Israel's longstanding policy of nuclear ambiguity pretty much received its last knock-out blow today at the hands (or, rather, mouth) of none other than its creator: Shimon Peres.
Vice Premier Shimon Peres, credited for creating Israel's nuclear program and its policy of nuclear ambiguity, told a reporter in Paris on Tuesday that Israel's nuclear option had achieved its goal of deterring its enemies.
Speaking after a meeting with French Socialist Party presidential candidate Segolene Royal, Peres was responding to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's statement on Monday to German television about Iran "working to get nuclear weapons like the US, France, Israel and Russia."
Peres praised Israel's nuclear program and said that Olmert had not said what was attributed to him.
"We didn't build a nuclear option in order to create a nuclear bomb," Peres said. "The very suspicion that we have one is enough. It's intended for deterrence and it has achieved its goal."
You need a scorecard. Just yesterday, it was widely reported that both new American SecDef Robert Gates and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had let the "secret" (commonly considered the world's worst kept) out. This morning, Olmert and his own DefMin Peretz were furiously back-pedalling, claiming that there had been "no change in Israel's nuclear ambiguity policy." An ambiguous statement if I ever heard one.
Now comes Shimon Peres, doing his damnedest to muck things up just a little more. Or maybe it's all part of a carefully coordinated plan.
This afternoon, One Jerusalem sponsored a blogger's conference call with former Israeli Minister, MK and Presidential and Congressional Medal of Freedom winner Natan Sharansky. You can hear it all here. In response to David Bogner's question about Olmert's nuclear ambiguity leak, Sharansky responded that it was "a very unfortunate statement." And then he told a fascinating little story. I think you'll want to hear it for yourself.
And I don't think there's a plan.
