Israel, With 200 Nuclear Warheads, Fights For Nonproliferation
Like the Taliban going to war to defend women's rights
The Three Amigos
It is long past time to question the sanctity of the global double standard on nuclear weapons—especially when applied to Israel and Iran. The dominant Western narrative insists it’s fine, even necessary, for Israel to possess nuclear weapons, while Iran must never be allowed to have them. This premise is not only hypocritical, it’s strategically unsound and morally indefensible.
In a just world, no nation would have nuclear weapons. But we do not live in that world. We live in one where the U.S. alone has thousands of warheads, Russia about the same, and volatile and fanatical regimes like India and Pakistan each have dozens.
Since both India and Pakistan became nuclear powers in the late 1990s, they’ve fought several cross-border skirmishes and come close to all out war—but nuclear weapons restrained escalation. Deterrence worked.
It would work for Iran and Israel too, which why Israel is willing to plunge the world into war to prevent it. It wants Iran to be as vulnerable to Israel as Iraq was to the United States.
Israel has faced no serious international inspection or consequence for building its arsenal. It is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which Iran is, and it reportedly holds between 200 and 400 nuclear warheads. It has never been held accountable for this blatant defiance of international norms, because the United States shields it from scrutiny. No international watchdog team has ever inspected Dimona. (JFK demanded that the US inspect it but Ben Gurion refused). No UN resolution has enforced disarmament. Israel’s nukes are simply accepted.
But why? Why is Israel allowed to have a nuclear deterrent, while Iran is threatened with war for allegedly seeking the same?
The usual answer is that Israel is a "responsible" democracy, while Iran is a rogue regime. This is a simplistic and dangerous excuse. Israel is currently waging war on at least two fronts—Gaza and Lebanon—and has been rightly accused by the International Court of Justice of genocide in Gaza. Tens of thousands of civilians have died under Israeli bombardment. In what world is that behavior more restrained or rational than Iran’s?
The notion that Iran is uniquely irrational or suicidal is a racist fantasy. Iran, like any state, pursues its national interests. But it has not invaded another country in over two centuries. It has regional ambitions, yes, and backs terrorists but so does Israel. (Without Israel’s backing there would have been no Hamas to attack Israel on October 7th). The difference is, Israel directly enforces its ambitions with assassination campaigns, frequent airstrikes in sovereign nations like Syria and Lebanon, and an air of impunity backed by American hardware and silence.
And this brings us to the most dangerous hypocrisy: Israel bombing other nations to prevent them from acquiring weapons that it already has. Israel has bombed nuclear facilities in Iraq (1981), Syria (2007), and Iran (right now). It has carried out dozens of covert assassinations on Iranian soil. Imagine if Iran assassinated a few dozen (or one) U.S. nuclear scientist in California. We’d be at war in hours.
The one strong and coherent argument against Iranian nuclear weapons is the fear that it would spark a regional arms race, pushing Saudi Arabia, Turkey, or Egypt to follow suit. And that’s exactly why the JCPOA—known as the Iran nuclear deal—was so significant. It imposed strict, verifiable limits on Iran’s nuclear activity in exchange for sanctions relief. Iran complied. The United States, under Trump, tore it up. What followed was predictable: Iran resumed enriching uranium, and the world inched closer to yet another conflict.
And for what? To preserve a lopsided regional order where one country plays nuclear god while the others live under its shadow?
Israel is not the world’s cop. It has no moral authority to dictate who can or cannot develop weapons of any kind—especially while it rains destruction on Gaza and routinely violates the sovereignty of its neighbors. A country charged with genocide has no standing to preach about anything. And the United States, if it truly wants to prevent nuclear proliferation, should stop enabling Israel’s nuclear monopoly and return to diplomacy that treats all states by the same rules.
And the last thing it should do is join Israel in this truly monstrous attack. We should not be dispatching our military to aid aggression and, make no mistake, in this war Israel is unambiguously the aggressor.
Cosign