Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and Peace in West Asia

Born out of terrorism, Israel has always practiced and employed terror tactics to achieve its defence and strategic goals. Its historical experience in Christian Europe has convinced it that weakness is an open invitation to persecution or to being victimized and oppressed. Israel has, therefore, always sought to dominate so that it can dictate whatever it likes. However, after a long drawn conflict with the Arabs, it has realized that it needs the peace of the neighbour to live in peace. And having practiced only violence as a strategy in its about sixty years of existence, Israel has come to believe that it can terrorize its Arab neighbours into submission and peace.

Israel’s thinking is flawed as well as dangerous. However, Tel Aviv is as much a child of our age as are Washington, London and Paris. Their material gains and worldly successes have blinded them and, as a result, they continue with their philosophy and practice of domination. They think that their awesome arsenal and war machines would give them victory and control over their enemies and create a paradise of peace for them. So, we see Israel as always engaged in all kinds of weapon programmes including the making of atom, biological and chemical bombs. Israel began its nuclear programme in the 1950s, and it is believed that towards the end of the 1960s it had made the atom bomb. Today it is estimated that it has about two hundred nuclear bombs.

The West led by the United States is after Iran nowadays imposing sanctions against it with a view to forcing Tehran to abandon its uranium enrichment programme which they are entitled to carry on under international agreements. Tehran has repeatedly said that its nuclear programme is peaceful and that it has no intention of developing atom bombs. But no one listens to them; instead the world seems eager to go along with what the Americans say ignoring the lies they had spoken on the occasion of invading Iraq.

While the West is out to target Iran, it prefers to keep silence about Israel’s deadly nuclear activities. The West’s double standard is too patent to be missed. There are many people even in the West who remind their leaders and try to draw their attention towards Israel’s deadly nuclear programme and its dangerous consequences. But Washington and European capitals have ignored all these and continue with their Iran bashing. For them Iran, which is perhaps still ten years away from making an atom bomb, is more dangerous and poses a threat to the entire region. Until a few months back, many Arab states, particularly Egypt, used to raise voice against nuclear weapons and demand to declare West Asia as a nuclear-free zone. But today they, too, seem to have launched a verbal attack against Tehran’s nuclear programme. It appears as the Arabs have accepted Israel’s superiority in the region and are ready, to shamefully live with it. However, a nuclear Iran, even if it is vehemently anti-Israel, is not acceptable to them. The Arabs’ mental slavery of the West is, perhaps, complete today.

The fact is that Israel’s nuclear arsenal and not Iran’s attempt to acquire nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, is a grave danger for the region. A sort of arms race would have already begun had there been a Soviet Union. It is also a fact that all previous Arab attempts to acquire nuclear deterrence were made in direct response to Israel’s deadly nuclear arsenal. And today Iran’s insistence on continuing its nuclear programme, despite international pressure, is mainly because of its threat perception caused by Israel and the overwhelming American presence in the region. Thus Israel, and not the Arabs or Iran, is the source of tension and conflict in the region, a fact the West prefers to ignore.

The West has not only allowed Israel to develop nuclear weapons, it has also ignored the dangers posed by Israel’s aging nuclear plants. There are reports that incidences of poisonous gas leakage and other such deadly things routinely occur in Israel’s nuclear plants, causing dangerous diseases including cancer to its workers and citizens. Due to the strict secrecy maintained by Israel, the world is not fully aware of this aspect of its dangerous nuclear programme. However, many Israeli scientists and technicians who have worked on Israel’s nuclear plants are now raising voice and some are even demanding their inspection by international agencies. But we all know that such voices would ultimately prove to be a cry in the wilderness.

But the million dollar question is if Israel’s 200 atom bombs have brought it the security it desires. A sincerely thought out answer to the above question would convince Israel that its philosophy of domination and terrotrization is hollow and doomed to failure.

[October, 2007]