Honest Reporting has an exposé of another bit of outrageous distortion in mainstream media, an article for the International Herald Tribune (which is owned by the New York Times) by Jonathan Power in which he argues that Arab states have a right to seek nuclear weapons because of the threat from Israel: Iran, Israel and the Bomb.

Last week, Iran rejected a call from the International Atomic Energy Agency to cease its uranium enrichment activities, and this week it test-fired a newly-upgraded missile that can reach Israel and US troops in the Mideast. Western powers are now attempting, with increasing alarm, to halt Iran’s march toward nuclear armament before it’s too late.

While these disturbing developments took place, Jonathan Power in the International Herald Tribune (9/22) compared the Iranian nuclear program to Israel’s and concluded that ‘It is the Arabs who should be worried by Israel’s might, rather than the other way around.’ Power, a foreign affairs columnist syndicated in dozens of papers worldwide, makes three main points:

1) The West applies a ‘hypocritical’ double standard by insisting that Iran stop its nuclear program while allowing Israel to have the bomb.

2) Power blames Israel for Iran’s emerging nuclear program, asking: ‘[W]here is the source of the threat that makes Iran… feel so nervous that it must now take the nuclear road? If Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, with its nuclear ambitions, used to be one reason, the other is certainly Israel.’

3) Power claims that Israeli nukes never had deterrence value, and certainly don’t today, as Israel faces no ‘catastrophic’ threat.

Power errs on each of his points…

Go ye and read, for the full refutation.