For more than two decades, Iran’s nuclear programme has been subject to intense international scrutiny, sanctions and diplomatic negotiations.By contrast, while Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, an assertion it has consistently refused to deny or confirm, it faces little to almost no international pressure for transparency.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listOver the past 10 months, Israel and the United States have waged two wars on Iran, arguing without evidence that the country was on the verge of having the capacity to build a nuclear weapon. These wars – the 12-day conflict in June last year and the recent month of fighting this year – have killed more than 2,600 Iranians and plunged the world into an unprecedented energy crisis.This imbalance has prompted complaints by Iran of double standards, as well as by proponents of nuclear non-proliferation worldwide. The difference between the treatment of Iran and Israel is not only evident in international law frameworks such as the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), but also reflected in geopolitics and global power dynamics, observers say.So, what do we know about Israel’s nuclear arsenal, the scrutiny and debate around Iran’s nuclear programme, and why critics argue a double standard is at play when it comes to the threat posed by these two longtime foes?What do we know about Israel’s nuclear weapons?It is an “open secret” that Israel is the only country in the Middle East which possesses nuclear weapons, despite it maintaining a decades-long opacity about the issue, observers say. Advertisement When pr …
