Under fire

While most experts say Israel has possessed nuclear weapons for decades, the Jewish state has neither confirmed nor denied such assertions.

"From its inception Israel intended its nuclear program to be a weapon of last resort, a bomb in the basement, the silent guarantor of the nation's existence in the face of hostile neighbors," wrote Karpin in his book The Bomb in the Basement.

Last week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a French newspaper that Iran was not the first country in the Middle East region that violates the non-proliferation and owns nuclear weapons.

This was the latest in a series of verbal attacks against Israel from Erdogan since the end of the Israeli military operation in Gaza 15 months ago.

Javedanfar argues that Israel should not be too concerned by this and whatever else Ankara and Cairo have to say at the Washington meeting.

"Israel would not have been ambushed. The conference is taking place in the United States. Israel is not the only country whose nuclear program was to be addressed and in any case, Israel has relations with Egypt and Turkey," he said.

Remaining ambiguous

Both Javedanfar and Karpin maintain the Washington nuclear summit would not make Israel change its nuclear-ambiguity policy.

"There's absolutely no reason at all to alter the policy, it works very well," said Karpin.

The only time at which it would be worth considering a change would be if Iran states categorically that it has a nuclear capability, he said.

However, Javedanfar thinks even then there would be no need for Israel to openly declare it had nuclear weapons.

Israel is theoretically committed to a Middle East without nuclear weapons. As the Israeli nuclear expert Avner Cohen told the BBC in an interview this week, Britain and the U.S. are also committed to dismantling their nuclear arsenal, but there is a long distance between expressing that desire and implementing it.