Blogs > IF BRITAIN AND FRANCE NEED NUCLEAR WEAPONS, SO DOES ISRAEL

Dec 27, 2003

IF BRITAIN AND FRANCE NEED NUCLEAR WEAPONS, SO DOES ISRAEL



The Jerusalem Post writes:"Here's a question that must confront every decent Briton this week: If Libya can do it, why not the UK? We are referring, of course, to Libya's recently announced decision to abandon its weapons of mass destruction, including a nuclear program. And we are paraphrasing a headline in The Guardian, which asks, 'If Libya can do it, why not Israel?' In fact, both questions are equally apt, and both merit a similar response. Israel's nuclear option is a function of the failure of the non-proliferation regime, not a source of that failure. Israel is seeking to defend itself, not threaten any other nation. It is the refusal to make a distinction between types of governments, between rogue regimes and those threatened by them, that is the main structural impediment to a successful nuclear non-proliferation regime. Israel, as the country perhaps most threatened by nuclear proliferation, is not just taking a convenient diplomatic position when it says that its preference is a nuclear-free Middle East. In Israel's case, what is needed is to make the region in which we live a less threatening place, in which case we would gladly go the way of those free nations that need no deterrent force, and can invest their limited resources in plowshares, not swords. Until then, if the UK and France need nukes in Europe, we surely need them here."



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