ISRAELI HAWKS AND EUROPEAN DOVES

I am glad that not every politician is sitting at the negotiating table... Here is an excerpt from Tim Butcher's article, Israeli hawks circle Iran's N-plants.

As long as international negotiators are taking the lead, Israel is happy to stay on the sidelines.

And there is one important factor at play: it is one of the Middle East's worst kept secrets that Israel has the nuclear bomb. Iran certainly knows this and it will have a clear deterrent effect.

The result is that Israel might not need to take pre-emptive military action against Iran - if only because Teheran would never use a nuclear weapon against Israel for fear of itself being attacked, and annihilated, by the Jewish state's nuclear arsenal. (Telegraph.co.uk, 08/12/05.)

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