Nuclear Israel as dangerous as al-Qa'ida

2010-04-14
The definition of "nuclear terrorism" dominated the nuclear summit in Washington over the past two days. The final communique called for preventing "unofficial parties" from obtaining nuclear material for malicious purposes.

The reference here was to groups such as al-Qa'ida whom the Americans and their allies believe to be seeking nuclear material for use in attacks on American and Western targets. President Obama said that, "If al-Qa'ida acquired nuclear weapon, this would be a catastrophe for the world."

These Western anxieties have good cause and therefore new controls must be laid down to prevent materials such as highly-enriched uranium and refined plutonium, the two important elements for making nuclear weapons, being cladestinely leaked to irresponsible parties which might use them to commit bloody massacres against civilians in numbers that might exceed hundreds of thousands if not more.

It might be useful to recall here that it was not members of al-Qa'ida or other extremist terrorist organizations who first used nuclear weapons against civilians but the United States, the super democratic state, after deciding the outcome of the Second World War in its favour with Japan's surrender and Germany's defeat.

If the material for making dirty nuclear bombs must not reach terrorist organizations, which pay no attention to international law and do not hesitate to use any weapon of mass destruction which falls into their hands against their enemies, let us not forget that there are still official parties that pose as much danger to the world's security and stability and the lives of their people.

We are referring here of course to Israel which is considered above the international law, its articles, and its treaties. It is a "rogue state" which succeeded in developing nuclear weapons away from the eyes of international supervision or despite it with the encouragement of the Western world and in particular the United States of America.

The presence of nuclear weapons in Israel's hands is as dangerous as if they were in the hands of extremist organizations like al-Qa'ida. victims of al-Qa'ida are modest in number compared with those killed in Israeli massacres of Arabs and Palestinians during its several wars. Israel was condemned in the UN-authorized report of Judge Richard Goldstone for committing massacres and crimes against humanity during its recent aggression in the Gaza Strip.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was right when he drew the attention of the summit participants to the Israeli nuclear weapons which are threatening the region and the whole world and demanded that they should be dealt with in the same way that the Iranian nuclear programme - which is still limited to peaceful purposes and far from producing any nuclear warheads according to the estimates of the American scientists themselves - is being dealt with.

The nuclear summit - a highly commendable event -cannot secure its aims of achieving "nuclear security" and confronting "nuclear terror" while it operates such dual standards. All countries must be subject to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, including Israel which boycotted the summit after learning that Arab countries, among them Egypt, would want to discuss Israel's nuclear weapons and ts failure to accommodate the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspection teams.