Israel - continues to be pounded by hyopocrites!

I seldom comment on the market in a convincing way because seldom am I convinced I am right but I do believe the market's direction is still down. Thus, I continue to take a defensive stance and remain willing to sell off stocks that I believe are more likely to go down than maintain their current price levels.

Steven Erlanger, of the New York Times, writes an article which can only be described as a basis for why the New York Times has been losing readership because it is one sided and reeks with bias. No wonder the Sulzberegr family were concerned enough to bring some Wall Street analysts in to talk with their board and explain the stock's underperformance. The problem is the Sulzberger family misses the point why The New York Times is fading as a respected paper.

Perhaps Erlanger might write a lengthy article about the psyche of Israeli children and how the current generation of young Israeli adults have been affected by years of Palestinian terrorism, by Hezbollah missiles and Palestinian rockets, and now by Iran's Ahmadinejad's threats to annihilate them? Or would that be asking too much?

Teach hatred and ipso facto children grow up consumed by hate and become disillusioned. Lousy leadership - lousy results! (See 1 below.)

More garbage from the U.N. Jimmy must be enthralled.(see 2 below.)

The Winograd report is anxiously awaited but by the time it is released much of it will probably have been leaked. We pretty much know what it concludes - Olmert and Peretz are disastrous leaders! (See 3 below.)

Shin Bet Director, Yuval Diskin, alleges, hundreds of Hamas personnel are being trained in Iran. (See 4 below.)

Caroline Glick attacks both Bush and Olmert for actions harmful to their respective peoples. She also points out the hypocrisy of those leaders, most particualrly Jordan's Abdullah, who claim Israel is the root of all Middle East problems. I doubt the Sunnis and Shias are killing each other in Baghdad because of Israel and the same is true for all those incidents when Arabs and Muslims attack each other and foreign nationals and bombs go off in Indonesia etc.

It is amazing that a nation of 6 million inhabiting a territory as big as Rhode Island is the cause of the entire world's discontent. The real problem is that Israel exists and until it is destroyed the Arabs conveniently have an external excuse onto which they can conveniently project all their problems. Until the West removes its dependency from Arab oil nothing objective will happen or change. Furthermore until the West quits appeasing Arabs and Muslims terrorism will only increase.

Israel is the successful kid on the block all the others in the region are jealous of and must attack because Israel's success is an embarrassment and stands as testimony to failed Arab and Muslim leadership which has squandered oil wealth in support of external hate and internal suppression. (See 5 below.)

(And read more hypocrisy in 7 below. Israel is not threatening anyone with nuclear weapons or annihilation but they are blamed for all the world's ill and I assume, before to long, global warming also.)

Alan Dershowitz keeps reminding us that Jimmy Carter, like Pinnochio, is incapable of telling the truth. (See 6 below.)

For those who read Spanish you might find this site instructive :

Israel_Y_EL_Mundo_Musulum_1.pps

Dick


1) The New York Times' Steven Erlanger has a lengthy feature about Palestinian youth, the "lost generation of Palestine: its most radical, most accepting of violence and most despairing." Quoting a dozen Palestinians, the article, entitled "Years of Strife and Lost Hope Scar Young Palestinian Lives" tells a story of disillusioned youngsters "stymied" by stateless[ness]", an economy that is "shutting down," "Israeli checkpoints, barriers and closures" and interaction with "armed" Israelis --"soldiers and settlers." Erlanger also emphasizes the despair of parents who are dismayed by their children's turn to violence. (Nothing is mentioned about the many parents who have been quoted boasting and taking pride in their children's violent actions, what they call "martyrdom.")

But by failing to discuss the critical factor turning the Palestinian youth to violence, namely, the state-sponsored anti-Israel indoctrination in PA-TV, radio, music videos, universities, mosques and summer camps, Erlanger paints a deceptive portrait. (See "The Root of Palestinian Violence is Hate Education," "Hate Indoctrination and Media Blindness," "Ignoring Hamas Hate Indoctrination," "The New York Times: Too Little, Too Late on Incitement ," "Save the Children," "Teaching Hate Harms Children" and other CAMERA articles on Palestinian hate indoctrination.)

