Israel’s secretive nuclear activities may undergo unprecedented scrutiny next month, with a key meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) tentatively set to focus on the topic for the first time, according to documents released on Friday.
The provisional agenda of the IAEA’s June 7 board meeting lists “Israeli nuclear capabilities” as the eighth item — the first time that the agency’s decision-making body is being asked to deal with the issue in its 52 years of existence.
The agenda can still undergo changes in the month before the start of the meeting and a senior diplomat from a board member nation said the item, included on Arab request, could be struck if the US and other Israeli allies mount strong opposition.
He asked for anonymity as a condition for discussing the confidential matter.
Even if dropped from the final agenda, however, its inclusion in the May 7 draft is significant, reflecting the success of Islamic nations in giving increased prominence to concerns about Israel’s unacknowledged nuclear arsenal.
The 35-nation IAEA board is the agency’s decision-making body and can refer proliferation concerns to the UN Security Council — as it did with Iran in 2006 after Tehran resumed uranium enrichment, a potential pathway to nuclear weapons.
A decision to keep the item would be a slap in the face not only for Israel but also for Washington and its Western allies, which support the Jewish state and view Iran as the greatest nuclear threat to the Middle East.
Iran — and more recently Syria — have been the focus of past board meetings; Tehran for its refusal to freeze enrichment and for stonewalling IAEA efforts to probe alleged nuclear weapons experiments, and Damascus for blocking agency experts from revisiting a site struck by Israeli jets on suspicion that it was in fact a nearly finished plutonium-producing reactor.
Iran and Syria are regular agenda items at board meetings.
Elevating Israel to that status would detract from Western attempts to keep the heat on Tehran and Damascus and split the board even further — developing nations at board meetings are generally supportive of Iran and Syria and hostile to Israel.
That in turn could dampen recent efforts by the world’s five recognized nuclear powers — the US, Russia, Britain, France and China — to take a more active role in reaching the goal of a nuclear-free Middle East.
Inclusion of the item appeared to be the result of a push by the 18-nation Arab group of IAEA member nations, which last year successfully lobbied another agency meeting — its annual conference — to pass a resolution directly criticizing Israel and its atomic program.
Unlike the board, the conference cannot make policy. Still, the result was a setback not only for Israel, but also for Washington and other backers of the Jewish state, which had lobbied for 18 years of past practice — debate on the issue without a vote.
A letter to IAEA chief Yukiya Amano from the Arab group urged Amano to report to the board what was known about Israel’s nuclear program “by including a list of the information available to the Agency and the information which it can gather from open sources.”
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the
Australian police yesterday said a 40-year-old itinerant with mental illness was behind a Sydney shopping center stabbing rampage that killed six people, including a new mum whose nine-month-old baby is still in hospital with serious wounds. New South Wales Police Assistant Commissioner Anthony Cooke said the assailant — who was shot and killed by a senior police officer at the scene on Saturday — was Queensland man Joel Cauchi. Five women and one male security guard were killed in the attack as Cauchi roved through a packed shopping center in the city’s Bondi Junction neighborhood with a large knife. Twelve more people
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number