Israel's nuclear weapons: Time to come clean

• An excerpt from an editorial in The Guardian today:
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• "Both America and Israel believe that Israel should retain its nuclear weapons while Iran should not be allowed to acquire them. With the Brazilian and Turkish scheme for the transfer of nuclear material spurned and tougher UN sanctions against Iran on the way, this is an unexamined contradiction which undermines much Middle Eastern diplomacy and cannot be for ever skirted. It is impossible to imagine even the first steps towards a true nuclear settlement in the Middle East without Israel abandoning its obfuscations on nuclear weapons and admitting, as other nuclear powers do, that security is a collective as well as an individual matter."

Some background on Israel's nuclear weapons from another site.

My opinion is that Israel/Palestine should join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and be inspected just like everyone else in the treaty. This would calm things down a bit, eroding some of the support for hardliners in Iran and Lebanon who accuse Israel of bullying.

But I also don't want to see the people who are currently governing Iran acquire nuclear weapons--because look what the hardliners are doing to their own people. What would they do to their "enemies" outside Iran? Plus, there is an apocalyptic fringe of Shia that welcomes the end of the world. I don't want extremist religious groups to have access to nuclear weapons--including extreme Christians, who also have an apocalyptic fringe.--Julie Jigsawnovich

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