Israel Rejects UN Call to Open Nuke Program to Inspections

Israeli FM spokesman called the overwhelming global consensus 'meaningless'

Israel on Tuesday dismissed a United Nations resolution calling on it to adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and open its nuclear program to international inspections.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said Israel rejects the overwhelming global consensus that Israel allow the IAEA to inspect its nuclear facilities and to recommit to the NPT, describing it as a “meaningless mechanical vote.”

The UN General Assembly “has lost all its credibility regarding Israel,” Palmor said, implying that as soon as the international community does something Israel doesn’t like, it loses credibility.

Israel’s advanced nuclear arsenal has long been understood to exist, although it hasn’t been officially admitted by the Israeli government. Many have argued Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons is what drives the accelerated Iranian program and causes other regional instability.

The resolution was approved on Monday by a vote of 174-6 with 6 abstentions and calls on Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty immediately and open its nuclear facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

It also offered support for a high-level conference to ban nuclear weapons from the Middle East which was just canceled by the US and Israel, in order to protect Israel’s regional nuclear monopoly.

If Israel agreed to dismantling its vast stockpiles of nuclear weapons and to a deal enforcing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East – a deal Iran and Israel’s Arab neighbors have repeatedly proposed – the supposed threats Israel faces in the region would virtually disappear.

Author: John Glaser

John Glaser writes for Antiwar.com.