Marking the first formal call to action against Israel’s nuclear weapons program, Iran has called on the UN Security Council to compel Israel to give up its nukes. The request comes after Israeli PM Ehud Olmert let it slip in a televised interview that his nation did indeed have nuclear weapons. He said, “Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel, Russia?”

Iran’s UN Ambassador Javad Zarif said that Olmert’s comments had “removed any excuse - if there ever were any - for continued inaction by the council in the face of this actual threat to international peace and security”. Zarif stated the council should “compel [Israel] to abandon nuclear weapons, urge it to accede to the NPT [nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] without delay and demand this regime to place promptly all its nuclear facilities under IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] full-scope safeguards”.

This comes at a time when the Security Council is hypocritically moving forward to impose sanctions on Iran, urging them to halt their nuclear energy program. Hans Blix, former head of the IAEA, said that Israel is thought to have about 200 nuclear weapons. The West has been criticized as working under a double standard in pressing Iran to give up its peaceful nuclear activities while ignoring Israel’s massive nuclear arsenal. Israel has been accused of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” against Arabs in Gaza, and killed over a thousand people in Lebanon this past summer.

Israel has never formally acknowledged that it had a nuclear weapons program until Olmert’s admission. The nation is not a signatory of the NPT, which means it is illegal for the US to fund them. There has currently been no evidence to suggest that Iran, which has signed and follows the NPT, is interested in building a nuclear weapon. Britain, France, Germany, and the United States have been criticized by the Russian foreign minister for trying to punish Iran for their nuclear energy program. He said, “Our partners… are trying to turn the situation around in their favor by inserting into the resolution statements which would de facto lift all limits on the restraints that are being introduced in Iran and will sever… trade-economic ties with Iran in completely legitimate areas.”

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