SourceFormer US president Jimmy Carter has said Israel holds at least 150 nuclear weapons, the first time an American president has publicly acknowledged the Jewish state's atomic arsenal.
Asked at a news conference at Wales' Hay literary festival on Sunday how a future US president should deal with the Iranian nuclear threat, Mr Carter put the risk in context by listing atomic weapons held globally.
"The US has more than 12,000 nuclear weapons, the Soviet Union (Russia) has about the same, Great Britain and France have several hundred, and Israel has 150 or more. We have a phalanx of enormous weaponry ... not only of enormous weaponry but of rockets to deliver those missiles on a pinpoint accuracy target," he said, according to a transcript of his remarks.
While the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons is widely assumed, Israeli officials have never admitted their existence and US officials have stuck to that line in public for years.
I certainly don't like the fact that India and Pakistan currently have nuclear weapon capabilities, however we all know that these are aimed at each other and we could likely rely on the MAD ideology, hopeful that neither side would be foolish enough to launch them for fear of the consequences.
But to hear that Israel has a Nuclear arsenal, that is both unchecked and unofficial can only destabilise an already tense situation and possibly cause Iran to develop such capabilities in a renewed arms race.
