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U.N. General Assembly Demands Israel Mothball Its Nuclear Arsenal
an article by Juan Cole, Truthdig
Video: BBC on Israel's nuclear weapons
The United Nations General Assembly (where all
193 countries in the world get a vote) has almost
unanimously demanded that Israel give up its
nuclear weapons and cooperate with making the
Middle East a nuclear-free zone. The only
dissenters were Israel and the United States,
along with three small South Pacific islands that
always vote with the US, presumably in order to
receive foreign aid. Some 161 countries voted for
the measure. 
click on photo to enlarge
The US complained that the resolution singled out
one country for opprobrium but this allegation is
frankly dishonest.
First of all, you can’t complain about singling out a
country that is alone in flouting UNGA directives
on nuclear non-proliferation in the Middle East.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East with a
stockpile of nuclear warheads (several hundred).
No other country in the region has so much as a
proven military nuclear program. (Iran, often
accused of wanting a nuclear bomb, has never
been found by inspectors to have miiitarized its
civilian enrichment program, and former Israel
defense minister Ehud Barak admitted it publicly).
Egypt brought the resolution because it is made
insecure by Israel’s bombs. Current Israeli
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman once
suggested blowing up the Aswan Dam and
washing all Egyptians into the Mediterranean.
With crazy people like that in the Israeli
government, Egypt is right to be concerned about
them having their finger on the nuclear trigger.
Saying Israel has been ‘singled out’ here is like
saying Federal prosecutors ‘singled out’ fraudster
Bernie Madoff for prosecution over his investment
pyramid scam. Rather, they just prosecuted the
one major financier known to have committed
billions of dollars in fraud. It wasn’t like there were
a lot of Bernie Madoffs, though there certainly
were a lot of other kinds of shenanigans on Wall
Street.
Moreover, it was a busy UNGA session, and if
anyone bothered actually to look at their votes
that day, you would find the UNGA also
reprimanded Syria for having chemical weapons
(though most of these have been destroyed via
Russian mediation) and also asked Pakistan and
India to give up their nukes.
So actually Israel wasn’t singled out at all, but is
just in the same category in this regard (having
weapons of mass destruction) as Syria, Pakistan
and India.
Israel’s nuclear arsenal was acquired with British,
French and American connivance, and some of
the components for it were illegally smuggled out
of the US by Zionist secret agents.
Tel Aviv’s stockpile of nuclear bombs has been a
deeply destabilizing factor in the Middle East. Its
existence certainly impelled Iraq to try to develop
its own nuclear bomb (though it never got very
far). Since Iraq’s attempt in this regard was made
the basis for the Bush administration to launch its
2003 war on Iraq and to occupy the country, it is
not too much to conclude that Israel’s nuclear
weapons are indirectly what mired the US in a
fruitless 8-year war in the Middle East.
(This article is continued in the discussionboard)
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LATEST READER COMMENT:
(The following is continued from the main article listed above.)
Iran is suffering from very severe international and American economic sanctions, which amount to a financial blockade (a kind of declaration of war) on the country, devastating its middle class. The reason for this attempt to de-industrialize Iran and make its people povery-stricken is the unproven allegation that Iran is violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its additional protocol.
But Iran’s supreme theocrat has given numerous oral fatwas against making, stockpiling or deploying nuclear weapons, and UN inspectors have been allowed into Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities and never found any evidence of attempted weaponization.
So Israelis are allowed to get rich and given sweetheart trade deals with the US (they even still get direct civilian aid, which is to say they are Welfare Queens on a massive scale), even though they have actually done what Iran is only vaguely suspected of maybe one day wanting to do. They don’t suffer sanctions the way the Iranians do, over the imaginary Iranian nukes, while they have real ones!
The unfair policies of the US in this regard has driven the arms race in the Middle East. Israel is a serial violator of its neighbors’ sovereignty and keeps launching wars on them, confident in the advantage its nuclear stockpile gives it. I am against nuclear proliferation, but anyone could understand why Iraq felt like it needed a nuclear counter weight to Israel. Those Iranian hawks who want a nuclear bomb want it in some important part because they know of Israel’s stockpile.
There will never be any real stability in the Middle East until Israel complies with the UNGA resolution. Apologists who point out that the Middle East has lots of problems not caused by Israel are being dishonest. The point is that Israeli policies themselves do cause a lot of problems.. . ...more.
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