Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Don't Israel's nuclear weapons count?
Netanyahu has what he wants to keep up the idea of his plucky, vulnerable little state
Digg
del.icio.us
Facebook
Reddit
Google
Stumble Upon
Fark
Newsvine
YahooBuzz
Bebo
Twitter
Independent Minds
Influential Europeans – including many Muslims – recently debated freedom of expression with the Danish editor who commissioned the cartoons of Prophet Mohammed which led to riots. Held in Berlin, it was a good, at times blazing, debate.
Freedom of expression, we were given to understand, is one of the valves in Europe's heart that must remain open to keep our continent alive and healthy. In good faith I exercise that freedom in this column. Let us see if readers and interest groups will support my right to write what follows even if they violently disagree with my observations.
From past experience I bet many will find that impossibly hard. They will denounce me as an enemy within, a rule-breaker of unspoken rules, bringing up stuff that must be left buried in the name of peace and justice. I see no reason to comply. This week shows us how such doublethink and doublespeak pulls the world towards Armageddon.
Leaders of the rich nations have turned their fire on Iran, quite rightly. On Friday came news that the Islamic Republic had been building a secret uranium enrichment plant near Qom. Then the junta fired test missiles, to prove that the bearded ones have really big willies. Unlike Iraq under Saddam, there are, in Iran, nuclear developments that could lead to weapons of mass destruction. It is not an immediate but a future danger, say credible intelligence experts and indeed Barack Obama himself.
Suddenly the president has got uncharacteristically belligerent, instructing Iran to open up all its nuclear facilities for inspection if it wants to avoid "a path that is going to lead us to confrontation". In May, Obama stood in Washington with the hawkish Benjamin Netanyahu, who we were told was there to seek assurances that there would be no shift from the conventional US position of total and unconditional support for Israel's policies right or wrong, known and clandestine.
On Thursday the US, China, Britain, France, Russia and Germany meet in Geneva and, by that time, Iran will be expected to submit to international scrutiny. As a supporter of the now crushed and broken reformers in Iran, I back the ultimatum to the fanatic and bellicose Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But what about that camel in the room? The one we all see but can't point out? What about the only power in the Middle East, also fanatic and aggressive, which has a vast stockpile of weapons enough to obliterate the region? Listen people, we need to talk about Israel. And soon. Like now.
I have been in contact with a young Iranian woman who wore a green scarf and lipstick on the streets of Tehran, whose uncle is currently being tortured in prison there for demonstrating against the results of the election. Somehow she escaped from the country and is in Britain briefly before going on to the US to make a new life. Let us call her M.
Nobody could hate Ahmadinejad more than M; she hates the whole regime, the treacherous leaders who betrayed the people. When she speaks she often gets asthmatic. But yet, but yet, she finds her passions rising for her country this week because of fears of military strikes by Israel and the manifestly unfair way that Israel is indulged. "I will go back if they attack my country, even if they put me to jail," M says. "That is my duty. Israel is the enemy of peace and America gives them money to get more arms. I don't want Iran to have these terrible weapons, but Israel must also be stopped."
The big powers are moving tentatively towards global de-nuclearisation, taking small but significant steps to show they do want everyone to pitch in. Obama's decision to shelve the European defence missile programme shows serious intent, so too Gordon Brown's announcement that Britain would cut down from four to three its Trident missile-carrying submarines. There was a moment this spring, albeit fleeting, when Rose Gottemoeller, an assistant secretary of state and Washington's chief nuclear arms negotiator, asked Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, thus breaking the 40-year-old silence and US complicity in its accumulated, un-inspected arsenal. Her reasonable appeal provoked apoplexy in a nation that assumes special, indeed exceptional, treatment.
In the 1960s, Israel successfully hid its weapons from US inspectors. In 1986, Israeli nuclear technical assistant Mordechai Vanunu revealed information about the concealed stockpiles and has been punished ever since. Hubristic Israel no longer cares to deny that it has hundreds of atom and hydrogen bombs and devastating biological "tools". Netanyahu has been warning he will destroy the Iranian sites if his country feels the danger is real. Now he has just what he wanted – another crisis in the Middle East, to keep up the idea of plucky, vulnerable, endangered little Israel.
