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The negotiations this week in Geneva between Iran and the "P5+1" (the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - plus Germany) offer a promising vehicle for avoiding another destructive war. The talks came on the heels of a virtual uprising by the American people that stopped President Barack Obama's plan to attack Syria, clearly demonstrating their desire to resolve conflicts at the negotiation table rather than at the point of a gun.However, Israel and its allies in the US Congress continue to lobby against a deal that would meet Iran in the middle, insisting on a "zero-enrichment" policy that is a deal-breaker for Iran.The Israeli cabinet said in a statement Tuesday that "Israel does not oppose Iran having a peaceful nuclear energy programme. But as has been demonstrated in many countries, from Canada to Indonesia, peaceful programmes do not require uranium enrichment or plutonium production. Iran's nuclear weapons programme does."The elephant in the roomThe Israeli cabinet's statement is more than ironic, in light of Israel's own nuclear-weapons programme - often called the world's "worst-kept secret" because of the taboo surrounding any public discussion of its existence.The Washington Post's Walter Pincus is one of the few journalists openly questioning this obvious hypocrisy. He writes, "When the Israeli prime minister asked (at the UN), 'Why would a country that claims to only want peaceful nuclear energy, why would such a country build hidden underground enrichment facilities?' I thought Dimona."Israel's nuclear facility at Dimona, a city in the Negev desert, reportedly has six underground floors dedicated to activities such as plutonium extraction and production of tritium and lithium-6, for use in nuclear weapons.
