Israel's Nuke Talk Jitters
By Dominic Moran for ISN
"Israel can feel sacrificed by the US on the altar of a successful conference," a external pageHaaretz columnist opined Sunday, in a theme taken up repeatedly in other publications.
The Israeli response to the conference and membership calls, which are included in the final document of the NPT Review Conference accepted unanimously by 189 member-states on Friday, is completely out of kilter with the actual capacity of the document to bring substantive change.
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu will seek assurances from President Barack Obama in a meeting at the White House on Tuesday that Washington will block the planned 2012 conference, with Israeli officials confirming that their country opposes the parlay.
The US hand was forced on the final document; a point that was made clear by administration officials' comments thereon in which the singling out of Israel was condemned and the 2012 meet made attendant on Israeli approval.
Largely ignored in the Israeli hullabaloo concerning the NPT is that the state parties' call on Israel to join the NPT is nothing new. Indeed it is enshrined in the 1995 NPT Review's Middle East Resolution, which established the basis for the indefinite extension of the Treaty.
In fact, Israel's standing position clearly supports the vision of an arms control process leading to the establishment of a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone. The difference with Arab states is in the proposed timing.
Also ignored is the glancing blow dealt to Iranian prestige at the conference.
When the crunch came on Thursday evening it was Egypt and fellow Non-Aligned Movement states that refused Iran support on the Islamic Republic's multiple points of disagreement with the final text. Iran subsequently joined the US in signing on, grudgingly.
The NPT document's reference to the need for a MENWFZ conference in 2012 is a clear win for Egypt, which played its hand brilliantly in the month-long talks.
Importantly, this year's NPT has been marked by repeated soul searching in the Israeli press on the country's international atomic isolation and ambiguity. This has even contained the glimmer of a nascent debate on the strategic import of Israel's nuclear arsenal given the failure of its 'deterrent' capacity to prevent Iran from approaching the liminal point for the development of nuclear weapons.
Meanwhile, the interim military reaction of establishing a perceived nuclear second-strike facility remains in vogue.
The external pageSunday Times reported yesterday that the commander of the Israeli submarine flotilla told a local newspaper that Israel plans to maintain at least one of its Dolphin submarines in the Gulf for deterrence and to garner intelligence.
This was a reminder, rather than a revelation, given the shot sent across the Iranian bows by Egypt last July through the passage of one of the Dolphins through the Suez Canal.
Ultimately, the dangers inherent in the maintenance of a single nuclear weapons power in a region marred by multiple conflicts, a lack of mediating mechanisms, and an incipient, unpredictable wave of civil nuclear development is no more in Israel's interest than in that of the Arab states and Iran.
The largely symbolic victory won by Egypt and the wider Arab Group at the NPT will not lead to progress towards a more stable, secure Middle East without the sign-on of all states to parallel peace and arms control processes.
This is unimaginable without significant pressure from an international community that continues to undermine security in the region through massive conventional arms sales and pledges of civil nuclear development aid.
Addendum: As of writing it remained unclear on which local newspaper's reportage the Sunday Times had based their article.