Monday, October 16, 2006

Israel signs Cooperation Pact with NATO

Last spring I mused on Israeli membership for NATO and today I found this tidbit on Ynet News:
Israel will provide support for NATO counter-terrorism patrols in the Mediterranean under a cooperation pact agreed with the alliance on Monday. NATO has sought since the end of the Cold War to bolster its presence in the Middle East, and the accord is the first one to be finalized since the 26-member alliance offered in 2004 to forge closer ties with Israel and six Arab states.

"Israel is the first one to have agreed to the details of what cooperation should entail," said a NATO official, adding that details of the pact would be released later. The details agreed on Monday included a pledge to provide support for counter-terrorism patrols by alliance ships.

NATO has offered Israel, Algeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia help in reforming their armies and making it easier for them to cooperate with the military of alliance nations. It has also encouraged them to provide ships, intelligence and port access for patrols NATO launched in the Mediterranean to help detect terrorist activity shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Algeria and Morocco have also expressed an interest in supporting the patrols, but the Arab response to offers of cooperation has been generally patchy. Many in the Arab world regard NATO as a US-dominated body intent on interfering.
This development is certainly one to follow and the details of this agreement should make interesting reading indeed.

2 comments:

Michael said...

Israel's been wanting, and trying, to cooperate with NATO for decades now. I hope that this agreement will finally open the door to something meaningful.

As for Arab sludge, well, of course they gave a patchy response to participating in anti-terrorism patrol. Of the countries mentioned, only Egypt and Jordan have any (entirely self serving) interest in seeing a reduction in terrorism. The others are all active supporters of it.

It's about time for the Western world to wake up, smell the coffee, and kick the Arabs in the collective ass.

K. Shoshana said...

Its problematic to extend NATO membership to Israel due to what I call the fidelity clause - an attack on a NATO member is an attack on all - this would probably cause the first open division in NATO - there is no way that France, Belgium, (for sure) and possibly Germany & Italy would go vote for Israel.