Time To End the Silence on Israel’s Nuclear Weapons

While Israel’s large arsenal of nuclear weapons is exempt from any discussion, its government drives the suspicion of Iran’s nuclear energy program.

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From Consortium News:

The new administration has reiterated Pompeo’s terms of surrender of Iran and made the fulfillment of its obligations, i.e., the removal of sanctions, conditional on Iran relinquishing its defensive missile program, its vital regional alliances and extending the timeframe and Iran’s obligations under the JCPOA. Iran’s response has been to refuse to accept any demands and to insist on the verified, full removal of all sanctions. Rooted in this emergent and growing national consciousness is a mood for no compromise, empty promises or neo-colonial threats.

Iran’s response to Israel’s nuclear terror on April 11, which was intended to undermine any possibility of the revival of the JCPOA that doesn’t meet Israel’s demands, has been to increase its enrichment level at Natanz to 60 percent. This reflects the very powerful effect of the wave of anti-colonial consciousness and resistance, which is in no mood for an unequal compromise and understands that a strong lever is the necessary ingredient in negotiations, as well as that a more equal balance of power is the only effective guarantee for self-defense.

On April 28, Israel’s intelligence minister, Eli Cohen, repeated the Israeli threat that should the U.S. re-enter the JCPOA and remove the sanctions on Iran, Israel would hit Iran’s nuclear plants with long range missiles. This threat too was met with silent acquiescence on the part of the US and its Western allies, the same kind of silence that has met Israel’s continued acts of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, house demolitions, settlement building, administrative detention of children, Gaza blockade, use of phosphorous bombs, flooding and contamination of agricultural land, raiding Al-Aqsa Mosque in the holy month of Ramadan, torching trees and agricultural crops and bombarding residential apartment blocks in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Israel’s free license to act with impunity is fast sliding into war. Only fools would believe that attacking Iran’s enrichment plants, its critical infrastructure, shipping, and scientific and military personnel, would remain unanswered, and could not spill over into a destructive regional war with global consequences, from which use of nuclear weapons can not be excluded.

The gravity of what is at stake demands action. The only possible path to avoiding a catastrophic war and reaching a just peace in the Middle East, is, in the first instance, the demand that Israel disarm its nuclear weapons and place its nuclear facilities under the same scrutiny as demanded from Iran. That would be in line with the longstanding goal, backed by the UN Security Council, of a Middle East Free of Nuclear Weapons.

Mehrnaz Shahabi is an Iranian-British peace activist and independent researcher. She has published articles on Iran-related issues on various progressive website.

The author has started the following petition, which can be found, also in Farsi, on change.org.

Call for Nuclear Disarmament of Israel and a Nuclear-Free Middle East

We, the undersigned, strongly condemn the sabotage in the Natanz nuclear enrichment plant in Iran on 11 April 2021, as a form of nuclear terror. This attack has been almost universally attributed to Israel, including by the Israeli media, and confirmed by US and Israeli intelligence officials. Such attacks carry a serious risk of high level radioactive leakage which could potentially endanger the lives of thousands of innocent human beings and irreparably contaminate the environment causing long-term genetic malformations and disease, with far-reaching destructive consequences into the future.

It has been repeatedly verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful and under a strict monitoring regime. Israel, in contrast, is the only nuclear weapons state in the Middle East as it is in possession of a large arsenal of nuclear weapons, which is the reason for the country’s refusal to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The deafening silence of the self-proclaimed international community in response to Israel’s nuclear terror could set a deadly precedent for its repetition and escalate into an endless chain of retaliations and an arms race in the already war-ravaged Middle East. Therefore, we call on the UN and the Security Council to responsibly and unreservedly condemn and hold Israel accountable for repeated dangerous and profoundly irresponsible attacks on civilian nuclear installations and the assassination of Iranian scientists. In addition, we urge UN member states to embark, as a matter of urgency, on the long-delayed task of nuclear disarmament of Israel and placing its nuclear program under the supervision and monitoring of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in line with the long-standing drive to creating a Nuclear Free Middle East.

  • Abrahamian, Professor Ervand (Distinguished Professor of History, Baruch College and City University, NewYork)
  • Adib-Moghaddam, Professor Arshin (professor in Global Thought & Comparative Philosophies, School of Oriental and African Studies, London)
  • Azad, Dr Bahman (Executive Secretary, US Peace Council)
  • Baraka, Ajamu (National Organizer, Black Alliance for Peace, USA)
  • Brown, Dr Catherine (BA Cantab, MA, London, MSc Lond, PhD Cantab)
  • Brown, Dr Raymond (FRCPych, retired Consultant Psychotherapist, UK)
  • Chomsky, Professor Noam (Institute Professor Emeritus MIT, Laureate Professor U. of Arizona)
  • Coombe, Sheila (activist, Founder Frome Stop War)
  • Deane, Dr. Raymond (composer, author, political activist, Ireland)
  • Edalat, Professor Abbas (Professor of Computer Science and Mathematics, Imperial College, London, Founder of CASMII)
  • Ferrada de Noli, Prof Marcello (psychiatrist, professor emeritus of Epidemiology, Founder, Swedish Professors & Doctors for Human Rights)
  • Finkelstein, Dr Norman (political scientist, activist, former professor, author)
  • Flowers, Margaret (Director, Popular Resistance, USA)
  • Harris, Roger (Board Member of The Task Force on the Americas)
  • Hedges, Chris (former Middle East Bureau Chief for The New York Times)
  • Lauria, Joe (Editor-in-Chief, Consortium News)
  • Mercouris, Alexander (Editor-In-Chief, The Duran)
  • Mohit, Dr Morteza, M.D. (social and political analyst, USA)
  • Porter, Gareth (journalist, historian, author)
  • Prashad, Vijay (historian, journalist, Executive-Director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, Chief Editor LeftWord Books)
  • Ramadani, Dr Sami (lecturer in sociology, activist, author)
  • Shahabi, Mehrnaz (peace and cultural activist, UK)
  • Shahabi, Mehrdad (peace and cultural activist, Iran)
  • Taherian, Dr. Mohammadreza (cultural activist, Iran)
  • Turner, Carol (Vice-Chair, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, London)
  • Farshid Vahedian (peace and cultural activist, U.S.)