As the Times has done repeatedly in the past, the article glosses over the incitement that has produced a generation of militarized Palestinian youth. These youth are products of an upbringing that includes pervasive societal and media indoctrination of young children to become so-called "martyrs." As children, they grew up with the Sesame Street-type children's series, "The Children's Club," broadcast in the late 1990's which featured Palestinian children singing in praise of martyrdom and jihad. They watched Palestinian television broadcasts urging children to drop their toys and pick up rocks to follow the iconic Muhammed al-Dura to the hereafter, which was portrayed as a green, sunlit meadow where young children play. They were spectators at public rallies and pageantry that featured Hamas members marching through the streets dressed as suicide bombers. They listened to religious sermons broadcast live on Palestinian TV on Fridays which often included calls to martyrdom.

Just last month, Hillary Clinton issued a press briefing in which she condemned the fact that Palestinian textbooks "don't give Palestinian children an education, they give them an indoctrination." Palestinian Media Watch concluded that the textbooks' wholesale rejection of Israel can have only one consequence: "The well-meaning student is left with no logical justification or religious option to accept Israel as a neighbor or to seek coexistence."

At the university level, the problem is also systemic. For example, as the Washington Times reported on March 5:

"Al-Quds University last month held a weeklong celebration honoring Yahya Ayyash, the Hamas leader known as 'the shahid [martyr] engineer.' He is credited with creating the first suicide belts in the mid-1990s and training the next generation of suicide bomb makers.

The opening event, as reported by a Palestinian newspaper and found in the PMW report, included a speech by university administrator Yusuf Dhiyab, 'who discussed shahids and the mark that the shahids left on the history of the Palestinian nation and how they succeeded in uniting the nation.' "

And who can forget the infamous exhibit at An-Najah University in 2001 - the very same university which produced several students whom Erlanger interviewed for the article - celebrating violence against Israelis with a re-enactment of a suicide bombing in a pizzeria that killed 15 Israeli civilians (mostly women and children)?

Palestinian students visit a re-enactment of the Sbarro pizza restaurant suicide bombing at An-Najah University. Re-enactment of Sbarro bombing at An-Najah University included replicas of body parts and pizza slices strewn across the room

Erlanger, however, provides just one sentence in the almost 3400 word article about indoctrination of Palestinians, presenting it as an Israeli claim:

"Many Israelis agree that the current generation of young Palestinians has been thoroughly radicalized, but say that it is the product of Palestinian political and religious leaders who have sanctioned and promoted violence and terrorism against Israel."

He also includes an occasional oblique allusion. For instance, he writes:

" 'Israel should leave this land,' [16-year-old Ayman] said angrily, then repeats what he has been taught, that all of historic Palestine belongs to Muslims."

There is nothing in the article, however, to indicate that the "territory riven by infighting, seared by violence, occupied by Israel, largely cut off from the world and segmented by barriers and checkpoints," is also filled with government-sanctioned hate indoctrination via the television, nursery schools and universities, religious institutions, summer camps, and sporting events.

The Hothouses of Gaza

The article contains a section entitled "The Hothouse of Gaza" in which the strip is described as

"a poor, chaotic place of 1.5 million people, 70 percent of them refugees and their descendants . . . [whose] people are even more constrained by Israeli and Egyptian security restrictions on their travel [compared to their West Bank brethren]. There are fewer jobs than in the West Bank, and even more weapons.

With the economy of Gaza shutting down, much of the work available for young people is either in the swollen and disorganized security forces or in the armed militias or gangs . . . "

But the coupling of "hothouse" along with "Gaza" brings to mind another sort of "hothouse" - the agricultural hothouses left behind by Israel when Israel fully withdrew its settlements and its military from the Gaza Strip well within the lifetime of this generation of lost Gazan youth - less than two years ago. But Erlanger doesn't even mention the historic and first wholesale uprooting of Jewish communities in land that Palestinians claim as their own. Presumably, the complete, unilateral relinquishing of land to Palestinians does not fit into his narrative of a "destroyed generation" whose members "never see anything good in [their] lives"?

Israel's withdrawal from Gaza would certainly have been an interesting factor to consider in light of the radicalization of the Gaza youth. For instance, did the disengagement have a moderating or radicalizing effect on the young population? In the wake of the withdrawal, why weren't agricultural jobs made available in the vacated, intact hothouses? Given the potential opportunities, why did the young continue to turn to the terror groups?

