House Democrats are demanding Secretary of State Marco Rubio finally come clean about Israel’s nuclear capabilities. Buried beneath years of silence lies a scandal that stretches back to the early Cold War—one involving a small Pennsylvania town, a team of Israeli spies, and the largest loss of weapons-grade uranium in American history.
If the US claims to be deeply concerned about nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, we have a responsibility to stop ignoring facts that make us look like hypocrites. We cannot keep sending billions in weapons unconditionally to a nuclear-armed state while treating open discussion of that reality as impermissible.
The sane route would be to insist that Iran ceased in its nuclear ambitions on the strict and internationally verifiable condition that Israel also destroyed its nuclear warheads and undertook to agree never to hold any weapons of mass destruction.
Israel’s nuclear weapons program was secretly developed with financial and diplomatic support from the West. Its nuclear arsenal, estimated at over 90 warheads, remains a leading driver of conflict across the region.
Neither the US nor Israel acknowledges that Israel has a nuclear arsenal (but it does)
Joint Nobel Peace Prize winner Mohamed ElBaradei, who famously rejected George Bush’s nuclear claims about Iraq, says history is repeating itself.
Tehran warns Dimona reactor could be targeted if ‘regime change’ pursued, throwing spotlight on Israel’s opaque nuclear program
Aboul Gheit accuses Washington of misleading Arab states on nuclear disarmament, revealing a secret US-Israeli pact shields Tel Aviv’s undeclared nuclear arsenal.
John F. Kennedy was arguably the last US president to seek active restraints on Israel’s dominance of both the Middle East and US foreign policy.
JFK tried to stop Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Will the US finally acknowledge that Israel has nukes? State Dept refuses to answer direct question from Sam Husseini.