TEHRAN – Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association (ACA) in Washington, suggests that threatening or using nuclear weapons, especially against a non-nuclear state or population, goes against “international law”, is “immoral” and is “counterproductive in the extreme”.

Kimball made the remarks after Israeli far-right minister Amihai Eliyahu told a radio program on November 5 that “one of Israel's options in the war in Gaza is to drop a nuclear bomb on the Strip.”

The ACA director suggests that every country should strongly condemn remarks by Eliyahu.

“Mr. Eliyahu’s statement suggesting Israel might use nuclear weapon in Gaza should be strongly condemned by every country because the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, especially against a non-nuclear state or population, is contrary to international law, it is immoral, and it is, from a military perspective, disproportionate and counterproductive in the extreme,” Kimball tells the Tehran Times in an exclusive interview.

Kimball also refutes the claim that the remarks by Eliyahu openly proved that Israel possesses nuclear arms, saying it is an open secret that Israel has approximately 80 nuclear bombs.

The ACA chief says Israel’s nuclear arms are “completely useless” in finding a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

“Eliyahu’s reference to an Israeli nuclear weapons capability, however, is not the first such verbal slip by an Israeli or an American official about Israel’s nuclear status. Let’s be serious, it has been well-known - for decades - that Israel possesses an arsenal of nuclear weapons that consists of approximately 80 nuclear bombs, so Eliyahu’s comments do not tell the world anything it did not already know and should not be interpreted as a threat to use nuclear weapons against other states in the region,” Kimball notes.

Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a Middle East security and nuclear policy specialist at Princeton University, says France helped Israel to master nuclear bomb about 60 years ago.

Some analysts argue that the Israeli minister’s threat to use nuclear weapons on Gaza was a bombshell that might prompt other countries in the region to go after atomic bombs and the region would enter a dangerous nuclear arms race.

The ACA executive director says Israel’s possession of nuclear arms is “completely useless” in finding a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and that Israel’s nuclear stockpile does not provide an excuse for other countries in the Middle East to seek nuclear arms and violate the NPT.

Kimball says, “The fact that Israel has nuclear weapons, which are completely useless in combatting violence against Israel or for finding a political solution to end its occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, does not justify action by other states in the region, including Iran, to break their nonproliferation treaty commitments and seek to acquire nuclear weapons.”

The expert warns that a nuclear arms race in the region would threaten the entire life in danger in case of a war.

“Doing so would only increase tensions in the region, prompt a dangerous and costly nuclear arms race, and put everyone at risk of annihilation if a regional war were to break out,” Kimball cautions.