Syria’s Disarmament Turns Uncomfortable Focus on Israel’s Chemical Arms

Israeli Officials Insist World 'Trusts' Them With Arms

Syria’s ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) brings the number of nations on the planet who aren’t participants down to six, and is bringing some uncomfortable new attention to the one neighboring Syria: Israel.

Israel responded to Syria’s ratification by ruling out doing the same, insisting that they would never agree to abandon even this portion of their WMD stockpile unless every country on the planet agreed to sign permanent peace deals with them.

Former Defense Minister Amir Peretz addressed the situation again today, saying that Syria’s agreement to scrap its chemical arsenal had nothing to do with Israel, and insisting that everyone trusts Israel as a “democratic, responsible regime.”

Israel is on the outside looking in with an awful lot of such treaties, repeatedly refusing to sign the CWC, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and the recent ban on cluster munitions, and has often come under criticism for its stances that it uniquely is entitled to spurn international law with regards to such deals.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.