At the end of last week, Nov. 14-15, high-level Israeli politicians and top-notch commentators were busy frightening the public over an Iranian bomb, loudly defaming the United States and publicly conducting a love affair with France. At the exact same time, a group of nuclear experts from Israel and the West gathered in a Tel Aviv hotel. This small forum was the joint initiative of four organizations: BASIC (British American Security Information Council), Green Cross, IKV Pax Christi (a Dutch organization for research and policy promotion of peace and security) and the Israeli Disarmament Movement.
About a dozen people participated in this forum, including a high-level government official, a former highly placed member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and an Al-Monitor commentator. For two days, they discussed an issue that the decision-makers in Jerusalem and the key Israeli media outlets dared not touch with a 10-foot pole: the initiative to disarm the Middle East of nuclear weapons. It should be noted that the very word "disarm" touches a raw nerve in Israel’s security agencies with regard to nuclear issues. As we know, Israel employs a long-standing policy of "nuclear ambiguity," a policy that requires me and my colleagues to add the expression "according to foreign sources" whenever we address the possibility of Israel being equipped with nuclear weapons.
