Update:
Joshuapundit
Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu, who was scheduled to attend Obama's nuclear summit in DC has pulled out:
The PM made the decision Thursday after finding out that several Muslim states intend to bring up Israel’s failure to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Earlier, the PM’s Office issued an official statement announcing the trip.
“In the last 24 hours we received reports about the intention of various states that will be present at the Washington conference to go beyond the issue of preventing nuclear terror,” a senior source in Jerusalem said. “These states intend to exploit the occasion in order to slam Israel. The prime minister expressed his displeasure over these intentions, and he will therefore not be traveling to the summit.”
Allah over at Hot Air speculates:
Israel’s atomic energy minister will go in his place. Here’s the full list of countries attending the summit, but it’s no mystery who they’re worried about. It’s Egypt and Turkey, the latter of which has been lobbying against sanctions on Iran and which called Israel the “principal threat to peace” in the Middle East just yesterday. Surely, though, Netanyahu realized all along that those two would try to make Israeli nukes an issue, in which case why agree to attend in the first place?
Perhaps the Obama Administration's denial of visas to the US for Israeli nuclear technicians to study here had something to do with it.
Or it might very well be that someone tipped Bibi off that Obama was not at all amiss to Israel being ambushed in this fashion and singled out as the 'rogue state'.
India and Pakistan, neither of whom have signed the NPT will be in attendance as well and I doubt there were any plans to pressure or embarass them.
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Here is a list of attendees from USA TODAY artilcle in their Oval Office blog:
First, the 47 countries, including the United States, that will participate in the summit. They include Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Switzerland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Ukraine and Vietnam.
The United Nations, the IAEA, and the European Union will also be represented.from: USA TODAY, OVAL OFFICE
As part of the nuclear security summit, the president is currently planning to host a number of bilateral meetings. Those include President Sargsyan of Armenia, President Hu Jintao of China, Chancellor Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Singh of India, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Prime Minister Najib of Malaysia, Prime Minister Gilani of Pakistan, President Zuma of South Africa and President Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan.