Violence Romanticized
In a separate problem, Erlanger refers to the first intifada - which involved, according to the Israeli army, more than 3,600 Molotov cocktail attacks, 100 hand grenades attacks, 600 assaults involving explosives or grenades, the killing of 16 Israeli civilians and 11 soldiers, and the injury of more than 1,400 Israeli civilians and 1,700 Israeli soldiers - as "civil disobedience." The Merriam Webster dictionary defines "civil obedience" as the "refusal to obey governmental demands or commands especially as a nonviolent and usually collective means of forcing concessions from the government "

This selective and inaccurate spread, with a large front page, above-fold photograph of a Palestinian youth against a backdrop of fire, and four more large color photos across two pages, is not so much investigative journalism and analysis as it is a portrayal of a viewpoint endemic to the New York Times

And suggest as well that a lengthy article be written about the psyche of Israeli children. How has the current generation of young Israeli adults been affected by years of Palestinian terrorism, by Hezbollah missiles and Palestinian rockets, and now by Iran's Ahmadinejad's threats to annihilate them?

2)Since its inception a year ago, the new U.N. Human Rights Council, which replaced the infamously politicized Human Rights Commission, has passed eight, one-sided resolutions accusing Israel of human rights violations and four more are planned. Among the issues scheduled for discussion during the Council’s meeting is U.N. Special Rapporteur John Dugard’s new report claiming that Israel is an occupying force among the Palestinians and that she has committed crimes such as apartheid and colonialism.

3) War probe report to include 'personal conclusions' on PM, Peretz, Halutz
By Nir Hasson

The committee probing the conduct of the 2006 Lebanon war will release an interim report in April, which will include "personal conclusions regarding the responsibility of the prime minister, defense minister, and military chief of staff."

The report will be issued in the second of half of April, after Passover, and not in March as previously reported.

The war began on July 12, after Hezbollah abducted two Israel Defense Forces reservist soldiers during a patrol along the Israel-Lebanon border. The fighting ended on August 14, when a cease-fire brokered by the United Nations took effect.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz have both come under heavy criticism for the way the war was handled. Former IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz resigned in January, saying he took responsibility for the army's failings during the conflict.

The report will include a dissection of the period running up to the outbreak of the conflict, beginning with the IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000.

It will also contain an analysis of the decisions relating to the launch of the war between the time of the abduction of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev and Olmert's July 17 speech to the Knesset.

A classified version of the report will be delivered to Olmert and Peretz, and a non-classified version will be release to the public.

The panel said that its members decided to focus the interim report on these issues, "which had special bearing on the rest of the war." Furthermore, the panel said that the interim report includes findings that require urgent implementation.

The final report will include analyses of the fighting, the readiness of the military to go to war, the make-up of the IDF forces, training of commanders and decisions regarding the war itself, the cease-fire and the last two days of fighting. There will also be comments on the relationship between the military and political echelons.

This version will also address the general ethos of Israeli society and the link between society and the challenges that faced the state at the time of the war, as well as the treatment of the home front and the conduct of the local authorities. Comments on the latter issue will be made in coordination with findings of the state comptroller.

4) Shin Bet director: Hundreds of Hamas men being trained in Iran
By Gideon Alon

Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin was quoted Tuesday as saying that Hamas has sent hundreds of men to Iran for prolonged training periods.

Diskin was speaking to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

"Hundreds of Hamas members have been sent to Iran for training, and not training periods of a week, two weeks or a month, but for long-term, high-quality training," committee member MK Zvi Hendel (National Union) quoted Diskin as saying.

According to Hendel, Diskin "is very concerned that in another two or three years, it will be very difficult to deal with the problem called the Gaza Strip."

Diskin also told the committee that 31 tons of explosive material has been smuggled into the Gaza Strip in the last year by terror groups. According to Diskin, this was six times bigger than the largest amount to have been smuggled in recent years.

Diskin said that the Palestinians are taking advantage of the relative calm and restraint shown by the Israel Defense Forces to bolster its arms and improve the range of its rocket fire.

