A high-level Arab source tells Fox News that Arab countries had no intention of raising Israel’s undisclosed nuclear program at next week’s Nuclear Security Summit in Washington.
The diplomat, who is involved in the conference asked not to be named, said this was a way for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to dodge President Obama and avoid committing to peace talks.
Sources close to the prime minister tell Fox that Netanyahu had “every intention” of attending, but when he realized some Arab countries planned on “bashing” Israel into signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty–which would mean Israel’s undisclosed nuclear program would be monitored–Israel decided to pull out the prime minister.
Israeli officials won’t disclose where they got the information that Arab leaders plan to raise the issue. They announced they will instead send Deputy Prime Minister and Intelligence Affairs Minister Dan Meridor to represent Israel.
The Arab source says next week’s summit is not the proper venue in which to raise such a matter.
A better venue might be in May at a United Nations conference in New York where the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will be reviewed, the source said.
It is believed that Israel has at least 200 nuclear warheads, according to independent experts.
Next week’s Nuclear Security Summit was supposed to also give Netanyahu a chance to rally other countries behind sanctions against Iran’s nuclear program.
President Obama’s 47 country nuclear security conference begins on Monday.