Alarmingly, even the liberal Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz is on side. History has made too many Israelis fear all humanity in perpetuity and that fear brings out the worst in that nation. It has predictably rejected the long, sober, unbiased UN report on the last assault on Gaza chaired by Richard Goldstone. He accused Hamas of crimes against Jewish civilians and charged Israel with grave crimes, the breaking of the Geneva convention, punishing and terrorising unarmed civilians.
I have some images of these victims sent to me by a Jewish pro-Palestinian activist. Children turned to ash, blistered mothers weeping, and on and on. There still is no respite for the hungry and dying in Gaza. If Israel can mete out such treatment and not be called to account, just think what the state feels entitled to do to Iran.
The Israeli human rights activist Gideon Spiro bravely asks that his country be subject to the same rules as Iran and all others in the Middle East: "Rein in Israel, compel it to accept a regime of nuclear disarmament and oblige it to open all nuclear, biological and chemical facilities and missile sites to international inspection." The US has leverage because it maintains and funds Israel. If Obama shies away from this, there can be no moral justification to go for Iran or North Korea or any other rogue state. And the leader whose election and dreams gave hope to millions thereby hastens the end of the world.
y.alibhaibrown@independent.co.uk
More from Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
View all comments that have been posted about this article.
Offensive or abusive comments will be removed and your IP logged and may be used to prevent further submission. In submitting a comment to the site, you agree to be bound by the Independent Minds Terms of Service.
- Print Article
- Email Article
-
Click here for copyright permissions
Copyright 2009 Independent News and Media Limited
Comments
At the same time, many comments made by the readers simply disappear without explanation. Many such comments do not agree with the content, analysis or conclusions of the article but are not offensive or malicious. Often the information in the Comment is in the public domain anyway so there is no apparent reason for the Comment to be removed.
Would The Independent care to inform readers and participants in these Comment sections exactly what is going on?
I've noticed this a lot too, not just on the stuff about Israel, but also that wretched article about how it was 'great to rent your property instead of own one'. No doubt intended to keep the disenfranchised kids of this country quiet.
In fact, we could always found an LJ group called 'Lost Comments in the Indie' or something. There's a similar website that publishes all the unpublished BBC Have Your Say comments.
There is, clearly, some sort of censorship/agenda being pushed here, despite the appearance of free speech.
I'm putting these comments on my LJ, wonder how long it will be before they are removed? :o)
"The Israelis have 200 atomic weapons and they accuse the Palestinians and Muslims of terrorism.
"The Dimona is 46 years old; reactors last 25 to 30 years. The Dimona has never been inspected and Israel has never signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty but all the Arab states have.
"Twenty years ago when I worked there they only produced when the air was blowing towards Jordan ten miles away. No one knows what is happening now. The world needs to wake up and see the real terrorism is the occupation and the Palestinians have lived under that terror regime for 40 years.
"When I became the spy for the world, I did it all for the people of the world. If governments do not report the truth, and if the media does not report the truth, then all we can do is follow our consciences. Daniel Ellsberg did, the woman from Enron did, and I did.
"The United States needs to wake up and see the truth that Israel is not a democracy, unless you are a Jew. Israel is the only country in the Middle East where America can right now find nuclear weapons.
"America can also find where basic human rights have been denied Christians: right here in Israel. The time has come for the United States to see the truth of Zionism. It began as a secular nationalist movement, not a religious one. Then some Christians believed that when Israel became a nation, it was the beginning of the second coming. They are deluded if they believe peace will come through atomic weapons. Atomic weapons are holocaust weapons. Christians should be the first people against them."
It is NOT a battle between civilizations that we are in the midst of;
It is a battle against empire, fundamentalism, religiosity, arrogance, nationalism, hegemony versus:
The oneness of ALL beings, deep thought, spirituality, altruism, sister/brotherhood, compassion and love that is being worked out;
And the good news is "in solidarity we have it in our power to begin the world again."-Tom Paine
Eileen Fleming, A Feature Correspondent for The Palestine Telegraph and Arabisto.com
Founder of WeAreWideAwake.org
Author of "Keep Hope Alive" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"
Producer "30 Minutes with Vanunu" and "13 Minutes with Vanunu" FREELY Streaming @ VANUNU ARCHIVES:http://www.wearewideawake.org/i
The Israelis had accumulated a stock of 162 illegal nuclear warheads in February, and by now probably have 165 (more than the UK). We saw how they butchered their neighbours in Gaza and in Lebanon, with horrifying scenes reminiscent of the Germans in Warsaw. That the Americans indulge and fund this WMD regime is incongruous when they are so quick to call Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran warmongers endangering world peace. It makes no sense.