Senior Likud legislator Yuval Steinitz, another member of the panel, reiterated his call for an Israeli military ground offensive in Gaza.

"The picture being drawn for us is grave," Steinitz said. "I call on the government to launch Operation Defensive Shield II, in the Gaza Strip," he added, in a reference to the major 2002 IDF operation against armed Palestinian militants in the West Bank.

Steinitz told Israel Radio that "The Palestinians are playing good-cop, bad-cop with us. There is Abu Mazen (Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas), the good cop, with whom we talk peace, while over his shoulder stands Hamas, the bad cop, which grants legitimacy to terrorism."

5) Bush and Olmert acting against their nation's
by Caroline Glick

Last November 26, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered the IDF to withdraw its
forces from Gaza. Sounding oddly triumphant, Olmert announced that he had
reached a cease-fire with the Palestinians. The strangeness of his statement
became apparent when just hours later Sderot absorbed yet another
bombardment of rockets from Gaza.

And as the IDF grudgingly withdrew its forces mid-mission, the Palestinians
established the rules that they and Olmert have followed ever since. They
attack Israel and prepare for war, and Israel helps them by giving them
money, negotiating with them and taking no steps to defend itself or its
citizens.

The strange agreement was announced three days before US President George W.
Bush snubbed Olmert when he demurred from either visiting Israel or visiting
with Olmert during his trip to Amman, Jordan. In the four months since
Olmert forced the IDF to stand down, the IDF, the Shin Bet, and even the
media have warned both Olmert and the public that Syrian, Iranian and
Lebanese-Hizbullah trainers, engineers, commanders and advanced anti-air and
anti-tank missiles have been brought into Gaza.

The foreign terror masters and their Palestinian counterparts have used the
respite that Olmert provided them to build what Shin Bet Director Yuval
Diskin has referred to as "warrens" of tunnels and fortifications along
Gaza's borders with Egypt and with Israel. Like Hizbullah in Lebanon,
operating from these fortifications, the Palestinians will be able to attack
IDF ground forces and aircraft when they are finally permitted to defend
southern Israel from attack.

So thanks to Olmert's unilateral cease-fire, the Palestinians have upgraded
their capabilities. Whereas before Israel withdrew its forces and civilians
from Gaza in August and September 2005, the Palestinians operated as
low-level terrorist cells, today they field bona fide terror armies that are
capable of conducting coordinated, multi-layered operations.

YET THE Palestinians' avid preparations for war are apparently irrelevant to
all concerned. In the past week alone, we have seen the US, Israel and the
Arab world in the throes of a diplomatic frenzy that would make it seem as
though the coming war was nothing but a joke.

Last Wednesday, Jordan's King Abdullah addressed a joint session of the US
Congress. Abdullah came to the US at an interesting moment in the history of
his own kingdom. The same day that Abdullah told US lawmakers that Israel is
the source of all the misfortunes in the world, or as he put it, "The
wellspring of regional division, the source of resentment and frustration
far beyond, is the denial of justice and peace in Palestine," his state
prosecutor announced the arrest of three al-Qaida terrorists. The men were
arrested for plotting to assassinate Bush during his visit to Amman on
November 29 and for plotting to bomb the US embassy in Amman.

What is interesting about the announcement, coming as it did the day that
Abdullah spoke to the Congress and ate a private dinner with the president,
is that it shows the mendacity of Abdullah's contention.

Israel is not responsible for the fact that Jordan has a huge problem with
al-Qaida. Moreover, with a population that is more than 70 percent
Palestinian, the monarch of the Hashemite kingdom would do well to look in
the mirror before declaring that the lack of Palestinian statehood has
anything to do with Israel.

ACCORDING to Israel's Channel 2, Abdullah built on his "Blame the Jews"
theme to great effect during his private dinner with the president. Bush was
reportedly convinced by his Jordanian guest that the world will be a better,
safer place if the US abandons its demand that the PA destroy the terror
cells and armies operating in its territory before it commences pressure on
Israel to surrender Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem to Hamas-Fatah.

Abdullah's success has had immediate significance on the ground. Just four
days after the monarch's visit to Washington, Olmert announced that he is
going to ignore the situation on the ground in the PA and conduct
negotiations on Israeli withdrawals from Judea and Samaria with Abbas. At
Sunday's cabinet meeting Olmert repeated his praise for the so-called "Saudi
plan," or, alternatively, the "Arab peace initiative."

