Maybe one day the Jewish community will wake up and realize that the Democrats are not their friends.....

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http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6375QC20100409

Netanyahu ducks U.S. nuclear summit, fearing censure

(Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has withdrawn from
a nuclear security summit in Washington next week, fearing Muslim
delegates will demand Israel give up its assumed atomic arsenal.

Barack Obama

Netanyahu, who plans to send a deputy and two senior advisers to the
April 12-13 conference instead, canceled "after learning that some
countries including Egypt and Turkey plan to say Israel must sign the
NPT," an Israeli official said.

Arab diplomats countered that they suspected Netanyahu had canceled
mainly to avoid further confrontation with U.S. President Barack Obama
over Jewish settlements, and denied having any plans to press Israel on
atomic policy.

Netanyahu's attendance at the 47-country summit would have been
unprecedented. Israeli premiers long shunned such forums, hoping to
dampen foreign scrutiny on their nuclear secrets.

By staying outside the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Israel has
not had to forswear nuclear arms nor admit international inspectors to
its Dimona reactor, which experts believe has produced plutonium for
between 80 and 200 warheads.

Aides said Netanyahu had agreed to attend the summit after being assured
it would focus on efforts to secure fissile materials and shun language challenging Israel's nuclear "ambiguity" policy.

Such coordination between the allies has been clouded by rifts over
stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

EVADING PALESTINIAN ISSUE?

But two senior Arab officials accused Netanyahu of trying to evade
questions on the Palestinian issue that has lately clouded Israel's ties
with its largest U.S. ally.

"We believe that Netanyahu withdrew from the summit because he did not
want to face President Obama and is using Egypt and Turkey as an
excuse," a senior Egyptian diplomat said.

Another senior Arab diplomat intimately involved in the negotiations
said Arab states had no plan to "politicize" the venue and raise the
Israeli issue there.

"We are surprised that the Israeli prime minister would use this as a
pretext for not attending," the second diplomat told Reuters, speaking
on condition of anonymity.

But Turkey's Foreign Ministry said Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan would
demand at the summit that Israel disarm as part of a nuclear-free Middle
East.

The French newspaper Le Monde quoted Erdogan as saying in Paris this
week that "Israel is the principal threat to peace in the region today."

"Israel has nuclear weapons but doesn't belong to the NPT. Does that
mean that those who don't sign the NPT are in a privileged position?"

The White House welcomed Netanyahu's stand-in, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor, to the summit. Meridor will be accompanied by Israeli National Security Adviser Uzi Arad and Shaul Horev, head of the Israel Atomic
Energy Commission, aides said.

"We obviously would like to have the prime minister but the deputy prime minister will be leading the delegation and it will be a robust Israeli delegation," U.S. National Security Adviser Jim Jones told reporters.

U.S.-Israeli contacts are "ongoing and fine and continuous," he said.

Netanyahu had planned to drum up support at the summit for sanctions
against its foe Iran, which the West suspects of seeking nuclear weapons despite denials from Tehran. Neither Iran nor North Korea will be
attending.

"This conference is about nuclear terrorism," Netanyahu said on
Wednesday.

"And I'm not concerned that anyone will think that Israel is a terrorist regime. Everybody knows a terrorist and rogue regime when they see one,
and believe me they see quite a few -- around Israel."

Israel says its nuclear secrecy helps ward off enemies while avoiding
the kind of provocations that can trigger arms races.

The official reticence, and the tacit U.S. acceptance of Israel's
nuclear monopoly, aggrieves Arab and Muslim powers.

India and Pakistan -- both scheduled to attend the nuclear security
summit -- are outside the NPT, like Israel. Unlike them, Israel has not
openly tested or deployed atomic weapons.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Nasr in Jerusalem, Ershad Mohammed in Washington, Tulay Karadeniz in Konya, Turkey, Sherine El Madany in
Cairo, Paul Taylor in Paris and Caren Bohan aboard Air Force One;
Editing by Michael Roddy)

CMPQwk 1.42-21 9999
Hope and change = $1T deficit and 10%+ unemployment .....

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