The Iran WMD talk from Obama is frighteningly reminiscent of past rhetoric against Iraq,... it is like Groundhog Day. May we be spared from more ritual slaughter in the Middle East. Come on Mr. Obama, you have a lot more sense than to be a nodding glove puppet for this sort of war-mongering. Iran's defence budget is comparable with Norway's - Israel's is considerably more and they have an unquestionable track-record for much, much more war-mongering and flying in the face of UN resolutions.
Barnaby had been employed by the London Sunday Times to review the 57 photos Vanunu had obtained at various restricted locations in the Dimona. Barnaby also went to Jerusalem to provide expert testimony at Vanunu's closed door trial.
Barnaby testified:
"I very vigorously cross-examined Vanunu, relentlessly asking the same questions in a number of different ways and at different times...I found Vanunu very straightforward about his motives for violating Israel's secrecy laws he explained to me that he believed that both the Israeli and the world public had the right to know about the information he passed on. He seemed to me to be acting ideologically.
"Israel's political leaders have, he said, consistently lied about Israel's nuclear-weapons programme and he found this unacceptable in a democracy.
"The knowledge that Vanunu had about Isreal's nuclear weapons, about the operations at Dimona, and about security at Dimona could not be of any use to anyone today.
"He left Dimona in October 1985 and the design of today's Israeli nuclear weapons will have been considerably changed since then…Modern nuclear weapons bear little relationship to those of the mid-1980."
In email interviews, Vanunu wrote me:
"All the secrets I had were published in 1989 in an important book, by Frank Barnaby, "The Invisible Bomb: Nuclear Arms Race in the Middle East".
"No one should ignore the fact that Atomic weapons are in Israel and that it was France most especially who helped build the Dimona reactor in 1960. No one should forget that France was the first state to start nuclear weapons proliferation in secret, not Iran.
"The world's problem with Iran is the obligation to help the people of Iran to have freedom and democracy; free from a dictator regime.The problem is not nuclear weapons in Iran but the need for freedom for all the people. I am not at all supporting this Ayatollahs regime in Iran. This regime should be ended and replaced by freedom and democracy for all Iran people.
"The same goes for Israel too, which is only a democracy if you are a Jew.
"The Israeli problem is the Jewish apartheid regime..."
Excerpted from "The "Big Get" Don Hewitt and "60 Minutes" Didn't Get"
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.p
The Iranians, Fatah, Hamas, Hizbollah. AlQuaeda and many of Israel's Arab neighbours would be happy to see Israel destroyed. Even in newspapers such as the Independent, reader's comments seem increasingly to support a position that Israel should not exist.
Despite the fact that Israel has never had a dispute with Iran; Iran has attacked Israel many times through its proxies in the shape of Hizbollah and Hamas, who it supplies with weaponry and military training. Iran was also believed by the Argentinean authorities to be behind the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina in 1992 (29 dead and and 242 injured) the attack on the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Jewish Cultural Center) in 1994 (85 dead and hundreds injured). Add to this Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's calls for Israel to be removed from the map, and his denial of the Holocaust, I think Israelis have a very real reason to fear a nuclear armed Iran.
The danger is not in the weapons themselves, it is that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his regime are fanatical enough to use them.
Maybe M, the young Iranian dissident' should consider the actions of her own government before declaring Israel "the enemy of peace".
Nobody has an automatic right to have or not have nuclear weapons. One could argue that as the USA, Russia, UK and others have nuclear weapons, and then every country in the world has that right. However, it is not a legal issue, but one of security and self-preservation. There is a huge difference between a nuclear capability in the hands of a responsible democratic government and the same capability in the hands of a fanatical regime.
Israel will take what action it seems necessary to prevent Iran getting nuclear weapons because it wants to survive.
"Israel would be very vulnerable and endangered if it followed the policies you propose" So, would it be more endangered than Gaza or perhaps the Lebanon? in fact would it be more endangered without N/W than any other state in the region?
