IDF control center
Photo: Hanan Greenberg
Our VIP bunker
Do we actually need the nuclear bomb shelter being built near Jerusalem?
Two days ago, Yedioth Ahronoth published images from the nuclear bunker being built in the Jerusalem Mountains under the caption "doomsday bomb shelter."
As all the details pertaining to the site are classified – its location, size, access roads to it, the cost of construction, and of course the list of future guests – the citizens who are funding this venture cannot do much but trust the establishment's judgment, as is the case with other sensitive security issues.
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The rationale is simple: Ensuring ongoing government activity and preserving its power of execution even during emergencies. This is the case in other countries as well that are mostly concerned about a nuclear attack, to ensure that there is someone out there who can decide on a proper response - to make it clear that this capability has been preserved.
There is nothing brilliant about this move that King Herod hadn't thought of 2,000 years ago, when he dispatched thousands of slaves to dig at Massada. The only difference perhaps is that during those days, the basic assumption was that as long as the king lives, the kingdom lives on.
However, the same cannot be said of a situation where Ehud Olmert, Haim Ramon, Rafi Eitan and Amir Peretz survive while the rest of the country is bombarded by Syrian missile barrages, not to mention a nuclear offensive.
After this has been said, and after making it clear that the need is genuine, a few open questions remain nonetheless. The project's scope, for example. Particularly, an uncomfortable gut feeling persists, in a country where Sderot students will start their school year without proper bomb shelters. This is obviously demagoguery, yet somehow when it comes to Sderot, every declaration is demagoguery.
Or in more blatant words, is it possible that we are dealing with a megalomaniac five-star project that will be nice and comfortable for club members? This question makes sense in light of past experience – for example, the giant oil reservoirs built in the Negev at a cost of millions of dollars. Theoretically, there was full justification for their construction. Practically, they were never used.
Would much smaller site be sufficient?
Another question that is no less bothersome: What threats is this site supposed to counter, while taking into consideration the huge cost of construction? The last who attempted, and failed, to run a war from a bunker was Hitler in Berlin.
Churchill, for example, made do with a bomb shelter that was not much more sophisticated than those used by London residents, even amid the Blitz.
Indeed, the United States has nuclear bomb shelters, in Washington and in Virginia, but there was no case in history where a country was being run from a bunker following a wartime trauma. This did not even happen in Japan, following the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In other words, without underestimating the importance of a civilian command and control center that will continue to function even during an all-out attack on Israel, what will determine the country's ability to cope and survive such offensive would be the forces that operate above ground.
It won't be the orders that come from the bunker below, but rather, the people who lay infrastructure, transport citizens, activate rescue systems, ensure vital services continue to function, and are there at the right place at the right time.
Even without knowing the actual size of this site, and how many billions of dollars are being poured into the project, I am willing to take a wild risk and argue that under the current circumstances, a much smaller site would suffice for the country's needs.
If we do experience a doomsday war, such megalomaniac project is certainly needless; and if there is no such war, then such site is even more needless.
Yet what most concerns me is that this Noah's Ark and those who escape there, if and when the entire country is up in flames, will be the ones preserving the Israeli genome.
