Flashback: Chuck Schumer Admits That Israel Has Nuclear Weapons

Under U.S. law, that's supposed to mean no more aid money

As a member of the U.S. Congress, Chuck Schumer is supposed to work for the American people, particularly those in his home state of New York.

The Senate minority leader himself sees his job as a bit more (let’s say) “expansive,” however.

“My job is to keep the left pro-Israel,” he told the New York Times’ Bret Stephens in March of 2025.

“I have many jobs as majority leader [sic], as the first Jewish majority leader,” he said last month. “And one is to fight for aid to Israel! All the aid that Israel needs, I will continue to fight for it!”

This steadfast dedication to a genocidal apartheid state is part of why a video went viral this week of the Senator accidentally denouncing Israeli nukes—then quickly walking it back.

‘Oh, no’

In response to a question put to him at a press conference on Tuesday about whether Israel “boxed the US in” on war with Iran, Schumer said, “Look, no one wants a nuclear war, no one wants a nuclear Israel, but we certainly don’t want an endless war. Plain and simple.”

He started walking away, then turned around and asked, “What’d I say?”

“Nuclear Israel,” a reporter replied.

“Oh, no,” said Schumer. “Let me say that again.” He then repeated the same basic statement while saying “nuclear Iran” instead of “nuclear Israel.”

Watch:

‘A Well-Known Fact’

Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) none of the reporters on hand bothered to ask Schumer about “nuclear Israel.” If they had, they may have been surprised at his answer—at least if they were persistent with their questioning.

In 2017, journalist Sam Husseini did exactly that during a Q&A at the National Press Club, asking the Senator point blank whether he’d “acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons.”

Schumer first tried to dodge by telling Sam to “go read the newspapers about that,” but then reluctantly answered when Sam kept pushing.

Watch:

Transcript:

Husseini: Leader Schumer, you voted for the 2002 Iraq war resolution claiming Iraq was vigorously pursuing nuclear weapons. Will you acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons?

[Sam also asked a second question to Rep. Nancy Pelosi, which she responded to first.]

Husseini: Senator Schumer, on Israel’s nukes?

Schumer: Yeah, I didn’t get your question.

Husseini: Will you acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons, sir?

Schumer: Uhh, I’m not—you can go read the newspapers about that.

Husseini: You can’t acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons, sir?

Schumer: It is a well-known fact that Israel has nuclear weapons. But the Israeli government doesn’t officially talk about what kinds of weapons and where, etc.

Husseini: Should the U.S. government be forthright?

Schumer: That’s—that’s it.

Moderator: Okay, we’ll move on. [Calls on someone else.]

‘Amimut’

Note that the Israeli government’s official policy — often euphemistically called nuclear “ambiguity” or “opacity” — is not just about refusing to admit “what kinds of weapons and where.”

They don’t acknowledge having nuclear weapons at all. Deliberately.

Israel “doesn’t engage in public conversation about its nuclear arsenal,” The New York Times’ Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner wrote in 2010 article headlined, “Vague, Opaque and Ambiguous: Israel’s Hush-Hush Nuclear Policy.”

A few paragraphs later, he explained:

Israel’s policy goes by the Hebrew word amimut, meaning vagueness, opacity or ambiguity. It is a turbo-charged version of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” . . . The military censor’s office. . . still changes the phrase “nuclear weapons” in news articles to “nuclear option” or “nuclear capability” and requires that mention of Israel’s arsenal in Israeli newspapers be followed by the words “according to foreign sources.” [Israeli writer and historian Avner] Cohen says the government has not said a word publicly on the topic since 1960, when Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion described Dimona as a 24-megawatt research reactor for peaceful purposes.

Ben-Gurion’s description was a lie. The goal was always to build a bomb and, remarkably, given how weak Israel was at the time, and how opposed the major powers were, it did so with impressive dispatch. Beginning its quest in the mid-1950s, Israel had crossed the nuclear threshold by the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.

In the U.S., most federal government officials informally adhere to the same type of “hush-hush” policy.

Sam Husseini has been asking them about Israel’s nuclear arsenal for decades, and they rarely admit to its existence the way Schumer did.

Below is a video of him questioning State Dept spokesperson (now deputy UN ambassador) and Tammy Bruce last year, for instance.

She refused to answer, and never called on him again:

He repeatedly pressed the issue during the Biden administration as well.

As an example, here he is asking State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel on January 27, 2023, “Will you here today acknowledge the obvious truth that Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal, or will you continue with this cover-up?”

