Israel 12-12-2005

12, December 2005                Israel

In a stunning turnaround in policy, the Pentagon-commissioned study released in November 2005, suggested a welcome new approach to nuclear proliferation which might well be acceptable to all the warring factions in the Middle East. The study exposed the dark secret, largely hidden from the US public, of Israel's huge stockpile of WMD's. The study recommended the urgent need to dismantle Israel's stockpile of such weapons rather than focusing solely on pressuring Iran and other Middle Eastern countries from developing nuclear weapon capabilities.

As the sole nation which has exercised the destructive powers of these terrifying weapons we are morally and duty bound to limit their use and production. Israel is reported to possess a stockpile of WMD's including well over 100 nuclear, chemical and biological warheads. An interesting historical footnote was the ability of Israel to hide these illegal WMD's from U.S. inspectors in 1962 by building a false wall at its Dimona's generating plant. The Pentagon's authors which include retired Brig. Gen. Shlomo Brom and Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy deserve credit for their common-sense recommendations. Persuading Israel to dismantle its huge stockpile of WMD's and signing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty would go a long way to defusing tensions in the Middle East and raise U.S. stature as an honest broker in the Middle East.