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."