation in Siachen.
A strike on Kahuta could have triggered an all-out war. India, unlike Israel, would be in direct range of Pakistani retaliation. And the fallout — nuclear or diplomatic — would land on Indian soil.
There were international risks too. The CIA reportedly tipped off Pakistan, prompting Islamabad to issue veiled threats of retaliation using newly acquired F-16s from the US. Washington, keen to use Pakistan to arm Afghan mujahideen against Soviet forces, was in no mood to entertain an Indian-Israeli strike.
Then came the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984. Her son, Rajiv, took over and prioritised diplomacy. The Kahuta plan was buried for good.
The fallout and what came next
By the late 1980s, Pakistan had made significant strides in developing nuclear weapons. The mastermind behind the programme was A.Q. Khan, who had stolen uranium enrichment designs from a Dutch facility. With help from countries like China and North Korea, Pakistan's bomb was becoming a reality.
In 1988, Rajiv Gandhi and Pakistani PM Benazir Bhutto signed an agreement prohibiting attacks on each other's nuclear facilities. Since then, the two countries exchange lists of nuclear installations every year on 1 January.
But the nuclear story didn't end there. In 1998, just weeks after India's Pokhran-II tests, Pakistan responded with five nuclear tests of its own. The world changed overnight.
Nuclear deterrence and its costs
Since Chagai-I in 1998, Pakistan's nuclear weapons have cast a long shadow over India's strategic calculus. During the 1999 Kargil War, it limited India's response. In later years, Pakistan's arsenal emboldened its use of proxy terror — from the 2001 Parliament attack to the 2008 Mumbai carnage.
India, in response, has adopted a doctrine of surgical strikes and air raids — such as the 2016 Uri operation and 2019 Balakot strike. But each move remains calculated, always weighed against the risk of nuclear escalation.
It's this cautious dance that Sarma pointed to when he referred to Pakistan's 'nuclear blackmail.' In his words, India's 'tragic inaction during the 1980s remains a cautionary tale of what could have been — and what wasn't.'
Israel's fears didn't start in 1998
Pakistan's nuclear ambitions had long worried Israel. In May 1979, Menachem Begin wrote to Margaret Thatcher, raising the alarm about Zia-ul-Haq's nuclear drive and Pakistan's deep ties with Libya. Begin warned:
'What could happen in the Middle East, and particularly to the men, women and children in Israel should the lethal weapons of mass killing and destruction fall at any time into the hands of an absolute ruler like Colonel Qaddafi.'
By 1998, Israeli officials even issued private reassurances to Pakistani diplomats after Islamabad raised fears of a pre-emptive Israeli strike. Israel, under Benjamin Netanyahu, denied any such plan existed.
India had a narrow window in the early 1980s to act decisively. It chose restraint. Whether that was prudence or a missed opportunity continues to divide opinion.
What remains, however, is a precedent. In 1988, India and Pakistan found a way to at least protect each other's nuclear sites, a rare diplomatic success. But nuclear weapons, once introduced, have changed the logic of war in South Asia.
And decades later, that ghost of Kahuta — the raid that never was — still haunts India's strategic thinking.
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