ABC Mini-Encyclopedia

NUCLEAR Weapons in the Middle East

Question: Everybody, friends and foes alike, believe Israel has nuclear weapons. Why, then, just Iran is not entitled to have them?

At first sight the question seems rational, but the real question is: Who threatens to destroy whom?

Israel does not challenge Iran's right to exist, and not that of any other country. By contrast, Iran denies Israel's right to exist and openly calls for the destruction of Israel. Iran is also the leading state sponsor of international terrorism. A nuclear Iran, with its ambitions of global Islamic supremacy, would pose a long term threat to the region and to the whole world.

Israel needs nuclear weapons as a last-resort deterrent against those who have proclaimed their wish to destroy Israel during its 60 years of existence, and who have acquired and used for this massive conventional armories as well as weapons of mass destruction. That is why the international community accepts Israel's nuclear capability as a justifiable strategic reality.

Iran's nuclear ambitions are strongly opposed by the UN Security Council and by almost the entire international community, exactly because of their totally irresponsible aggressive intentions.