There is always something extraordinary about Israel’s deceitful behavior. When the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Mohamed El-Baradei visited Tel Aviv recently to talk about Israel’s arsenal of nuclear weapons, he ended up discussing Iran’s nuclear program.
What was the point in letting the Israelis distract attention from their own nuclear weapons? With more than 200 ready-to-use nuclear bombs, Israel poses the single gravest threat to Middle East and North Africa. Americans and Europeans do not even call Israeli bombs “weapons of mass destruction.”
The Western obsession with WMDs is fundamentally flawed and outrageously racist. Non-Western countries need weapons of defense and have every right to protect themselves. China and India have shown great foresightedness in developing strong defense systems.
The hypocrisy of big Western powers has encouraged Israel to threaten Arab and other Islamic countries with its “nuclear ambiguity.” The Zionist state has shown for more than 50 years that it can live as a lawless entity, thumbing its nose at every international rule of behavior.
Iran and Syria were supposed to be the next target in the American crusade for making Middle East devoid of any country that could stand up to Israel. Talk of threats to Israel’s security is pure fantasy that thrives in the minds of American and Israeli warmongers. Not surprisingly, these elements see Iran’s nuclear program as an issue that helps the Israeli policies of military domination in the Middle East. Ask Americans for one reason why Iran should not work on a peaceful program to develop atomic energy and they tell you that Iran is a nation rich in hydrocarbons.
The United States has huge petroleum reserves, too. Why does the US use nuclear power? It keeps its own petrol safe for future use and fights wars in every corner of the world for oil.
Iran is not a tiny nation. It has a population of 70 million with big industrial and consumer energy demand. The oil is not going to last forever. Iran must harness atomic power technology for the future of coming generations.
Now, El-Baradei’s IAEA has become a pawn in Israel’s game of dirty politics.
“They (Israelis) are expressing concern about Iran,” El-Baradei told reporters in Israel. What happened to the IAEA’s own concern about Israel? He had no reason to go along Israeli wishes to discuss Iran while on a job to ask Israel to come clean on its nuclear arsenal. His campaign for a Middle East free of nuclear weapons will succeed only if he puts sufficient pressure on Israel, the only state that has nuclear weapons in the region.
Iran has repeatedly said that it wants to acquire atomic power facilities, not nuclear weapons. Unlike Israel, it has allowed the IAEA to visit and inspect its facilities. Iran has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but Israel has not. The IAEA possesses every detail on Iran’s atomic program.
Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, who was freed in April after serving 18 years in jail for revealing some of Israel’s nuclear secrets, urged El-Baradei to insist on visiting the Dimona nuclear plant, used for reprocessing plutonium.
“Now, after 18 years that my revelation was told to all the world and I have come out of prison, he (El-Baradei) too must go and demand to be inside Dimona and report to the IAEA and all the world,” Vanunu said.
But the IAEA head and his delegation satisfied themselves with a mere glimpse of the plant, viewing it from a plane flying over the area. “We could see Dimona in the distance. It was a brown dot,” a diplomat is said to have remarked after the aerial trip, conducted to stress the “strategic danger” to Israel – “one border to another in three-and-a-half minutes.”
The IAEA can continue its futile pleadings with the Israelis to clear up the “nuclear ambiguity” of neither admitting nor denying the existence of weapons. Israeli policies are based on a kind of doggedness that suppresses every morality, decency, humanity and rule of law. Despite having committed heinous war crimes, Ariel Sharon remains a man of peace to the American president. American journalists are always willing to believe Israeli propaganda – sometimes more than the Israelis themselves.
Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom, who talked about Iran’s nuclear program with his US counterpart Colin Powell this month in Washington, made an interesting statement: “Iran is the country that has announced that one missile toward Israel will destroy the Jewish state. So we should be concerned about the Iranians’ efforts to develop nuclear weapons.” Scare-mongering again.
Powell pitched in by saying Washington would “make sure the international community stands unified behind the effort to stop Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons development, or worse, acquiring a nuclear weapon.” One can forgive Powell for confusing Tony Blair with “the international community.”
Today Israeli warplanes can fly unhindered to any Mideastern city and drop bombs. Lebanon has been a victim of Israeli madness for almost 30 years now. Syria’s Golan Heights remain under Israeli occupation. Millions of Palestinians continue to be humiliated and terrorized by Israeli fascism. But the helpful Western media continues to preserve Israeli as the victims.
Before El-Baradei visited Israel, Sharon showed his contempt for the IAEA.
“I don’t know what he is coming to see. Israel has to hold in its hand all the elements of power necessary to protect itself, by itself,” he told Israeli Radio.
Since El-Baradei cannot put pressure on Israel, he tries to justify his visit by pointing at Iran.
Source; Arab News, 07/27/04
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