Patel: “I don't have any specific comment to offer on what you asked.”

‘Will You Obey The Law…?’

Part of the reason for their reluctance might be the legal implications of such an acknowledgement.

This was discussed in detail in an 11-page letter sent to the Biden administration by Veterans for Peace (VFP) in 2024. It was researched and written by Terry Lodge, “an activist lawyer who specializes in nuclear issues” according to an article by Common Dreams, who summarized the thrust of VFP’s argument as follows:

Because Israel has not signed the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty], the Symington-Glenn Amendments to the International Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act of 1976, which allow no presidential discretion, require the suspension of all military aid.

The president may not waive the cutoff of the aid and exports under the Glenn Amendment where there has been a nuclear weapons detonation, or the offending state has received a nuclear explosive device. Congress would have to enact new legislation authorizing the president to waive some or all of these sanctions.

“The law is quite simple,” said VFP National Director Mike Ferner. “Does Israel have an unregulated nuclear weapons arsenal? Yes, it does. Is Israel a signatory to the NPT? No, it isn’t. So, the question to Biden is, ‘Will you obey the law or continue to let the Madmen Arsonists run America?’”

A few paragraphs later, the same article laid out VFP’s demands:

Veterans for Peace is demanding that the president issue a formal finding that (1) Israel is not a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968; (2) that Israel is, as a matter of law, a “non-nuclear-weapon state” under the NPT; (3) that Israel has acquired an arsenal of nuclear weapons with the means of using them in war and has experimentally detonated nuclear weapons in the past; and (4) that Israel has violated 22 U.S.C. § 2799aa-1(b)(1)(B). Federal law requires Biden to end all defense sales and licensing of Munitions List exports to Israel, terminate all foreign military financing, cease delivery of any military weapons and munitions, and implement all other aid cutoffs and curtailments required by the Symington and Glenn Amendments.

Others have made the same basic point for years. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, for instance, said in a December 2020 Guardian article titled, “Joe Biden should end the US pretence over Israel’s ‘secret’ nuclear weapons”:

Amendments by former Senators Stuart Symington and John Glenn to the Foreign Assistance Act ban US economic and military assistance to nuclear proliferators and countries that acquire nuclear weapons. While president, Jimmy Carter invoked such provisions against India and Pakistan.

But no president has done so with regard to Israel. Quite the contrary. There has been an oral agreement since President Richard Nixon to accept Israel’s “nuclear ambiguity” – effectively to allow Israel the power that comes with nuclear weapons without the responsibility. And since President Bill Clinton, according to the New Yorker magazine, there have been these secret letters.

US presidents and politicians have refused to acknowledge that Israel has nuclear weapons even though the law offers an exemption that would allow the funding to continue if the president certified to Congress that aid to a proliferator would be a vital US interest. (…)

This farce should end. The US government should uphold its laws and cut off funding to Israel because of its acquisition and proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The incoming Biden administration should forthrightly acknowledge Israel as a leading state sponsor of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East and properly implement US law

Sam Husseini has repeatedly asked the State Department about these laws — and why they’re ignoring them — and has basically come up against a brick wall. Some of the replies from their spokespeople:

Feb 13, 2023: “We follow the law in all instances… I’m not familiar with the details of this law, but I can tell you that we follow the law in every instance…”

Feb 28, 2023: “Again, I just don’t have anything to offer on this, so we’d refer any questions to the Israeli government…”

April 29, 2024: “I still don’t have a comment for you on that, Sam…”

“Together, [the Symington and Glenn amendments] reflect a consistent legislative purpose,” a recent article on Military.com noted. “Congress sought to prevent U.S. assistance from enabling or rewarding nuclear proliferation outside the NPT system.”

“If the law means what it says, then the failure [of the president] to make a determination [about Israel’s nuclear arsenal] does not change the underlying facts. If the law does not apply to Israel, Congress has never said so plainly.”

The piece goes on a short while later:

This issue extends beyond a single bilateral relationship. Congress routinely conditions foreign assistance on compliance with statutory requirements, including human rights certifications and end-use monitoring. If nonproliferation restrictions can be indefinitely sidestepped through executive silence and appropriations overrides, the integrity of those other conditional aid regimes comes into question.”

The law on the books has not changed. What has changed is the willingness of political actors to treat it as binding.

Not the least of those political actors: Chuck “Fighting For Aid to Nuclear Israel” Schumer.

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