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(Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has withdrawn from 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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