Once the nuclear issues with Iran have been dealt with, Britain will turn its attention to Israel, and it's armoury of some 400, or more, nuclear weapons.
In pursuit of the much-heralded Nuclear Free Middle East, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw said now that "successful action" had been taken over the alleged WMDs of Iraq and Libya, Israel remained the only nation posing a "potential threat".
"If you want to see a nuclear-free Middle East, you've got to remove that threat from Iran," Straw told Britain's Channel 4 on Thursday. "Once you've done that, then we can get to work in respect of Israel."
Straw's comments have drawn strong support from the British public. Not suprisingly, his quotes have caused a storm of outrage in Israel, where he is once again being accused of anti-semitism.
Although it has not always been the case, in recent decades accusations or criticism levelled at Israel, or its political intentions and ambitions, is widely regarded as acts of anti-semitism by Israeli commentators and many Israelis.
Until recently, very few Western politicians would even confirm that Israel has nuclear weapons. In the last week both Straw and Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer have mentioned the fact that Israel has numerous nuclear weapons, which is clearly a depature from the scripts of the past.
In a Monty Python-esque way, Israel still refuses to deny or confirm it has stores of nuclear weapons, while the rest of the world regards it as a certainty.
The BBC revealed in the past few days that it has unconvered secret official documents that confirm the British government of the mid-1960s sold plutonium and heavy water to Israel, which allowed the contested state to produce weapons that would be twenty times the power of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima, in the dying days of World War 2.
