I would like to share some excerpts from a letter written by Britain's former prime minister, Margaret Thatcher in condemning Israel's unprovoked attack which destroyed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor on 7 June 1981. The letter can be found here:
https://archive.margaretthatcher.org/doc02/8DC11F504FAA43199FE1288432BEBD3B.pdf"I cannot accept that this attack was an essential pre-emptive act of self-defence by Israel. You argue first that Iraq has been in a state of war with Israel since 1948 and that Israel's action was not therefore a breach of international law. But the fact is that the Israeli action was clearly contrary to the prohibition in the UN Charter on the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity of another state. Iraq has not engaged in active hostilities with Israel for some years. When there has been no armed conflict between the two countries for so long, an unprovoked attack of this kind has in our view no justification under international law. Your argument would logically justify an unprovoked Iraqi attack on an Israeli reactor which, as I said in the House of Commons, I would equally have condemned."
"You say that there is no doubt whatsoever that the Iraqi reactor would shortly have had the capacity to make atomic weapons. I can only point out again, as I did in the House of Commons, that Iraq is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, that the installations in question are subject to international safeguards, that they were regularly inspected (the last occasion being as recently as January) and no breaches of these safeguards were detected. We do not believe that Iraq had the capacity to manufacture fissile material for nuclear weapons, nor that she could have developed a capability for doing so without detection, as the French Government has made clear."
"I recognise of course that Israel has legitimate concerns about her security and that the Israeli Government faces very difficult decisions in ensuring the country's protection. I have made my views on this plain many times. Nor has Iraq so far played a constructive role in the Middle East peace process. There is no doubting her potential hostility to Israel."
"But none of this justifies the unprovoked use of force. The system of international law and international safeguards has been established precisely to avoid the situation which Israel feared and action such as Israel took on 7 June. If that system breaks down - and it will be at risk if flagrant violations of it are not forthrightly condemned - the security of all countries, not only Israel would be at risk. I am particularly concerned that the action taken against Iraq has further set back the chances of progress towards a comprehensive settlement in the Middle East, which I believe is the only basis for Israel's security in the long term."
I want to point out that Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has faced scrutiny for its nuclear activities, which some countries believe violate the treaty's terms.
On the other hand, Israel IS NOT a signatory. US aid is supposed to be withheld to such a nation.
Mrs. Thatcher's positions on Israel and Palestine comes as a surprise, because she was not particularly a neocon, but instead a partisan of international law and fairness. She was a Zionist in the sense that she believed in the justice of establishing a Jewish state in the Mideast, but, and here the distinction is critical, with the provision that Palestinians receive meaningful self-determination or statehood as well. And her belief in the sanctity of international law was something she believed should apply to Israel as well.
I have to admit that I have a grudging admiration for Mrs. Thatcher even if I did not like her politics for the most part.