You talk of the dead an injured in the hundreds and I agree with you, they are truly tragic events, but what of the deaths and injuries in Gaza recently, and Lebanon in the past, inflicted on them by Israel? taking that statement further, we would be unable to count the dead and injured if a nuclear conflagration were to take place in that region, and neither would any one of us throughout the world escape the effects of such a war.
Obama is correct in promoting a more vigorous message concerning nuclear disarmament through-out the world, what he now needs to to do is grasp the unpalatable nettle of N/W in Israel and not suck up to them like previous American presidencies, perhaps to suspend military support for Israel unless they make a real effort to get internal agreement to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a first step.
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is absolutely right to write of this, making an effort to uncover present Zionist secrecy. Until that secrecy is uncovered and dismissed, it's is a very sad fact that there is far more danger to peace in the middle east emanating from Israel then any other middle eastern nation.
But then surely Ms Alibhai-Brown, like a preacher in a sermon, was just asking the question rhetorically. She knows the answer as well as I do.
The western nuclear nations certainly don't welcome Israel's possession of nuclear weapons - far from it. The thought both terrifies and horrifies them. Deep down, all of them, the US included, would have done all they could to prevent them being developed.
Which is why Israel went to such trouble to keep them secret, until its government was shafted by the scruples of the conscientious Mr Vanunu, on whom it was subsequently able to exercise a satisfying and deterrent revenge - a state-sponsored kidnap from Italy, 18 years in clink (11 of them in solitary confinement, and a release under licence which prohibits him from leaving Israel or talking to the media. A revenge, incidentally, which, had it been carried out by any other small nation in the world would have caused the "international community" - what a specimen of Orwellian "Newspeak" that term is! - to jump up and down in fury and issue tirades of ringing condemnations. Except when the Americans do it, of course, as they can do more or less what they want, where they want and when they want - as we've seen with "extraordinary rendition", another weasel word specimen of "Newspeak". But, unlike the Israelis, they at least have shame, and try to keep it under wraps.
Ms Alibhai-Brown is right - this is the "camel in the room", about which no one will speak. The reasons aren't difficult to discern. No one, but no one, will actually confront the reality of Israeli nuclear capacity because the Zionist lobby in the USA has this, and any and every currently conceivable US administration, by the "short and curlies". Not just by its own influence: enormous though that is, the Zionist lobby might not be strong enough to get its way all the time, were it not for the fact that the evangelical Christian right - though for reasons that religious Jews, at any rate, would loathe and despise - backs Israel to the hilt as fervently as the Zionists do. Confronting both these domestic interest groups simultaneously on the issue of Israel would be electoral suicide for any US administration - domestic mayhem would ensue.
In a variety of ways, the USA has much of the rest of the world "by the short and curlies". Most of all the UK, where they don't even have to try hard because we're just so, so keen to be grasped in that way; the Downing Street staffers' recent consternation that Mr Brown failed to get a one-to-one meeting with Mr Obama is a ludicrous and demeaning demonstration of the fact. But even western nations that distance themselves from the USA from time to time aren't willing to really stick their heads over the parapet on this one - despite the fact that the Israel/Palestine issue is the fount and origin of the world's current conflicts, and the security threats that touch on every individual one of us.
None of this looks likely to change at any time soon. Ironically, the only prospect of a change lies in Israel itself. Even though the ultra-Zionists and, most significantly, the legions of the Israeli fearful - and if we're honest, we' all know how much historical justification they have to be fearful - are in control now, Israel, unlike its Arab neighbours, is a vibrant, democratic society. And a very significant numbers of Israelis don't like what their country is becoming, and see that, however comforting the hard-line approach is in the short term, ultimately it can only lead to a perpetual siege existence for Israelis.
Till then, all we ordinary folk can do is, like ehross, watch what we buy, and watch how we vote.
And, incidentally, this issue is yet another example of the fallacy that voting Tory next year will make a significant difference. Whether Cameron or Brown, policy towards Israel will be one and the same, and indistinguishable - because under either it'll be decided, not here, but in Washington.
Even the countries which had absolutely nothing to do with the Hololcaust are made to feel the pressure of its moral blackmail.
from Israelis descended from southern Russian Kazaras. This race originates from Noah's second son. They rejected paganism and turned Jewish only in the 6th century.
