Westerns initiatives that miss the point, a WMD-free Middle East and peace prospects in Sudan -- Dina Ezzat, in three separate articles below, leafs through the agenda of the forthcoming Arab summit
Now or never?
Has the time come for a nuclear-free Middle East?
The prospect of a growing nuclear imbalance in the Middle East with an unchecked Israeli nuclear stockpile is going to be among the key issues discussed by Arab foreign ministers when they meet in early March. On the agenda of the regular spring meeting of the Council of Arab Foreign Ministers are three related items: the ongoing development of Israeli weapons of mass destruction (WMD); the impact of this Israeli arsenal on regional peace and security; and the coordination of Arab efforts to make the Middle East a nuclear-free zone.
These issues are hardly new for the Arab foreign ministers. This year, however, they will be discussed within a drastically different regional context. After accusing Saddam Hussein of hiding stockpiles of WMD, the US and UK invaded Iraq at a cost of many thousands of Iraqi lives, only to find not a single WMD. At the same time, Washington and London have defended Israel's possession and further development of WMD. US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld admonished that, "Israel is a small state with a small population. It is a democracy and it exists in a neighbourhood that ... has opined from time to time that they'd prefer it not be there and they'd like it to be put in the sea. And Israel has opined that it would prefer not to get put in the sea, and as a result, over a period of decades, it has arranged itself so it hasn't been put in the sea."
Rumsfeld is by no means the only top-ranking Western official who has made imaginative excuses for what would appear to be perceived as Israel's inalienable right to possess WMD. In a recent statement before the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Tony Blair set the same line. Having nobly stated that he "would like to see the whole of the Middle East free from the threat of weapons of mass destruction", Blair was quick to throw in the addendum that there is a need to "recognise the particular worries that Israel has about security, given that it is surrounded by many countries, some of whose stated objective is still to get rid of Israel altogether".
These statements are remarkably similar to justifications made by Israeli officials on the same issue. The pretext is always the same: Israel is a geographically and demographically small country, an alleged democracy surrounded by hostile Arab states refusing to acknowledge its existence, and should therefore be allowed to keep what informed sources believe to be a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Moreover, US and Israeli officials have recently been quoted in the US press suggesting an increased level of US tolerance of Israel's efforts to augment its WMD capabilities.
Responding to the statements of Rumsfeld and Blair, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa warned that this approach could set off an illicit arms race in an already tense and volatile region and "have very serious repercussions on regional and international security". "This is an unlawful licence for the possession of weapons of mass destruction by Israel," Moussa continued.
It is also an unacceptable display of double standards that further exacerbates resentment in the Middle East of US policy, one that has been labelled by Arab commentators as US "nuclear pampering" of Israel. While the official state policy is one of "nuclear ambiguity", it is an open secret that Israel, the only country in the Middle East who has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, possesses nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. All calls made by the other states in the Middle East for Israel to open its nuclear facilities to the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have been laughed off by Tel Aviv, which knows full well that Israel's WMD are protected by their allies in the White House.
On Monday, following talks with US Secretary of State Colin Powell in Washington, Israeli Labour leader and former Prime Minister Shimon Peres stressed that Israel was not intending to give up its policy of nuclear ambiguity.
Israel has always been extremely secretive about its WMD programmes, particularly its nuclear weapons. A living example is Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at Dimona, the country's infamous nuclear reactor. Vanunu has been in prison for almost two decades for having spoken to the British press about Israel's nuclear programme. He is now due for release but is likely to be forced by the Israeli government to live under house arrest so as to deny him any further communication with the international press.
While Vanunu might be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize, Israel is not showing any signs of giving in to IAEA inspectors. "The situation is getting very serious with Dimona really ageing and the Middle East being faced with increasing earthquakes," commented Fawzi Hamad, former chairman of the Egyptian Nuclear Agency. An earthquake that hit Israel and some neighbouring states earlier in the month finally prompted some Knesset members to ask their government to present an unambiguous report on the safety measures for Dimona.
Elements of the Israeli media and a BBC documentary that was televised last July have also warned of the consequences of its ageing nuclear facilities. According to the documentary -- which Tel Aviv tried to prevent from being aired -- some Israeli technicians who have long worked in Dimona have their own worries about carcinogenic radiation due to safety lapses. "There is a genuine concern about Israel's nuclear facilities not only when it comes to the threat posed by these nuclear weapons but also in relation to the very hazardous impact of having such an old nuclear reactor," commented Wael Al-Assad, head of the Disarmament Department at the Arab League.
Al-Assad believes that this issue cannot be neglected any longer. "There has to be a stance on the part of the international community. Israel cannot be treated as a country out of context. Israel is a part of a region where all other countries are faced with zero tolerance for even thinking about acquiring the technology leading to the developments of weapons of mass destruction. There has to be an end to double standards."
The international community, however, will never make such a move on this sensitive issue out of pure goodwill, argued Abdel-Raouf El- Riddi, the former Egyptian ambassador to Washington. According to El-Riddi, "There has to be a diplomatic initiative, or rather a diplomatic offensive, on the side of the concerned countries to educate the international public about the facts in the region."
El-Riddi's recipe for collective Arab action may give a welcome push to a proposal by Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the early 1990s to declare the Middle East a zone free of WMD. In a recent opinion article in the Arabic-language daily Al- Ahram, El-Riddi called on the next Arab summit, scheduled to take place in Tunis late March, to adopt this initiative before "it's too late."
