Ahmed Abdel-Halim* outlines ways to give impetus to moves to rid the region of weapons of mass destruction During his visit to Israel on 6 July, Mohamed El-Baradie, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, announced that he did not expect any progress in efforts to compel Israel to reveal its nuclear capabilities. Two months ago in Cairo El-Baradie had stated his belief that Israel would never relinquish its nuclear arms. "Give me one reason for Israel to give up its nuclear weapons?" he asked his audience at the time. As if volunteering to answer this question in advance of El- Baradie's visit, Ariel Sharon alluded to Israel's possession of nuclear weapons when he said that he did not know what the IAEA director wanted to see in Israel. Sharon went on to say that his country had been forced to stockpile everything needed to defend itself and that Israel's policy of nuclear secrecy continued to be effective. In addition Yofel Steinis, chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Security Committee, described El-Baradie's visit -- the first of its kind -- as a formality. The reason, he said, that Israel had agreed to receive him was in order to discuss Iranian and Syrian -- and not Israeli --- nuclear armaments programmes. Haaretz remarked that El-Baradie knows that he stands no chance of altering Israel's long-standing nuclear policy. From the moment of its creation Israel has striven, with the backing and assistance of Western powers, and the US in particular, to accumulate nuclear arms and to prevent other countries in the region from possessing such weaponry. Towards these ends, soon after being established, Israel created an atomic energy agency, sent scientists and technicians abroad for training, built up a network for cooperation in this field with other nations (France, Germany and the US), sponsored relevant scientific conferences in Israel and abroad, and attended the nuclear review conferences in Washington. Crowning these efforts, Israel joined the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI), thus opening new avenues for developing its strategic nuclear arms capacities and aerospace military technology. Israel possesses between 150 and 300 nuclear fission bombs, which are smaller and more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It has also been able to manufacture hydrogen bombs, as well as the necessary delivery systems. Israel has always been deliberately mysterious about its nuclear capability, neither denying nor affirming its possession of this weaponry, which has become not just a "last resort" but an integral component of its foreign policy, allusions to its nuclear capability being a familiar form of blackmail in the region. Israel's nuclear strategy is governed by two recourse theories: massive retaliation, relying primarily on high blast bombs, and flexible response, relying on lower calibre tactical warheads. Israel signalled its move into space-age technology in 1960 when it began to encourage and fund specialised studies in universities and research centres. In 1966 it founded the Institute for Aerospace Research at the University of Tel Aviv, which later became an institute for astronomy and physics. In 1973, the year the US invited Israel to join the SDI, the Israeli Space Agency was founded. Its aims were to lay the foundations of a space programme, to coordinate national activities and research connected to space and aerospace technology, to promote the development of aerospace industries and production, and to develop cooperative relations with similar organisations abroad. Israel then set into motion its programme for a missile defence shield, rendering it as unique in the region in the military exploitation of space as it is in the possession of nuclear arms -- and all in the name of "security". But then "security" is that catchall with which Israel justifies most of its policies and strategies. It may be difficult to pinpoint Israel's ultimate aim. However, it is clear that its immediate strategies towards the region include territorial expansion, maintaining military superiority over the Arabs, preserving the Jewish identity of the state, preventing the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state, and preserving its special relations with the US. It is also obvious that Israel believes that armed force is its primary instrument of foreign policy and that it must remain unique in the region in its possession of a nuclear deterrent and its access to space for military purposes. Israel has always been the initiator of the arms race in this region. It has campaigned relentlessly to increase the armaments gap between itself and the Arabs, whether through its independent efforts or in close cooperation with the US. After depleting the "quantitative" card, it began to insist on "qualitative" military superiority over all the Arab states combined in its quest to procure not only more weapons but also the most up-to-date military technology. Augmenting its nuclear arsenal and delivery systems is integral to this "qualitative" growth. With the same end in mind, with the assistance of the US, it has overhauled its military establishment to incorporate its conventional forces, its nuclear forces and its military aerospace technology into a united defence system, the components of which are spread over land, sea, air and space. Israel's security and armaments buildups are not the product of some metaphysical outlook; they are firmly rooted in practical political and strategic equations involving the level of security desired, the parties for whom the security is intended, the constituent bases of the security system, the targets to be brought within reach of military components, and the necessary planning and policies needed to bring all these into effect within an appropriate timeframe. These equations, in turn, affect Israel's security outlook towards the region in terms of its ultimate goal and the intermediate stages when it becomes time to stop and assess the progress that has been made. The problem of security in the Middle East is naturally aggravated by Israel's concept of "peace". Israel subscribes to a formula that blends consolidating its nuclear deterrent with confidence-building measures to be undertaken primarily by the Arabs, with the credible threat of or actual use of overwhelming military force to impose its conditions for peace. Israel believes that by being in a position of absolute invincibility it will propel the region to the type of peace and stability it seeks. This peace and stability is founded primarily upon the Arabs' acquiescence to Israel's security demands, after which everything else pertaining to a Middle East peace settlement can fall into place as it sees fit, with the full backing of the US. Egyptian and Arab leaders, on the other hand, have a different perception of what is needed to realise peace. Peace will be impossible, they say, unless both sides work out an equitable political solution, strive towards acceptable modes of economic cooperation and strike an appropriate strategic balance. These aims will be impossible to achieve unless we deal seriously with the nuclear programmes that exist in the Middle East so as to attain our ultimate aim in this regard, which is to declare the Middle East a zone free of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. Israel is the one certain nuclear power in the region, "now and in fact", as opposed to those political targets whose nuclear capacities are as real as Don Quixote's windmills. Not only does Egypt support nuclear non-proliferation but it also seeks to avert a renewed arms race in the region. In addition, it maintains that the process of nuclear disarmament should proceed in accordance with a mechanism for instituting a new balance of power in the region. Such a mechanism would provide for security arrangements and protection for all parties. It would be established upon the principles of international legitimacy, regional cooperation and the development of mutual interdependency and trust, conditions that the nuclear deterrent will never be able to generate. Naturally, nuclear disarmament is not an easy process. However, the declaration of intent is of great importance at this particular juncture, and this declaration should be demonstrated through certain measures such as halting the production and testing of new nuclear weapons, and disclosing the contents of existing nuclear arsenals. In other words, the principle of transparency should apply. Egypt declared its position on this issue with the initiative announced by President Mubarak on 8 April, 1990. The Mubarak initiative for making the Middle East a region free of WMD has numerous advantages in that it is comprehensive, comprehends the complexities of the political situation and enjoys a high level of international support. Although Egypt fully subscribes to the eventual elimination of all nuclear weaponry and other WMD in order to create a safer world for all peoples, it nevertheless believes that nuclear energy should still be available for peaceful purposes to all signatories of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Israel has yet to sign this treaty. By signing it, it would be taking a major step forward towards the realisation of stability, security and peace in the Middle East. In addition, I believe that there is no time like the present for the Arab League to pull out the draft treaty formulated by one of its committees after lengthy study and deliberation, and to present it to the international community for discussion, thereby demonstrating to global public opinion that the Arabs are doing their part to prevent the spread of WMD. Such a move would occasion an international conference on the nonproliferation and elimination of such weaponry which, in fact, President Mubarak proposed when he renewed his initiative for creating a WMD-free zone in the Middle East. The reconvention of the UN General Assembly in September, or the conference for reviewing the NPT in spring 2005, offer excellent opportunities for presenting the Egyptian-Arab League initiative. Then, instead of futile visits to Tel Aviv, the efforts of El-Baradie with respect to Israel will acquire new meaning and fresh impetus. * The writer is a member of the Egyptian Council for Foreign Affairs.