That initiative calls for Israeli surrender of Judea, Samaria, the Golan
Heights and Jerusalem; Israeli acceptance of blame for the Arab world's
refusal to accept the right of the Jewish people to national sovereignty;
and Israeli acceptance of millions of foreign-born, hostile Arabs within its
truncated borders. After Israel makes these suicidal concessions the Arab
peace initiative states that the Arab world will be willing to recognize a
defunct and defenseless Arab-majority State of Israel.

OLMERT AND Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni have repeatedly stated that at its
meeting later in the month in Riyadh the Arab League will moderate the plan.
But Jordan's Foreign Minister Abdullah Khatib said Sunday that there would
be no changes of any kind made in the plan.

Hours after Olmert praised the Arab plan for Israel's destruction, he met
with PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. Olmert's office tried to put a positive spin
on the meeting by loudly repeating Abbas's empty pledge to work to bring
about the release of IDF Cpl. Gilad Schalit, who has been held hostage by
Palestinian terrorists in Gaza since June.

But the fact of the matter is that the content of the Olmert-Abbas meeting
represented nothing less than an Israeli diplomatic capitulation to Hamas.
This capitulation is no less dangerous to Israel's national security than
Olmert's acquiescence to Hamas's military transformation of Gaza into a
mini-Lebanon, replete with Iranian and Syrian military advisers.

Under orders from Bush, Olmert agreed Sunday to abandon Israel's demand that
the PA fight terror and expunge all terror elements from its midst as a
necessary precondition for further Israeli concessions. For their part, the
Palestinians responded to Olmert's query regarding how they had used the
$100 million that Israel gave them by demanding more money.

And while Olmert was happy to lie to the public and claim that Abbas had
agreed to end the rocket attacks on the Western Negev, he knows full well
that he won't. Indeed, the only thing that was announced about the meeting
that was true is that Olmert has agreed to negotiate with the Palestinians
and the Arabs on the basis of the Arab initiative, which is based on the
proposition that Israel essentially has no right to exist.

SPEAKING on Israel Radio on Monday morning, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni
said that Israel and the US are working in pure harmony in formulating their
policies regarding the Palestinians, as well as Syria. And this is no doubt
true. Both Israel and the US are pretending that it is possible to make a
distinction between Abbas and Hamas, even though in the aftermath of last
month's agreement between Fatah and Hamas in Mecca Abbas now acts at the
pleasure of Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal.

Perhaps the only bright spot for Israeli diplomacy since the onset of the
Palestinian jihad in 2000 has been the US and European willingness to make a
distinction between the Fatah terror group and the Hamas terror group.

It is true that Fatah, which receives at least 40 percent of its finances
from Iran and has killed more Israelis over the past seven years than Hamas,
is unworthy of the international legitimacy it has enjoyed. But in refusing
to directly fund and support Hamas, the US, Israel and Europe were at least
agreed that some Palestinian terror groups were beyond the pale.

This Israeli diplomatic asset was destroyed by a combination of Arab perfidy
and Israeli incompetence in the aftermath of last month's Mecca agreement.
In Mecca, Abbas agreed to a Hamas takeover of the PA. He agreed to become a
Hamas figurehead whose main task is to restore Western funding of the
Hamas-led PA.

Rather than point this out and so wrest away Fatah's international
legitimacy, Israel has allowed Fatah to do Hamas's bidding and act as a
conduit toward the international legitimization of the jihadist movement.

PERHAPS what is most interesting about the diplomatic maneuvering taking
place today is that all four main actors carrying it out are advancing aims
inimical to their national or organizational interests. Israel and the US's
security interests, like those of Jordan, are harmed rather than advanced by
the empowerment of Hamas. As for Abbas, Fatah's fiduciary interests are
harmed by the transfer of power to Hamas.

So why are these men behaving as they are?

