President Obama Fails to Answer the Nuclear Weapons Question Honestly?

Watching the televised news conference, people watched as I did and waited for that one single question by the reporters that would require a most sincere answer. To no surprise, such a question did surface, as Helen Thomas asked the President if he knew of any countries in the Middle East who have nuclear weapons. Instead of being candid with the answer, he said that he did not want to "speculate" about such an issue, but turned his response as to what should be an important goal, and that is to prevent a regional nuclear arms race and reducing nuclear arsenals.
In a very unfortunate response, he failed to mention Israel. It just so happens to be that Israel is known to have a nuclear arsenal, and in matter of fact, it is known to be quite extensive. His news conference was nothing short of exceptional until he failed to respond truthfully to an important question that obviously was a set-up, but still needed to be answered..
It was obviously a trip-up question and he took the bait, as Helen Thomas asked the President in a most heated moment for him in the evening when he was chairing his first televised news conference on television. The reporter who asked the question obviously knew the answer, but wanted President Obama to answer on nationwide television, and he was just unprepared to answer it. Not answering the question now brings up more questions.
 First, why is it not allowed to let politicians and Presidents to even admit that the only nuclear power in the Middle East is Israel? Was he told by his advisers not to answer such a question? Would answering this question undermine U.S. Israeli relations, and will answering it honestly hurt their national security? But he didn't stop short of making a statement that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations. The last statement also deserves criticism, and President will surely get allot of it, and now it will be very interesting to read about the responses to the news conference by the press.