Israel's nuclear shrug has spread around our world.
by Mel Watkins
Does Iran have the Bomb? No.
We can be as certain of that as of anything in the crazed, secret, over-spun world that encompasses all matters bearing on nuclear weapons.
Does Israel have the Bomb? Yes. Everyone knows that. Except that, if you ask the government of Israel directly, it will refuse to give a straight answer. Sort of a version of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Still, since we all know that Israel has the Bomb, what’s the issue?
OK, but here’s the puzzle. Reading stories about how Iran might be trying to get the Bomb, and how Israel is so upset by this it may make a pre-emptive strike against Iran to try to stop that happening, it is simply amazing how rarely the reader is reminded that Israel has the Bomb, and that fact might be relevant to the story.
Israel’s government has managed to frame the issue as being one of who, if anyone, can be trusted.
And when the bomb is mentioned, it’s typically buried well down in the story, and even then may have doubt cast on it by using words like “it is said that Israel has the Bomb,” or “it is claimed that Israel has the Bomb, or “it is believed that Israel has the Bomb.”
It would seem that Israel has the shrug that has spread around our world. It is truly a story of the triumph of spin, of how spin works and keeps on working, not just in the everyday world of one politician trying to destroy another, but in a matter with the potential for mass destruction.
To be precise, the shrug has been made to work. Israel has made it taboo to talk about the Bomb. It censors Israeli media. The whistle blower Mordechai Vanunu, the Israeli technician who made the “secret” public years ago when abroad, was kidnapped, taken back to Israel, put in solitary confinement for years, and his passport taken away so he could not seek asylum whenever he is allowed out.
This now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t policy started out because Israel wanted the Bomb but wanted to minimize the controversy that would create at home and abroad. Perhaps it needed, in an existential sense, at the deeply moral level, to square the circle of survivors of genocide themselves possessing a genocidal weapon.
In the 1940s the Bomb had been created in secret, the decision to use it made in secret. In the time of the Nixon Administration, it was Israel’s turn to play the secrecy game. Washington saw fit to go along: it was best not to rouse the peace activists nor to risk adverse public opinion and certainly not to facilitate further proliferation to those judged untrustworthy and lacking moral equivalence to Israel.
The Bomb, by its nature, denies transparency, hides human rights, and destroys democracy. And if Israel refused to admit it had the Bomb then the US, with its policy of non-proliferation, could pretend that no proliferation had taken place.
My point is that by now the silence ends up being heard round the world – at least our world.
Some may say that’s just another example of how pro-Israel our mainstream media are. But I think it’s more complicated than that. The Israeli government has managed (successfully from its point of view) to frame the issue of whom, if anyone, can be trusted with the Bomb.
One advantage for Israel isthat most of us don’t like to think about the Bomb anymore than we have to, for it is truly a scary thing, and when we do, we’d sooner blame Communism, as in the past, or Iran today, rather than see the Bomb itself as inherently evil, something with which no one should be trusted.
Will someone please tell that to Messers Harper and Baird who have now, without shame, lurched into the present round of the Iran-Israel imbroglio in a way that could increase the potential for the conflict to spiral out of control with frightening consequences? Canada, after all, in the years immediately following Hiroshima and Nagasaki, was the first country in the world that could have built the Bomb but chose not to.
The issue is not whether Iran could be allowed to have the Bomb, but whether any country, Israel included, should be allowed to. Canada should be working, minimally, for a Middle East Security Zone where nuclear weapons are forbidden, and beyond that for world-wide abolition. Otherwise, as that best of all clichés puts it, we’re part of the problem, not part of the solution, in this deadliest of matters.
About Mel Watkins
Mel Watkins is Professor Emeritus of Economics and Political Science, University of Toronto. He is Editor Emeritus of This Magazine and a frequent contributor to Peace magazine. He is a memer of Pugwash Canada and former President of Science for Peace.
Website: http://www.progressive-economics.ca/author/mel-watkins/.
2 Responses to “Harper and Baird lurch into Iran-Israel imbroglio”
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Iran has a history of being peaceful. If they are sincere about wanting nuclear power for energy only, it would be a good idea to help them use their facility for thorium nuclear power instead of uranium nuclear power. I heard about this on Quirks and Quarks on CBC. Thorium is non fissile and depends on a stream of neutrons to produce power, which it does with greater efficiency than uranium. There are no dangerous meltdowns with Thorium because the entire reaction can be turned on and off easily. Thorium is more abundant on the earth than uranium and was used as a fuel until the U.S. government got on the uranium track in order to produce nuclear weapons which is impossible with Thorium. A google search can show that Thorium can be a great choice. Furthermore, it can be used as a fuel in plants designed for uranium with little modification. Thorium decays in a couple hundred years unlike uranium which requires thousands of years. If Iran and North Korea could use Thorium, the world would be happy. If Israel could use Thorium it would also be wonderful.
Jews have trust issues. That's to be expected, given their history. Bibi is only the latest PM to make sure that Jewish Israelis never resolve their trust issues because exploiting them is his specialty. His holocaust-mongering usually has the added advantage of getting Americans onside.
However, if you've been paying attention, the holocaust isn't working for him as well as it used to. Now he's resorted to invoking Timothy McVeih. Neither Obama nor a growing number of Americans are impressed by Bibi's attempt to interfere in the presidential elections.
So, of course, this is exactly the right time for Harper, Avigdor Lieberman's BFF, to jump in, a day late and a dollar short. It makes Canada look like the idiot in the global village. But you can't fault Harper for inconsistency. Since his first year in power, he'd worked with great determination to wreck Canada's once good international reputation.
Prof. Watkins is right. Canada is part of the problem, not the solution. Since we are not (yet) compromised by having nuclear weapons, we should be leading the non-proliferation effort. We could start by arguing in support of Iran's right under the NPT to enrich uranium under constant surveillance by the IAEA.