The answer to that apparently is to be found in a characteristic shared by
Bush, Olmert, Abdullah and Abbas. All of them lead without the support of
their people. All of the men, in engaging in near-manic diplomatic
wrangling, are advancing the aims of neither peace nor security. They act as
they do not because they believe in what they are doing - indeed, none of
them could possibly believe in what he is doing. Rather, they are doing this
because they want us to ignore the fact that in Bush's and Olmert's cases
they are lame ducks, and in Abdullah's and Abbas's cases, they are sitting
ducks.

6) Double Standard Watch: Carter caught in yet another lie
By ALAN DERSHOWITZ


When former President Jimmy Carter spoke at Brandeis University in January, he complained that "this is the first time I've ever been called a liar…". Well, he'd better get used to it, because I can now prove that he is a liar.

Last week, in a speech at George Washington University, he categorically denied that he had received any invitation to debate me about his book. He said that he had-these are his quoted words-"never received any invitation to debate, contrary to what a Harvard professor has said." Well, one of us is lying, and it's not me. My best witness is none other than Jimmy Carter himself. Here is what he said, just a few weeks earlier at Brandeis:

"But let the debate take place, and I've never responded to any of the people that have made their attacks on me. I understand there is a Harvard professor that has done so. I turned down a meeting with him; I felt, I didn't think that Brandeis needed a Harvard professor to come here and tell you how to ask questions. But to summarize my answer I think it is going to be much easier in the future not only in this campus but around the nation to debate these issues."

It sure sounds like he was boasting about turning down a debate with me. Was he lying at Brandeis, or at George Washington?

7) Iranian FM: 'Israel is a nuclear threat'
By TOVAH LAZAROFF

The Israeli and American delegations walked out of the Conference on Disarmament in the midst of a speech by Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who charged that both countries posed the main security threat in the Middle East.

"It was too much to swallow" from a country which has threatened to destroy his own, Israel's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Yitzhak Levanon, told The Jerusalem Post by phone.

In addressing the Geneva based United Nations body, which has representatives from 65 nations including Iran, Mottaki did not use the word Israel. Instead he referred to it as "the Zionist regime," which he said had "a long and dark record of crimes and atrocities such as occupation, aggression, militarism, state terrorism, crimes against humanity and apartheid."

"It was an insult and a direct bashing of Israel," said Levanon. "The only way to show my disappointment was to walk out abruptly in a way that everyone would notice. Everyone knew that I was angry with what he said," said Levanon. The US delegation soon followed him, Levanon added.

In reflecting on the Mottaki's comments which included a call for sanctions against Israel, Levanon said, "My interpretation for their undiplomatic behavior is that they are under much pressure as the international community units against Iran's pursuit of a nuclear regime and why they started to bash us."

Mottaki told the world's top disarmament forum that it was Israel which should be the target of international attention. He said it was the only country in the region that refuses to accede to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. He alluded to an interview Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gave in December, which was many interpreted as a sign that Israel posses nuclear weapons. It's a charge that Israel has denied.

Mottaki said that a nuclear-armed Israel poses "a uniquely grave threat to regional and international peace and security and requires to be seriously dealt with by the international community taking practical measures."

Mottaki noted the growing pressure being exerted on Iran in the UN Security Council, with a series of sanctions aimed at forcing the country to suspend uranium enrichment, which Washington and some allies say is aimed at producing nuclear weapons.

"It is surprising that while no practical step is taken to contain the real source of nuclear danger in the Middle East, my country is under tremendous pressure to renounce its inalienable right for peaceful use of nuclear energy," Mottaki said.

The other threat to the Middle East comes from the United States, which he said invaded Iraq on the pretext of eliminating weapons of mass destruction and bringing more security to the region. "After years of searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq it is obvious the preparation for the attack on Iraq was based on false or, in fact, forged information," Mottaki said.

For the rest, he said, "one can easily judge if there is more security or insecurity in the region as the result of such a huge military operation. Those who created such a situation in Iraq cannot disregard their responsibility."

Officials at the US mission to international bodies in Geneva confirmed that the American delegation also walked out.

"At a time when we're trying to find unity of purpose in the CD (Conference on Disarmament) such outrageous and divisive comments are not useful," said a statement from the mission. The conference is intended to negotiate disarmament treaties, but deep divisions over what weapons should be tackled next have left it little more than a forum for speeches since it created the nuclear test-ban treaty in 1996.