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Most complicated of all is the issue of nuclear proliferation (see box) and the argument invoked by the Israelis that any strike against a nuclear installation that it perceives to be a threat is justified. That course is foolhardy. As Columnist Carl Rowan wrote in the Washington Star: "If Israel's nuclear nonproliferation strike is right and proper, then would it not be equally moral for an aggressor to attack suspected nuclear weapons in Israel?"
At a mass meeting in Tripoli, Libya strongman, Muammar Gaddafi, took precisely that stance. With Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat present, Gaddafi declared that "Israel made it legitimate for us to destroy the Israel reactor."
Alas, there are too many other rival states around the world where hatred and radioactive isotopes mix—India and Pakistan, for example—for the principle of pre-emptive strikes to be condoned.
Since it won its war for existence in 1948, Israel has scored a number of brilliant military successes, and it clearly added to that number last week. But while feats of arms have brought survival they have not brought peace. As the dust settled in the Iraqi desert and the fires guttered out in the smashed nuclear reactor in Tammuz, Israel was not about to be abandoned by its friends, especially the U.S. Yet there was a growing international feeling that the embattled nation must try harder to make an accommodation with its Arab neighbors if it is ever to enjoy the true security that it has pursued with such zeal for so long. —By George Russell. Reported by David Aikman/Jerusalem and William Stewart/Baghdad, with other bureaus