Netanyahu: Iranian Nuclear Bomb Greatest Threat to the World

Israel's prime minister told the United Nations Thursday that Iran's quest for nuclear weapons is the greatest danger the world faces.

"The greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fundamentalism and the weapons of mass destruction," Benjamin Netanyahu said in a speech to the UN General Assembly in New York.

Read more...

Washington Negotiator Calls on Israel to Sign Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty

A diplomatic row broke out today between the US and Israel after Washington's chief nuclear arms negotiator called on Israel to sign the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), breaking a US tradition of discretion over Israel's nuclear arsenal.

Israeli officials said they were puzzled by a speech to an international conference in New York by Rose Gottemoeller, an assistant secretary of state, who said: "Universal adherence to the NPT itself - including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea - also remains a fundamental objective of the United States."

By including Israel on a list of countries known to have nuclear weapons. Gottemoeller broke with normal US diplomatic practice. Since 1968 when the CIA reported Israel had developed a nuclear weapon , Washington has pursued a policy of not demanding transparency from its close ally, and in return Israel agreed not to test a bomb or declare its nuclear capability - a policy of "strategic ambiguity".

Read more...

Israeli Nukes the Biggest Threat

Egyptian spokesman Hossam Zaki called on the international community to justly and indiscriminately apply the Non-Proliferation Treaty that requires states to comply with its provisions, and asked it to refrain from the adoption of double standards in pressuring states to abandon their programs.

Western policies based on pressuring Iran to give up its nuclear program will fail because they disregard Israeli nuclear capabilities, which is "the first and greatest threat to security in the region," an Egyptian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Monday.

Read more...

US Army Confirms Israel Has Nuclear Weapons

The Army has let slip one of the worst-kept secrets in the world -- that Israel has the bomb.
Officially, the United States has a policy of "ambiguity" regarding Israel's nuclear capability. Essentially, it has played a game by which it neither acknowledges nor denies that Israel is a nuclear power.

But a Defense Department study completed last year offers what may be the first time in a unclassified report that Israel is a nuclear power. On page 37 of the U.S. Joint Forces Command report, the Army includes Israel within "a growing arc of nuclear powers running from Israel in the west through an emerging Iran to Pakistan, India, and on to China, North Korea, and Russia in the east."

By law, the U.S. would have to cease providing billions of dollars in foreign aid to Israel if it determined the country had a nuclear weapons program. That's because the so-called Symington Amendment, passed in 1976, bars assistance to countries developing technology for nuclear weapons proliferation.

Read more...