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After many decades of intentional ambiguity, Israel has now finally admitted what everyone already knows: they possess The Bomb.

Prime Minister Olmert told Germany's Sat.1 channel on Monday evening: "Iran, openly, explicitly and publicly, threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Can you say that this is the same level, when they are aspiring to have nuclear weapons, as America, France, Israel and Russia?"

Of course this isn't surprising, and in fact it vindicates Mordechai Vanunu who spent 18 years in prison because he gave a detailed description back in 1986 of Israel's nuclear weapons program:

Mr Vanunu, who was released in 2004 after spending 18 years in prison, welcomed the prime minister's admission. "Obviously, I don't welcome the atomic bomb but this openness could lead at last to some realpolitik - and maybe to some real peace." Mr Vanunu said he believed the admission was not accidental. "My idea is that it was said intentionally. For 20 years they tried to deny me and my story but the policy of cheating and lying didn't succeed. There is now a new defence secretary in the United States and there are also changes taking place in the Arab world, so I think that may have led to the change."

Read Juan Cole's latest analysis of the shifting sands of international relations in the Middle East and the ramifications of the debacle in Iraq unfolding as we speak .

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