The desire to build such a facility has grown recently due to rising demand for clean nuclear energy as an alternative to the world's dwindling supplies of fossil fuels (despite the recent discoveries of gas off Israel's coast ). The problem is that Israel does not have the know-how, technology, equipment and funds to do this itself. And because it has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, countries that do have the technology and knowledge, like the United States, are forbidden to sell Israel a reactor or help it build one.
Nonetheless, Israel hopes the U.S. will agree to replicate the nuclear agreement that former president George W. Bush signed with India. That agreement, born of strategic considerations, made India an exception to the NPT ban and allowed the U.S. to sell it nuclear technology and know-how. In return, New Delhi agreed to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect its nonmilitary nuclear plants, though its nuclear weapon sites continue to operate off limits such supervision.
Israel hopes that in light of the Indian precedent, the U.S. will make an exception for it, too, and sign an agreement that would permit it to acquire reactor technology while leaving Dimona as a secret facility outside international supervision.
Uzi Eilam, a former chairman of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, recently told Alex Doron of the Energia News website (
www.energianews.com ) that as far as he knows, "There is some kind or understanding, or even agreement, on this matter with [U.S. President Barack] Obama, under which the U.S. would supply the reactors for the plant or plants on the basis of the arrangement made with India."
