Middle East - AP
Israel's Presumed Nukes to Become Issue
Date: Sat, Jul 03, 2004
By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria - Focusing on Israel's open secret, the head of the U.N. atomic watchdog agency is expected to push the Jewish state this week for at least tacit acknowledgment that it has nuclear weapons or the means to make them.
Israeli policy is to neither confirm nor deny it has such arms, and the International Atomic Energy Agency will not comment on how hard IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei will press officials during his two-day visit starting Tuesday.
But IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky says ElBaradei "certainly will voice ... the need for dialogue in the region particularly on security and nuclear issues."
"We assume that Israel has a nuclear weapons capability, if not the weapons themselves," Gwozdecky said.
ElBaradei has said that Israel should start talking seriously about a Middle East free of nuclear arms whether or not it owes up to owning them. Earlier this year, he condemned the imbalance caused in the Middle East because of "Israel sitting on nuclear weapons."
But senior diplomats familiar with the Vienna-based IAEA and the purpose of ElBaradei's visit said they did not expect his trip would change Israel's "no show, no tell" policy, particularly at a time of fears that Iran, Israel's foe, is trying to develop such weapons.
Israeli analysts warned against even low expectations.
"There is no foundation for a change in Israel's policy of nuclear ambiguity under present circumstances, and the topic is not on the agenda," wrote Gerald M. Steinberg, a fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
Evidence that that Israel has nuclear arms is overwhelming, much of it based on details and pictures leaked in 1986 by Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu. His revelations have been embellished by other leaks, research — and by statements made by Israeli leaders that stopped just short of confirming Israel's status as a weapons state.
"Give me peace, and we will give up the atom," declared then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres (news - web sites) in 1995, when hopes for a Middle East settlement were still alive. "If we achieve regional peace, I think we can make the Middle East free of any nuclear threat."
Israel's doctrine of "nuclear ambiguity" — never formally confirming or denying that it has such weapons — is meant to scare rivals from considering annihilating attack while denying them the rationale for developing their own nuclear deterrent.
Israel has covered its tracks well, apparently developing much of any weapons program in the laboratory or buying knowledge instead of relying on testing and other easily detectable activities.
Because it has resisted international pressure to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Israel does not formally have to declare itself as a weapons state or agree to any curbs on its nuclear activities.
That leaves the IAEA and the rest of the world guessing about the nature and scope of Israel's program.
Experts say Israel today continues to produce atomic weapons and may already have as many as 300 warheads, as well as the capability to quickly build more.
Nuclear expert Avner Cohen, a senior fellow at the University of Maryland, says Israel's policy has served it well by acting as a deterrent while denying enemies the chance of arguing they have the right to nuclear weapons as well. But he says "opacity" has outlived its usefulness.
"Israel is the only nuclear nation that refuses to acknowledge its nuclear status, leaving the impression there is something sinful about such a status," said Cohen, whose book "Israel and the Bomb" is considered an authoritative description of the Israeli weapons program.
"The policy is at odds with the basics of democracy," he said in a telephone interview, suggesting it clashed with Israel's tradition of open debate on most issues. Israel's nuclear program "should definitely be on the national agenda," he added.
David Albright, a former Iraq (news - web sites) nuclear inspector who runs the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security, says the time might be right for ElBaradei's mission because "Iraq has been dealt with" as a threat to Israel, and "Iran is being isolated" as the world pushes for exposure of its nuclear secrets.
And Friedrich Steinhaeusler, a former IAEA nuclear safety expert, suggests Israel might be at least willing to revive discussions on a Middle East free of weapons of mass destruction that have stalled since the mid-1990s.
But even such vague progress would come slowly, and "only if the carrot is big enough," in the form of long-term security guarantees and other concessions, said Steinhaeusler, now a professor of physics at the University of Salzburg specializing in illicit trafficking and nuclear terrorism.
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