Israel should be able to live in peace and security with its neighbours. Like Iran. This means no war, no closed borders, no suicide bombings at home and abroad, no rockets firing into its southern cities. Like Iran. But unlike Iran it is surrounded by warring neighbours who deny its right to exist. Even on this comments page, we read the same, sometimes repackaged as a) the myth about the Jews not really being Jews but converts (which btw as a technicality, converts to Judiasm are Jews), b) or the grim myth that the Holocaust is the reason for Zionism (which btw began 80 years before). Even on this Indie site there are those who deny Israel's right to exist. Like Iran.
Israel, like any nation state must defend its citizens. Israel is a democracy. And until its Arab neighbours sit down and make peace with Israel, it has every right and duty to its cititzens to defend itself.
When its neighbours make peace with Israel, when Iran stops calling for its destruction, when it stops denying the mass extermination of a people in order to invite another one, you and I will sit together and demand Israel remove its nuclear capacity. I'll write the first letter, make the first placard, give the first speech. If you can fix it with the Mullahs, I'll be round your house with the biscuits and spare printer cartridges. I look forward to that day.
Celticwelshman: Yes, Israel is a democratic and resposible state. I challenge you to mention a single confilict between Israel and it's neighbours where Israel has not been attacked first.
1967 - Egypt again, a pre-emptive strike without declaring war first, the beginning of the 1967 Six Day War - Israel's actions comparable to and as morally wrong as those of Japan at Pearl Harbour in breaking the Geneva Convention. That action in illegally eliminating the Egyptian air force on the ground allowed success in the war.
Shall we go on....
I agree with you 100%
The double standards that the western media and politicians apply results in alienating a large group of people and force them to take retaliation. A friend of mine says the WW3 will not be between armies; it will be between civilians blowing up each other.
Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy
The book discusses in great detail the creation and development of the nuclear weapons programme in Israel.
The title of the book refers to Samson pulling down the temple of the Philistines, ensuring that both he and his enemies died. Well before the idea of a nuclear Iran arose, the policy was to use nuclear weapons if Israel was in danger of losing a war that may lead to Israel being overrun, a complete failure of the deterrent strategy.
The Samson Option shows that the basic premise of the Israeli nuclear strategy is not deterrence but vengeance.
Yes, those cleaver Israelis reaslised that sometime, somewhere, one of their many enemies might try to get nuclear weapons.
Russia continues it’s rhetoric, and there is little chance that Iran's leadership will fall into line on the nuclear arms front.
http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/200
----------
I'm repeating this message: Israel has never ever, ever launched military action without being attacked or threatened first. If you think differtenty (google as much as you want) please enighten us.
In an recent interview with CNN Mr Medvedeu the Russian President said that an attack on Iran would be "the worst thing that can be imagined. " Mr Medvedev disclosed that Mr Netanyahu had made a recent visit to Russia but only hinted at the reason, which could be the Russian contract made two years ago to sell S-300 air-defense missiles to Iran, a move that worried Israel because the weapons would substantially boost Iran's nuclear facility defenses , Mr Medvedev acknowledged the Israeli concerns but refused to cancel the contract saying "any supplies of any weapons, especially defensive weapons, cannot increase tension ; on the contrary, they should ease it".
Israel is now seeing the widow of opportunity for a successful attack on Iran closing as once Iran has the new air defense systems, it would be difficult if not impossible for them to mount a successful attack on Iran. Will they mount an attack? If they do the only winners will be the American Christian fundamentalists and the readers of the "Left Behind" series of books, who support for Israel is based on the hope of an mid-eastern war that would hasten Armageddon and the second coming of Christ. Armageddon would be guaranteed by an Israeli attack , however the second coming is about likely as Gordon Brown's re-election.
However,being selfish,I do not fear that Israel will nuke London,I fear that the regime in Iran may well supply nuclear technolgy to groups who share their philosphies.
I have mixed feelings about ''The Bomb".It has kept me from being involved in wars,unlike my father and grandfather.
Lucky me,I hope the next generation will be as fortunate.
nor threatening to use them offensively like Iran
Defense is the reason and they wouldn't relish using them
versus Iran who brags they will make their "enemies blind"
nor threatening to use them offensively like Iran
Defense is the reason and they wouldn't relish using them
versus Iran who brags they will make their "enemies blind"
oh and you need to reread the definition of entitlement
nor threatening to use them offensively like Iran
Defense is the reason and they wouldn't relish using them
versus Iran who brags they will make their "enemies blind"
oh and you need to reread the definition of entitlement
This person spews poison
Is there really a freedom of speech issue here. Was any attempt made to stop her writing this or will any efforts be made to suppress it. Do those who oppose her views oppose her right to write what she wants? To ask them to support an unchallenged right seems rather pointless.
