Israel's bomb, and international finance as the undoing of foreign policy

But this also isn't just "a Middle East problem".

Australia's sovereign wealth fund, for instance, is known to invest in firms that produce and service nuclear weapons, despite espousing its leadership role in strengthening the global nuclear norm in official statements seeking to demonstrate Australia's principled and responsible record of international citizenship.

One can't help but think: is the institutionalisation of the financial markets such that we may never definitively know who is, and who is not, financing the vast infrastructure behind the Israeli bomb?

All I can say for sure is that if Arab states such as Qatar are found to be holding stock in that German ship maker, their financers, or even companies like Siemens and Atlas which Der Spiegel identified as supplying the submarine's navigation equipment, then I think perhaps we have gone past that critical juncture towards an inevitable Armageddon from which there is no turning back.

In my experience, it has been worth asking governments these sorts of questions.