Global issues: Nuclear Proliferation ~ Israel’s Nuclear Weapons: the end of nods and winks

The issue of Nulcear Proliferation - a complex one - keeps having new twists and turns. Two recent developments are:

1. The front page of today’s Guardian carries the story Revealed: how Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons. Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime. This is no surprise as the shadowy military marriage of convenience between Israel and Apartheid is well known [Click here for background] as is the fact that SA did develop its own hown grown nuclear arsenal, since dismantled. However, the reason this is a headline is because it provides the first official documentary evidence of the Israeli state’s possession of nuclear weapons. There is an excellent accompanying article by Simon Tisdall - Israel’s nuclear weapons: the end to nods, winks and blind eyes Continuing official ambiguity served a useful purpose. Tisdall writes: “Israel has long been assumed to possess nuclear weapons. The fact Israel’s leaders routinely refused to discuss it did not diminish the certainty with which this conviction was held by the country’s Arab neighbours, nor their strong objections to it. But continuing official ambiguity served a useful purpose in that neither side was forced to confront the issue full on. Now the veil has been torn aside. Proof that Israel is, without any doubt, a nuclear weapons state, means an end to nods, winks and blind eyes. It confirms Israel as the Middle East’s premier armed power. And it challenges all the countries of the region, including Iran, to address, separately or jointly, the threat inherent in the resulting, now undeniable military imbalance.”

1. THe NPT Review is under way. One side line is last week’s uranium enrichment “swap” deal with Iran, brokered by Turkey and Brazil, which has not got a positive reaction form Obama despite his lofty sentiments about multi-lateralism - “Two important and friendly emerging superpowers delivered an agreement with Tehran that the west had proposed but failed to clinch. Obama’s patronising attitude caused anger and did little to embellish his leadership credentials.”

Here are links to some useful and related articles from the CFR website: Shifts in Iran on Nuclear Policy The Four Nuclear Outlier States