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.

Every year since 1974, the United Nations General Assembly has passed a laudable Egyptian-sponsored resolution calling for the Middle East to become a nuclear-weapon-free zone. Starting five years later, the U.N. 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.

The July signing of the Iran nuclear accord is certain to produce political clashes at the U.N. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t be able to resist railing against the deal in front of the world. But the expected focus on the Iranian nuclear program makes the U.N. General Assembly, which opens its 70th session on Tuesday, the perfect opportunity to probe another nuclear program in the Middle East — one that has actually produced a weapon, unlike Iran’s.

The Iran accord, which curbs the country’s nuclear enrichment program in exchange for sanctions relief, was a victory for advocates of nuclear disarmament. It blocks the Islamic Republic’s ability to build a nuclear weapon, making the world, especially the Middle East, a safer place.

A probe of Israeli warheads, on the other hand, has been delayed by the United States for too long. But it’s an issue that needs to be taken up to avoid dangerous tensions, setbacks to nuclear disarmament and other states in the region pursuing their own nuclear and chemical weapons programs.

It is now Israel’s turn to renounce nuclear arms, as Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif argued in a July column for The Guardian. Of course, Zarif wants to score points against a state that has long railed against virtually any move Iran makes, be it political or military. But his main point — that the Middle East would be safer without nuclear weapons — is sound.