Israel’s nuclear arsenal endangering Middle East: Pundit

Press TV has conducted an interview with Seif Da’na, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, to discuss a call by Nabil al-Araby, the chief of the Arab League, for pressure on Israel over its nuclear arsenal.

This is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: How do you feel about this call for some concentration and some focus on Israeli nuclear arsenal?

Dana: Well, this is long over-due actually and it is warrant to say that we are not seeing double standard by the international community as a matter of fact some of the main powers have been enabling Israel’s program.France began supporting the Israeli program since 1960s, but what is really needed to be said at this point is that we have very aggressive state here called Israel that has been attacking its neighbors constantly and it has one the most dangerous programs in the world.

Just backing to this past February, Pentagon released a 1997 document basically an assessment of the Israeli nuclear program and it basically revealed that Israel was experimenting with coding that would enable them to reduce Hydrogen bombs not a nuclear bomb. We have a very dangerous program here and it is widely well-known that Israel has nuclear capabilities.

We have whistle-blowers like Mordechai Vanunu who actually was placed in prison by Israel for over 20 years because the information he revealed that the international community widely know about that, we know about the French support for the Israeli program since early 1960s and we know that the American administration know about also the Israeli program since the mid of 60s.

So, we have a very dangerous state with a very dangerous program. The Israeli program was actually the first program in the region. So if there is any reason for any arms race in the region, Israel should be blamed for it because they were first to introduce this to the region and they are actually the only country in the region that has this.

So, in order for all those interested in stability in the Middle East and peace in the Middle East they should be supporting a nuclear free Middle East or make the Middle East a nuclear free zone and that should start with Israel. Israel’s program and also facilities should be placed under the supervision of the IAEA and the international community as well. Israeli facilities should be subject to inspection and Israel’s nuclear facilities should be dismantled to save the region any potential threat by a very dangerous state.  

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