𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐞𝐧 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐒𝐚𝐲 "𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐈𝐭 𝐀𝐥𝐥" 𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐍𝐮𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫-𝐀𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐄𝐚𝐬𝐭

 Mustafa Khan

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𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐞𝐧 𝐖𝐡𝐨 𝐒𝐚𝐲 "𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐈𝐭 𝐀𝐥𝐥" 𝐀𝐫𝐞 𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐎𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐍𝐮𝐜𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫-𝐀𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐌𝐢𝐝𝐝𝐥𝐞 𝐄𝐚𝐬𝐭

The world spent years debating whether Iran might one day build a single bomb. It paid almost no attention to a more immediate question: who exactly is now steering the one Middle Eastern state that already has up to 400 of them, and what do those people believe.

The answer should alarm everyone. The current Israeli government contains, in its most senior positions, men whose public records consist of open calls for mass violence against entire populations. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who controls the police and internal security, called in June 2026 for all of Lebanon to burn, declaring that for every tear of an Israeli mother a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep. He has urged the assassination of Syria's president, advocated abducting Lebanese civilians, defended the starvation and abuse of Palestinian prisoners, and is a devotee of Meir Kahane, whose movement was outlawed as a terrorist organization. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who controls civil administration in the West Bank, called the same week to open the gates of hell on Lebanon and has openly stated his goal is the collapse of the Palestinian Authority. [1]

These are not backbench provocateurs. They hold two of the most sensitive ministries in the state, and Israel's own establishment is sounding the alarm about them. Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar accused Ben Gvir of knowingly causing harm to the state. The executive director of J Street-Israel called the Smotrich and Ben Gvir alliance the greatest danger to the State of Israel today. Ben Gvir's own chief of staff was documented saying the only problem with the Nazis is that he was on the losing side, and his top adviser, a Kahanist who advocated burning churches, faces charges of inciting racism and terrorism. This is the documented character of the people now occupying the commanding heights of the Israeli government. [2]

Here is where the two halves of the story meet, and why this is more than a domestic Israeli concern. The state these men help govern is the only nuclear power in the Middle East, holding an estimated 90 to 400 warheads it has never once officially admitted to possessing. Its nuclear doctrine, the Samson Option, reportedly contemplates massive, disproportionate nuclear retaliation, including strikes on cities, if Israeli leaders decide the state's survival is at stake. The chilling phrase that captures it is: if we go down, we bring the temple down on everyone. That doctrine is dangerous in the hands of any sober government. The question that should keep the world awake is what it means when the government's political center of gravity has shifted toward men who speak casually of making nations weep at a ratio of a thousand to one. [3]

To be precise, because precision is what separates analysis from fearmongering: nuclear launch authority in Israel rests with the prime minister and the security establishment, not formally with Ben Gvir or Smotrich. They do not have a finger on the button. But this reassurance is thinner than it sounds, for two reasons. First, these men have repeatedly demonstrated they can drive national policy by threatening to collapse the coalition, bending the prime minister to their will on Gaza, on prisoners, on settlements, again and again. Second, the prime minister himself, Benjamin Netanyahu, is the man who deliberately elevated them from the fringe to the core of power for his own political survival, and who stays silent as they escalate. The moderating layer between apocalyptic rhetoric and apocalyptic capability is one politician facing a corruption trial who has shown he will sacrifice almost anything to remain in office. [4]

This inverts the entire framing of the regional nuclear debate. For two decades the world was told the gravest threat was the possibility of an Iranian bomb that did not exist, held by a government that signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty and admitted inspectors. Almost no scrutiny was applied to the actual, existing, undeclared arsenal held by a state whose government was drifting toward open extremism, that signed no treaty and admits no inspectors. The hypothetical weapon of the transparent state was treated as an emergency. The real weapons of the opaque and radicalizing state were treated as none of the world's business. The priorities were exactly backwards. [5]

The lesson is not that Israel will nuke a city tomorrow. It is that the international community has allowed the most destructive weapons on Earth to sit inside a state whose politics are visibly deteriorating, while forbidding any discussion of those weapons because the state refuses to admit they exist. A nuclear arsenal is only ever as stable as the political system that commands it. When that system hands its most sensitive offices to men who call for nations to burn, and the world's response is to keep debating a bomb in Tehran that was never built, something has gone profoundly wrong with how humanity guards against catastrophe.

The real nuclear danger in the Middle East was never the weapon that did not exist in the hands of the state that admitted everything. It is the weapons that do exist, in the hands of a government moving toward the very extremism it claims to be defending against, that no one is permitted to name. The world should start naming it before the men who say burn it all are the ones explaining, afterward, why they had no choice.

1. Wikipedia, "Itamar Ben-Gvir," updated June 2026; The Times of Israel, "Netanyahu Is Letting Extremist Ministers Dismantle Israel's Global Standing," June 2026.

2. Al Jazeera, "Itamar Ben-Gvir: The Face of Israel's Hard Right or the Face of Israel," June 4, 2026; J Street, "Netanyahu's Ultra Right-Wing Coalition Government: A Dossier," October 24, 2025.

3. Wikipedia, "Israel and Nuclear Weapons," updated June 2026; Progressive, "The Samson Option: Israel's Plan to Nuke Its Opponents," June 24, 2024, citing the Arms Control Association.

4. Britannica, "Itamar Ben-Gvir," updated June 2026; The Times of Israel, "With Rise of Ben Gvir and Smotrich, Israel Risks a Catastrophic Lurch to Extremism," November 1, 2022.

5. Arms Control Association, "Did Iran's Nuclear and Missile Programs Pose an Imminent Threat? No," March 3, 2026; Federation of American Scientists, "Israeli Nuclear Weapons," 2021.

For full geopolitical analysis, visit https://fikr.institute/

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