Netanyahu To Visit The U.S. Sunday

Sunday November 08, 2009 18:34 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News & Agencies

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is scheduled to start on Sunday a four-day visit to the United States along with Israel’s Defense Minister, Ehud Barak.

Benjamin Netanyahu - wikimedia

Barak will be holding a meeting with U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert gates, and U.S. Middle East Envoy, George Mitchell.

Israeli officials said that Netanyahu is trying to avoid any meeting with the U.S. President, barrack Obama .

Yet, the Israeli Reshet Bet Radio stated that Obama would be holding a brief meeting with Netanyahu on Monday evening, but the office of Netanyahu did not receive an official invitation.

Netanyahu would be flying shortly after the cabinet session on Sunday. He will be participating in the general conference of Jewish groups in the U.S.
He requested to hold a meeting with Obama, but his request did not receive an official answer yet.

This issue pushed several senior Israeli leaders to speculate the Obama is avoiding a meeting with Netanyahu, and some official described the way Obama treats Netanyahu is disrespectful, the Arabs48 news Website reported.

Netanyahu would be addressing the conference on Monday, and Ehud Barak would be addressing the several hours before Netanyahu’s speech.

Obama was supposed to attend the conference but he had to cancel as he would be participating in a Texas ceremony for fallen U.S. soldiers.

Israeli Yedioth Aharonoth reported on Sunday morning that the White House would declare any changes regarding a meeting between the two leaders, and that senior officials of the Jewish Lobby in the U.S. are practicing pressures on the U.S. administration to ensure a meeting between Obama and Netanyahu.

But other Israeli sources said that both the White House and the office of Netanyahu said that the two leaders will meet Monday.

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