- Some time in April this year, the famed Israeli nuclear
whistleblower, Mordechai Vanunu, who has served more than 17 years in an
Israeli jail ö 11 of which were in harsh solitary confinement ö
will be released. This likelihood has touched off a hot debate in Israel
about the man who spilled the country's nuclear secrets 18 years ago to
a London newspaper and who could still do more harm to his country once
he is free.
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- The Israeli secret service, Mossad, had kidnaped Vanunu
after he was lured from London to Italy by a female Israeli agent. The
Sunday Times published several of his photographs and descriptions of weapons
from Israel's top-secret Dimona nuclear reactor. Nowadays, Israel's nuclear
weapons, according to the CIA, number anywhere between 200 and 400, making
it the world's fifth largest nuclear power with more than enough weapons
to obliterate "all imaginable targets in most Arab countries"
according to one disarmament researcher.
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- National Security
-
- Additionally, a 1993 official report to the US Congress
says Israel has "undeclared offensive chemical warfare capabilities"
and is "generally reported as having an undeclared offensive biological
warfare programme".
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- However, only 18.3 per cent of Israelis were optimistic
about their sense of national security, according to a recent poll and
yet, one in four Israelis believe that their country should give up its
"alleged" nuclear arsenal. Israel remains intentionally ambiguous
about its nuclear programme, without retribution from any source, maintaining
that it would not be the first to "introduce" nuclear weapons
in the region. The UN General Assembly and the International Atomic Energy
Agency, IAEA, General Conference have adopted 13 resolutions since 1987
appealing to Israel to joint the nucler Non-Proliferation Treaty, NPT.
But all the resolutions have been ignored as they are non-binding.
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- It is this recent Israeli anxiety that has re-kindled
some international apprehension about the country's hitherto "alleged"
nuclear programme and increased demands that the Israeli government come
clean and tell the truth once and for all. But more importantly, it is
the continued American silence, if not acquiescence, which is most troubling
in this respect.
-
- A recently published book ö Warren Bass's Support
Any Friend, Kennedy's Middle East and the Making of the US-Israeli Alliance
ö traces early American concerns about Israel's nuclear ambitions.
"The Israelis were splendidly evasive on the subject," writes
one reviewer, "but it became clear that they were building an atomic
bomb, to the vexation of (President John F.) Kennedy, for whom nuclear
non-proliferation was a touchstone."
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- The reviewer added, "There was much diplomatic to
and fro, with Washington demanding to inspect the site and in May 1963
Kennedy told (then Israeli premier) Ben-Gurion that Dimona seriously jeopardised
their relationship."
-
- Hogwash. White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan
was repeatedly evasive last month in response to a reporter's questions
at a briefing about whether President Bush was in favour of international
inspections of Israel's nuclear stockpile which, the reporter said matter
of factly, was "pretty well known".
-
- McClellan had the temerity to reply, "I don't know
that I agree with that, the premise of your question," and went on
to insist that the US has "a longstanding position of universal adherence
to the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons." He would
add nothing to his hackneyed line when the reporter again asked whether
the US was "trying to persuade Israel to sign it and to be open to
inspections."
-
- A week earlier the head of the IAEA, Mohammed El Baradei,
told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, that he believed that Israel had nuclear
weapons and suggested the stockpile be eliminated to promote Mideast peace.
-
- "We work on the assumption that Israel has nuclear
capability (and) I haven't seen Israel ever denying it." El Baradei's
statements have put a gaping hole in Israel's so-called "strategic
ambiguity" and underlined America's head-in-the-sand approach.
-
- How can the Bush administration justify its dogged approach
on nuclear and chemical weapons in both Iran and Libya ö even Syria
ö and yet refuse to raise the question with Israel, which is now capable
of launching nuclear attack by air, land and sea? Its new submarines have
been equipped with modified cruise missiles.
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- Lukewarm Reaction
-
- But the most appalling decision has been the Bush administration's
lukewarm reaction, to put it mildly, to Syria's proposal at the UN Security
Council last week to make the Middle East an area free of weapons of mass
destruction and for all the countries in the region to join the nuclear
non-proliferation treaty. Israel is the only country in the region that
has yet to adhere to the treaty. It is about time that US governments realise
that Israel's continued disregard of international inspections will remain
a magnet for countries in the region to acquire chemical and biological
weapons, if not nuclear arms.
-
- And the best avenue for avoiding this would-be calamity
may be in linking nuclear non-proliferation with an all-encompassing Middle
East settlement.
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- http://www.gulfnews.com/Articles/Opinion.asp?ArticleID=107411
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