And why can't those who do oppose her views denounce her as an enemy within (though within what?) thus exercising their freedom of speech?
The truth is that people do write and talk about Israel's nuclear weapons all the time and it's not clear there is very much more to say about them. In fact, there's a letter on the subject in today's letters which does not look like a response to this column.
This overblown start to the column rather devalues its argument, or shows its lack of substance. Or is it not the case that the real heart of the argument is something the writer does not quite have the courage to say explicitly: Israel est delenda?
One of the more intelligent writers has advised that the will not buy anything Israeli - of course everytime he uses his cellphone he is forgetting just what Israel does for him or his PC or the other myriad items that keep us functioning in this World today.
Mordechai Vanunu is a traitor not a hero,he sold for money national secrets,his actions are no more pardonable than any traitor - money bought his secrets and the grubby attempts to make a traitor a hero are ridiculous in the extreme.
Roll out Gaza and roll out the actions of Israel in defending herself,defending herself from years and thousands of rockets and mortars (read it carefully - THOUSANDS) would any Englishman or Woman tolerate such actions from anybody as one of their cities was bombarded night and day,where schools and kindergartens where shopping malls and supermarkets were targets?
Are France or the UK or the USA or China or Russia any cleaner in their history than Israel - are the moral values of an Englishman less or more than that of an Israeli - are they,of course not!
Ms.Alibhai- Brown is indignant that Israel has nuclear weapons but has no issues with Iranian state funded terrorism (of course not mentioned) she has no problems with Iran demonstrating its barbarity to its people and of course a nuclear Iran will give the middle east the balance it so clearly needs (this is so farcical so ridiculous so incredibly stupid that it makes one wonder why she is allowed to write and gets paid for the tripe)
There is little time left for logic over the Iranians they are climbing the highest tree and Ms.Alibhai- Brown is holding their ladders firm for them so to steady them as they sway in the breeze way up there with their dates and palms
Come smell the coffee it is not a matter of when or where the Israelis will attack but when,if they wait for diplomacy then they sign their own death warrants and I dont see the Jewish People ready to allow the Alibhai- Brown of this fine world to decide their fate - she is too busy by far looking for ways to bash Israel and support Iran and their ladders
BM
EXACTLY: but do you feel the same about Iran?
So why did 183 other countries sign the NPT? Simple, and it had nothing to do with their being moral and upright. The simple fact is, very few countries had the technical knowledge or materiel to do so before 1969. And the only legal way to acquire reactors or nuclear knowledge and/or materiel was to sign the treaty after 1969. Many countries were under the nuclear umbrella of the US and USSR by virtue of being in NATO, ANZUS, or the Warsaw Pact, or had formal treaty with the US as in the case of Japan. The US refused to proffer a formal treaty of alliance with Israel in the early 1950s, and so Israel collaborated with France to develop both their nuclear capabilities. So Israel was already a nuclear state long before the UN treaty was drafted.
Alas, some of the countries that signed the NPT did so to be able to acquire legal commmercial access to nuclear reactors, only to then try to subvert it by clandestinely trying to build a bomb anyway. Prime examples were Libya and Iraq, but also a few other such as South Africa. And clearly, Iran as well as developments over the last 18 years, indicates that Iran too has not been playing in accordance to IAEA rules. Signatories to the NPT MUST be completely transparent in all their nuclear activities with no exception, or else are in violation thereof. North Korea has officially withdrawn from the treaty under the pretext that the US had plans to nuke them. Under the NPT, a country can withdraw if it can produce credible evidence that it is under potential threat from a nuclear state. Due to this, Israel has never declared its being a nuclear state, so as not to give any justification to its hostile neighbors, many of whom are still technically at war with Israel since 1948, to leave the NPT and acquire their own.
To date there is no hard evidence that Israel has atomic weapons. Even the Vanunu revelations proved nothing other than the reactor was capable of much greater output than had been believed.
But Israel has never publicly tested a weapon, nor is a photo or any direct evidence of one. So it all remains speculation, which is exactly the way Israel wants to keep it.