Israel Reasserts Nuclear Ambiguity

Israeli officials yesterday reaffirmed the nation’s long-standing policy of neither confirming nor denying its possession of nuclear weapons, one day after Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seemingly diverted from the policy of nuclear ambiguity (see GSN, Dec. 12).

“The fact that some fear that we have the nuclear option is enough dissuasion,” said Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres, according to Agence France-Presse.

“As far as the world is concerned Israel does not have nuclear weapons and we have not carried out a single (nuclear) test,” Security Cabinet member Rafi Eitan told public radio.  “If we change our policy we will give (nuclear) arms to our enemies.”

In an interview Monday with German television, Olmert listed Israel alongside several nuclear powers while addressing the threat posed by Iran’s suspected atomic weapons program.  Critics immediately began lambasting the prime minister, while his government declared that Olmert had not made any sort of admission (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, Dec. 13).

Olmert himself yesterday fell back to standard language regarding the existence of an Israeli nuclear weapons program, the Los Angeles Times reported.

“Israel has said many times … that we will not be the first country that introduces nuclear weapons to the Middle East,” he said.  “That was our position; that is our position.  Nothing has changed.”

Israel has been seeking a way to publicly state its own nuclear capabilities in order to deter Iran from developing weapons, according to some experts.

“It could be that Olmert wanted to hint at Israel’s capability as part of the aggressive statements he has recently been making, with the goal of warning the West that if they don’t take care of Iran, Israel will,” Israeli security analyst Ronen Bergman wrote in the Yediot Aharonot newspaper.

“On the other hand,” he added, “this may have been a slip of the tongue” (Richard Boudreaux, Los Angeles Times, Dec. 13).

The head of a coalition of Arab nations in the Persian Gulf yesterday called for sanctions on Israel in the wake of Olmert’s comments, the Associated Press reported.

Olmert’s statement “spelled destruction for the area and humanity,” said Abdul Rahman al-Attiyah, secretary general of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The United States should “seek the implementation of international resolutions, international laws and Chapter 7,” the U.N. Charter provisions that allows for sanctions or even military action against nations, Attiyah said.

“I believe it is time now for the international community to see that peace and security are now threatened by this announcement,” he said (Diana Elias, Associated Press/International Herald Tribune, Dec. 12).

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