It's September in New York: the start of a diplomatic marathon that will no doubt bring renewed attention to Israel's nuclear weapons stockpile.

Since 1974, the United Nations General Assembly has passed a laudable Egyptian-sponsored resolution calling for the Middle East to become a nuclear weapons free zone each year. Starting five years later, the UN began repeatedly passing an Egyptian-authored resolution calling on Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, under which it would disarm and place its nuclear materials under international inspection. But these resolutions are nonbinding, and the leading Arab state's calls to focus on Israel's arsenal of at least 80 nuclear warheads are usually ignored by Western powers.

That reality is unlikely to change this year. But it should.