The Rudd Government has joined international efforts to pressure Israel into signing up to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and to help form a zone free of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.
While the Israelis have not in over four decades declared their possession of nuclear weapons, all expert analysts know they have around 100–200. This is one core reason why Israel remain outside the NPT and international safeguard regimes.
Last week at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York, Australia was among 189 states who agreed to press Israel to join the international nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament regime, and to attend a UN-sponsored conference in 2012 about a denuclearised Middle East. For Iran and the Arabs, led by Egypt, it appeared a sweet victory. For Israel it is nothing but a proposition.
The prospect of a denuclearised Middle East, as utopian as it may appear, was tabled at the UN by Egypt and Iran in 1974. Despite early resistance from Israel, the negotiation of a nuclear-weapon-free zone remains the only non-proliferation initiative to have been accepted by all members of the region, including Israel, since 1980. Because of the political and geographical climate in the Middle East, many states now argue a region free of WMD (chemical, biological and nuclear weapons) is the only way forward.
So why has it taken 30 years?
Crudely put, Egypt, Israel and Iran have competing reasons for promoting the idea. Egypt sees it as a way of removing Israel's nuclear superiority. Israel maintains that lasting peace agreements with its neighbours are a prerequisite to any formal negotiation. Iran uses it to exert pressure on Israel's policy of nuclear 'ambiguity', and to deflect attention from its own non-compliance with international safeguards.
There are precedents. Since the Antarctic Treaty in 1951, presently more than 100 states that comprise almost the entire southern hemisphere are stitched into a tapestry of individually agreed nuclear-weapon-free zones.
For its part, Australia has long advocated serious negotiations that will lead to such a zone in the Middle East. But in my view, over the three meetings held in 2007, 2008 and 2009 to prepare for last week's conference, it has changed its focus from Iran to Israel. At the 2009 preparatory meeting, Australia's representative John Sullivan called on Israel to 'join the NPT as non-nuclear-weapon state'. He did not mention concerns about proliferation in Iran, which had dominated his government's two earlier