Continuing official ambiguity served a useful purpose. Now the veil has been torn aside
Simon Tisdall
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 23 May 2010
(Left: Mordechai Vanunu, the technician who revealed that Israel had nuclear weapons)
"Israel has long been assumed to possess nuclear weapons. The fact Israel's leaders routinely refused to discuss it did not diminish the certainty with which this conviction was held by the country's Arab neighbours, nor their strong objections to it. But continuing official ambiguity served a useful purpose in that neither side was forced to confront the issue full on. Now the veil has been torn aside.
Simon Tisdall
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 23 May 2010
(Left: Mordechai Vanunu, the technician who revealed that Israel had nuclear weapons)
"Israel has long been assumed to possess nuclear weapons. The fact Israel's leaders routinely refused to discuss it did not diminish the certainty with which this conviction was held by the country's Arab neighbours, nor their strong objections to it. But continuing official ambiguity served a useful purpose in that neither side was forced to confront the issue full on. Now the veil has been torn aside.
Proof that Israel is, without any doubt, a nuclear weapons state, means an end to nods, winks and blind eyes. It confirms Israel as the Middle East's premier armed power. And it challenges all the countries of the region, including Iran, to address, separately or jointly, the threat inherent in the resulting, now undeniable military imbalance....."
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