It is, of course, difficult to imagine nuclear weapons as anything other than inherently evil implements of destruction. Yet, there are circumstances wherein a state's possession of such weapons may be all that protects it from catastrophic war or genocide. Moreover, because such terrible weapons may deter international aggression, their possession could also protect neighboring states (friends and foes) from war-related or even nuclear-inflicted harms. It follows that not all members of the Nuclear Club need be a menace. Indeed, some may offer a distinct and indispensable benefit to world peace and security. Let us speak specifically of Israel. Should it be deprived of nuclear forces because of misunderstood hopes for peace, the Jewish State could become vulnerable to overwhelming and unspeakable attacks from certain enemy states. Although such existential vulnerability might be prevented in principle by instituting parallel forms of chemical/biological weapons disarmament among these enemy states, such parallel steps would never actually take place. After all, as we should have learned from post Gulf War efforts to identify Iraqi unconventional weapons operations, verification of compliance in these matters is exceedingly difficult. Such verification would be especially problematic where several states would be involved. And this is to say nothing about ongoing plans for nuclearization among particular enemy states, most notably Iraq and Iran - plans that now go forward clandestinely under the cover of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Nuclear weapons are not the problem per se. In the persistently bad neighborhood that we know as the Middle East, the problem is a far-reaching and essentially unreconstructed Arab/Iranian commitment to "excise the Jewish cancer." Faced with this commitment, Jerusalem should soon understand entirely (no more equivocation) that the "Peace Process" is little more than a temporary enemy expedient, a clever strategem designed to weaken Israel to the point where it can no longer defend itself. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, at least one Arab state that is now formally "at peace" with Israel remains effectively at war with the Jewish State. There can be little doubt that Egypt, should tactical opportunities arise, would quickly revert to its traditional stance, joining enthusiastically in joint Arab attacks against Israeli population centers and certain military targets. Syria, should it sometime sign a comparable peace agreement with Israel, would not hesitate to abrogate that agreement if Damascus felt the time were right for a gainful final assault. Here we must take special note of growing cooperation between Syria and Iran, which could soon menace Israel with formidable combinations of conventional and unconventional threats.

With nuclear weapons, Israel could deter enemy unconventional attacks and most large conventional aggressions. Moreover, with such weapons, Jerusalem could launch non-nuclear preemptive strikes against enemy state hard targets that threaten Israel's annihilation. Without such weapons, such strikes would likely represent the onset of a much wider war because there would be no compelling threat of Israeli counterretaliation. It follows that Israel's nuclear weapons represent an impediment to the actual use of nuclear weapons and to the commencement of regional nuclear war.

As Prime Minister, Shimon Peres once expressed an incomprehensible willingness to "give up the atom" in exchange for "peace." This strategic largesse was a splendid example of what we international law professors call "naive legalism." Left to depend upon the hollow security guarantees of Israel's mortal enemies, the Jewish State, denuclearized and incrementally dismembered by the "Peace Process," could not long endure. Indeed, as war and genocide need not necessarily be mutually exclusive, and as murderers in the missile age no longer need to transport victims to the gas, a denuclearized and dismembered Israel could invite another "Final Solution." But by maintaining indispensable military power in a hostile and increasingly anarchic region, Jerusalem - which harbors no interest whatsoever in the destruction of any other state - could ensure both its own survival and general area security. Of course, in the best of possible worlds, all unconventional weapons, chemical/biological as well as nuclear, would simply be eliminated. But as we still do not live in such a world, it is vital to realize that the weapons themselves are not the real problem, and that Israeli nuclear weapons are altogether necessary to preserve the peace and to prevent nuclear war.