Why is Israel justified having nuclear weapons? - Yorkshire Post Letters

My understanding of nuclear deterrence of any sort, including Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD, was that the conflicting sides should each possess rough equivalence of weaponry. This was the basis of the arms reduction talks originating with Reagan and Gorbachev, and is the argument advanced by India and Pakistan to justify the weapons held by both those countries.

I would be opposed as anyone to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran, but could someone explain why their ownership by Israel is justified. Whose weapons are they intended to deter?

If Iran is breaking international agreements and is approaching nuclear weapon ability rather than the much lower specifications for power station levels of enrichment, then surely, the only sensible course of action is to reactivate the negotiations of a decade ago under which Iran would cease all enrichment efforts in return for supplies of power-generation fuel rods.