Although not well-known in the public sphere, even among those with a keen interest in security affairs, the arms control community over the past three years has been engaged in a debate over a conference on a Weapons of Mass Destruction free-zone (WMDFZ) for the Middle East. After the regional parties could not agree on either the framework or the content, and with the events unfolding in the region, the conference — slated to take place in Helsinki during 2012 — was postponed indefinitely.

The lack of agreement among the regional parties is grounded in their longstanding different approaches to regional stability and security, specifically the source of security threats and regional tensions in the Middle East. The Arab side aims to reduce regional security dialogue to an exclusive focus on WMD, the implication being that weapons as such are the major concern, which enables Arab states to focus their attention on the perceived advantage that Israel maintains in this regard, to the exclusion of almost every other security concern. For Israel, however, its “security deficit” is primarily a function of its highly problematic relations with its neighbors.

While there is no shortage of tensions and conflicts that cut across the Middle East, Israel is the only state that is subject to ongoing rhetoric that negates and denies its very right to exist as a sovereign state. The threats Israel faces create a severe security asymmetry in the region that works to Israel's detriment, and has for decades fueled Israel's perceived need to maintain a strategic deterrent capability as insurance against existential attack. Moreover, with regard to WMD, Israel is concerned by the culture of deceit that has become entrenched in the Middle East; with a number of Arab states and Iran blatantly cheating on their non-proliferation commitments, the current starting point for dialogue on WMD is dismal.

It might seem that this constitutes an irresolvable zero-sum situation: One side is focused on the weapons, and the other on state behavior and interstate relations. But there is still a potentially win-win regional path that would constitute a third way: namely, collectively working on improving regional security relations in the Middle East, in a manner that would have benefits for all regional parties. If the regional atmosphere were to improve, this could create the basis for beginning to move forward on a more ambitious regional arms control agenda.