Publication

The central reason for the failure to convene the Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction-free zone (WMDFZ) conference is the unbridgeable gap between the different actors involved. This gap has even widened as a result of the changes associated with the 'Arab Spring' and Iran's progress towards attaining military nuclear capability. The authors in this brief conclude that as long as it remains impossible to bridge the ideological divide between Israel and Egypt in particular, there is no chance that such a conference could jumpstart a process genuinely geared to help establishing a Middle East free of WMD.