Scrap Nukes, Rabbi Urges

Israel can make its surest contribution to peace and security by acknowledging and then dismantling its nuclear weapons stockpile, says Rabbi Phillip J. Bentley of Floral Park, New York.

Bentley, president of the Jewish Peace Fellowship, spoke in May at a panel discussion sponsored by the Western States Legal Foundation at the United Nations Review Conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“True peace is unlikely so long as the Arab states are made to feel uneasy about an Israel with nuclear weapons,” Bentley said. “The most value Israel could get from its nuclear arsenal now would be to openly acknowledge it and, at the same time, unilaterally decommission it. Such a bold initiative might be enough to calm the region enough to make peace in earnest.

“A Middle-Eastern Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone might allow Israel and her neighbors to finally have the sense of security and peace that they hunger for so much.”