Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor, left, in Jerusalem profiles Israel's nuclear weapons programme which Mordechai Vanunu – released from prison today - exposed to the world.

"The Dimona nuclear plant, where Vanunu worked as a technician from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, was built in great secrecy with French help in the 1960s by the Government of Shimon Peres, now the Labour Party leader.

"It is a remote, sprawling complex in the Negev desert in southern Israel, near big military air bases used for training. It is surrounded by heavy security in the only part of the country that is really remote.

"We do not know how many staff it employs, but it would require hundreds, including technicians and security people.

"Once the Israelis had built the reactor and assembled a bomb they were fairly self-sufficient. There was co-operation with South Africa, which had an advanced nuclear weapons programme that was dismantled after the fall of apartheid.

"There has been a report, citing CIA sources, that Israel tested a nuclear device in the Antarctic or on Prince Edward Island, southeast of South Africa and southwest of Australia in 1989.

"The nuclear programme was developed in secret, but people knew about it because it was a large undertaking. So while a veil of secrecy remained, it also enabled the Israelis to have a deterrent.

"The West applied a system of turning a blind eye, but this became harder when Vanunu leaked his pictures. That was Vanunu's aim in part. He felt that Israel should not have a nuclear deterrent and wanted to expose it.

"Russian and French satellite images in 1994 appeared to confirm his information and Jane's Intelligence Review concluded that Israel was building a few nuclear weapons a year – totalling about 200 warheads ten years ago.

"But despite Vanunu's best efforts, Israel, 18 years later, is not under any pressure to dismantle its programme. India and Pakistan have acknowledged theirs, and Libya has begun to dismantle its nuclear weaponry.

"But in the current climate of uncertainty, in which the Iranians are under suspicion of building a nuclear bomb, it would be unrealistic to expect Israel to get rid of its nuclear deterrent.

"Vanunu helped to lift the veil but that has not had any particular impact, although Dimona is now openly mentioned in the media, where it used to be completely taboo.

"A number of Arab states – Libya, Syria and Egypt – have suggested a nuclear-free Middle East but that is unlikely until there is a solid peace agreement between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

"With the turbulence of the last three years in Israel there is not a big peace movement here saying that Vanunu was right and Israel should dismantle its nuclear weapons."

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