A Nuclear Weapons and WMD-Free Zone in the Middle East ? Prospects and Challenges

JackieCabasso (2) Fears and suspicions about weapons of mass destruction have fueled tensions in the Middle East for decades, and a nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East has been on the United Nations (UN) agenda since 1974. Last December, an unprecedented assembly of current and former members of the Israeli parliament and local and international peace and human rights activists met in Haifa, Israel, to call for a zone free of nuclear weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East and for a world free of nuclear weapons. Jackie Cabasso (Executive Director of the Western States Legal Foundation and a lifetime member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom) attended the December 2013 Haifa conference and a May 2014 meeting on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty at UN headquarters, and will discuss these efforts. (Co-sponsored by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Peninsula branch – contact person: Lois Salo, lsa1o@aol.com, 650-493-8872.)