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Tamara Lorincz’s revealing article on NATO’s connection to Israel is Chapter 6 of
PALESTINE IS A CANADIAN
WOMEN, PEACE AND
SECURITY ISSUE:
OBLIGATIONS AND
OPPORTUNITIES
Edited by Urooj Mian and Heather Tasker
Published by the Palestine Working Group of the Women, Peace
and Security Network-Canada (WPSN-C)
October 2024
©WPSN-C, 2024
**************
selected quote:
“After Gallant’s briefing to NATO last October (2023),
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that
“Israel does not stand alone.” Stoltenberg
announced that members of the Alliance would
give Israel “practical support,” which meant
more weapons and political cover. NATO allies,
in particular the United States, United
Kingdom, and Germany are the primary
weapons exporters to Israel, according to the
Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute’s (SIPRI) 2023 Trends in International
Arms Transfers report.”
NATO, Israel, and Canada
by Tamara Lorincz
This article traces the troubled history of the
close ties among the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO), Canada, and the State
of Israel. It also makes visible the role of NATO
in the genocide in Gaza. NATO is a nuclear-
armed military alliance led by the United
States with 31 European members and
Canada. NATO has partners around the world,
including Israel. For the past seven decades,
the Euro-Atlantic allies have firmly supported
Israel, despite its apartheid regime and illegal
occupation of Palestinian territory. In 2019
when Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin visited
Ottawa, Prime Minister Trudeau stated:
“A long-standing relationship between our two
countries, with close cooperation that extends
far beyond matters of security. We went on to
become not only steadfast allies, but dear
friends. Friends who stand up for each other
and support one another in good times and in
bad times. Friends who share the same values
of peace, freedom and the rule of law.”
Trudeau ended his speech by emphasizing
Canada’s “special bond” with Israel. Canada’s
Foreign Minister similarly described Canada’s
relationship with Israel as “ironclad.” Canada’s
other “ironclad” relationship is with NATO, as
recently declared by Defence Minister Bill Blair.
NATO has been the cornerstone of Canadian
defence and foreign policies. The bonds
between Canada-Israel-NATO have
perpetuated violence and dispossession
against the Palestinians.
On October 12, 2023, Israeli Defense Minister
Yoav Gallant briefed the NATO defence
ministers by video conference on Hamas’
armed incursion from Gaza that led to the
killing and hostage-taking of Israelis. NATO
allies called Hamas’ attack “unjustifiable acts
of terror,” yet they did not acknowledge Israel’s
cruel and illegal 16-year blockade of Gaza and
detainment of thousands of Palestinians
without charge or trial in Israeli jails for years.
They also did not mention Israel’s violent
occupation of Palestinian land since 1948.
Also, NATO defence ministers overlooked
Israel’s shameful history of “mowing the grass,”
a military strategy to “maintain order”
in Gaza, whereby the Israeli Defence Forces
(IDF) routinely shell and bomb the besieged
strip, leading to massacres of Palestinians and
destruction of the cities.
After Gallant’s briefing to NATO last October,
Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that
“Israel does not stand alone.” Stoltenberg
announced that members of the Alliance would
give Israel “practical support,” which meant
more weapons and political cover. NATO allies,
in particular the United States, United
Kingdom, and Germany are the primary
weapons exporters to Israel, according to the
Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute’s (SIPRI) 2023 Trends in International
Arms Transfers report.
Arms sales between NATO allies and Israel
have always been the priority in the
relationship. Israel was established in 1948 with
the support of the same major powers,
including settler colonial States, the United
States, and the United Kingdom, which formed
the Alliance a year later. Canada, one of the
twelve founding members of NATO, was one of
the first countries to recognize the State of
Israel over the objections of the Palestinian
people and Arab countries.
As the New York Times reported in 1957, the
Allies were supplying Israel with weapons to
secure its new borders that dispossessed
Palestinians of their land and to conduct
operations to prevent the spread of Soviet
influence in the Middle East [1]. Over time,
Israel became a strategic garrison State that
provided the Euro-Atlantic alliance with
intelligence gathering and armed forces in the
region.
In 1987, United States President Ronald Reagan
designated Israel as a major non-NATO ally,
which is a formal designation just under full
NATO membership. The designation enabled
allies to cooperate more closely with Israel on
weapons research, development and
production, and training and operations. The
United States strengthened ties between Israel
and the Alliance even though the IDF had
conducted massacres in Lebanon and while
the Central Intelligence Agency was
conducting “dirty wars” in Central and South
America with Israel’s involvement in the 1980s.
During the Reagan administration, the United
States was funding right-wing governments,
arming death squads, and repressing, torturing,
and murdering community leaders, leftist
activists, and peasant movements in Argentina,
Brazil, Chile, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras,
and Nicaragua. Al Jazeera reported that Israel
trained and armed many of these death squad
leaders and soldiers during that period. The
United States and Israel also backed the
dictatorship of General Efraín Ríos Montt, who
committed genocide against the poor
Indigenous people in Guatemala in the 1980s.
Now, the United States and NATO are arming
the government of Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu as it commits genocide against the
Palestinians in Gaza.
In 1994, NATO established the Mediterranean
Dialogue with five countries, including Israel
and Morocco, which has been illegally
occupying Western Sahara. The Mediterranean
Dialogue was supposed to bring stability and
security to the region bordering the sea.
