Israel, Iran and the Atom Bomb

By Terry Lacey

(April 15, Jakarta, Sri Lanka Guardian) President Obama said we should all give them up. Good idea. But the Washington Nuclear Security Summit seemed more worried about terrorists than the three nuclear weapons rebels: North Korea, Israel and Iran. And more upset with Iran for possibly wanting them, than with North Korea and Israel for having them.

If the Israelis had political guts and “chutzpah” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could have gone to Washington and said “Yes, we have the bomb. These are our fears about Iran. Yes, we will join this forum, help tackle nuclear proliferation and help keep nuclear weapons safe from terrorists.”

Instead Netanyahu speaks at Yad Vashem where he equates the Iranian threat with the Holocaust. “The comparison is mistaken and damaging”, said Haaretz. The fact that the Israeli leadership won’t square up to the world in a more mature way only highlights Israel´s growing isolation. (Haaretz, Jakarta Post 14.04.10).

The real underlying issue in the Washington summit was about club membership. Who is in the club and who is not?

Groucho Marx once said “I would never join any club that would have me as a member”.

Every power holding nuclear weapons goes through the stage of justifying building them and then concludes other countries should not have them. But why should they think that the reasons of North Korea, Israel or Iran are any less valid from their point of view than the reasons they themselves advanced in the first place?

Every country that develops nuclear weapons does so for reasons of national interest. And no-one else has the right to tell you what your national interest is.

And who gave anyone the right to tell the countries that don’t have them not to build them? Did this message come from God or America?

Why should Iran be hounded like this when they don’t even have one bomb, yet Israel has reportedly between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons?

Does Israel really believe Iran would be mad enough to build one bomb and drop it on Tel Aviv when Israel can retaliate. Or is the real problem that Israel would have to come to terms with a changing regional power balance?

No democratically elected Iranian government can give up the theoretical right to build a bomb until there is a deal with Israel. There is no Iranian “regime change” without a big change in Israel too. Iran is a democracy, albeit flawed, but with a proud and stubborn people and they will not give up rights without benefits. The next Iranian government will also probably maintain this right until a deal is made.

The political Sword of Damoclese hangs over Israel and no amount of delaying tactics nor ownership of the atom bomb can change this. Nor can the United States or Europe save Israel from eventually having to come to terms with the Palestinians and surrounding Middle Eastern states including Iran and Syria.

This is inevitable. It will happen. And not from a position of growing strength for Israel and the West, which cannot save Israel from its own bluster and prevarication.

Israel throwing its weight about militarily would be counter productive and not fool anybody. Politically the balance is gradually changing, and not in favor of Israel. There are no military solutions, only political ones. The need for a different and far more pragmatic approach is self-evident.

Both Israeli and PLO tactics have failed and cannot or will not bring about a multilaterally recognized twin state in the foreseeable future. The international community are lost in the desert following Moses. The promised land is nowhere in sight.

The Netanyahu government should exploit the opening it has already created for itself to highlight economic cooperation with Palestine, but for the Gaza Strip as well as the West Bank, which means a deal with Hamas too.

Israel should take the initiative and offer interim bilateral long term arrangements separately with the West Bank and Gaza on economic development and political cooperation, in the context of wider long-term agreements with neighboring states including on nuclear cooperation. Use nuclear technology to make peace, not war.

Terry Lacey is a development economist who writes from Jakarta on modernization in the Muslim world, investment and trade relations with the EU and Islamic banking.