However, it has done the exact opposite. In the
past thirty years, there has been greater
instability, terrorism, and a refugee crisis across
the Middle East and North Africa, especially
since NATO’s illegal bombing of Libya in 2011,
which Canada led.
As the United States and NATO were fighting
wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, Israel
signed an Individual Cooperation Programme
(ICP) under the Alliance’s enhanced
Mediterranean Dialogue in 2006. This
facilitated a closer partnership between NATO
and Israel on counter-terrorism operations.
However, for the U.S., which dominates NATO,
and Israel, the “terrorists” on their lists are
Palestinian liberation groups and the Lebanese
resistance army, Hezbollah. These so-called
“counter-terrorist operations” by NATO and
Israel serve to prevent Palestinian self-
determination and undermine a peace
process.
Two years after the ICP was signed, the IDF
launched Operation Cast Lead and pounded
the densely populated Gaza strip with bombs
and white phosphorus munitions, killing 1,100
Palestinians and injuring 5,200 more. It is NATO
allies that have supplied Israel with the bulk of
its weapons, which have targeted Palestinians
and destroyed civilian infrastructure.
In 2014, Israel formally announced its adoption
of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on
Women, Peace and Security (WPS). This
resolution is supposed to ensure that countries
engage women to prevent conflict, mediate,
and build peace. Yet that same year, the IDF
launched a vicious assault called Operation
Protective Edge against Gaza that caused
tremendous harm and trauma, especially to
women and children. According to the United
Nations Works and Relief Agency for
Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA),
Israel killed over 2,000 Palestinians, injured
11,000 people, and destroyed healthcare
facilities, mosques, and homes. Israel’s illegal
blockade of Gaza, occupation of Palestinian
territory, and system of apartheid are
antithetical to the WPS agenda.
Despite Israel’s severe violation of human rights
against the Palestinians, NATO welcomed
Israel’s Permanent Mission to its headquarters
in Brussels in 2016. Stoltenberg said that the
Euro-Atlantic Alliance and Israel are partners
with “shared values” and would increase
cooperation in the Middle East. Yet for years,
Türkiye had blocked Israel from establishing an
office at the NATO headquarters because of
the IDF’s deadly raid on a Turkish aid ship, the
Mavi Mara, that was sailing to Gaza in 2010.
Israeli commandos stormed the ship, killed ten
humanitarian activists, and injured many others
on board. Ankara later capitulated to NATO’s
demand, and Israel’s Ambassador to the
European Union, Aharon Leshno-Yaar, became
Tel Aviv’s first official representative to the
Alliance.
Since Israel established its mission in NATO,
there have been more high-level visits between
Brussels and Tel Aviv. In January 2019, NATO
Deputy Secretary General Rose Gottemoeller
visited Israel to discuss “practical cooperation”
and “common interests” in the region. She
participated in a meeting on Israel’s approach
to WPS issues that includes mandatory service
in the Israeli military for Israeli women.
Gottemoeller urged Israel to promote more
women into the upper echelons of the
government and the armed forces. NATO and
Israel are militarizing the WPS agenda by
pushing more women in the military and
disregarding conflict prevention, mediation,
and peacebuilding measures. Worse still,
Gottemoeller gave no consideration to the
impacts of Israel’s violent occupation and
military operations that are harming
26Palestinian women and girls in Gaza and
preventing a peaceful resolution.
Two years later, with its newly acquired F-35
stealth fighters from the United States and
parts from NATO allies, Israel launched another
large-scale air assault against Gaza,
damaging infrastructure and injuring and killing
many civilians. Israel boasts that its weapon
systems are “battle-tested” against
Palestinians. Every spring in Ottawa, Israeli
arms dealers sell their “battle-tested weapons”
and wine and dine with Canadian government
officials and military officers at the CANSEC
exhibition.
The close relationship between Israel and the
Alliance is also exemplified by the visit of the
Chair of the NATO Military Committee, Admiral
Rob Bauer, to Tel Aviv on September 27-28,
- Lieutenant General Hertzl Halevi, Chief
of the General Staff of the IDF, coordinated
Admiral Bauer’s trip. Admiral Bauer received a
briefing from the IDF and was taken to the
Gaza border crossing, which coincidentally
took place a week before the Hamas attack
and hostage-taking. NATO and Israel have the
most highly sophisticated intelligence
gathering, reconnaissance and surveillance
technologies, and espionage operations in the
world, and they closely coordinate with each
other. An independent public inquiry should be
held to determine what NATO and Israel knew
in advance of October 7 and what they were
planning.
Despite NATO having a WPS policy and allies
having WPS National Action Plans, they have
provided “military assistance,” weapons, to
Israel as it deploys extreme violence against
the Palestinians. The allies’ bullets, bombs,
missiles, sniper rifles, and fighter jets are used
by the IDF to injure and kill women and girls
and make the lives of all Palestinians more
insecure. This has resulted in the
weaponization of WPS as NATO allies are
exporting arms and prolonging the genocide in
Gaza.
Canada needs to be accountable for its
complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation of
Palestinian territory, system of apartheid and
genocide in Gaza, and to withdraw from
NATO. We want justice and liberation for the
Palestinian people, the genuine
implementation of the WPS agenda, the
abolition of the United States-led military
alliance, and peace in the Middle East.
[1] ISRAELI LEADERS STUDY ARMS DEAL: FORMULA SOUGHT FOR LINKS WITH NATO. Special to The New York Times.
New York Times (1923-); Dec 27, 1957; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times pg.3
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