Israel in NATO? A second look.

• Author: Rupp, Richard

AT FIRST glance, the idea of NATO membership for Israel may sound inconceivable, a proposal hardly worthy of serious consideration. After all, NATO signifies the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and Israel, in many ways, is far removed from the North Atlantic. Israeli membership in NATO would likely enmesh the alliance in Middle East conflicts, a proposition that few European elites would welcome. Consider the response to the request for peacekeepers for Lebanon. After considerable cajoling and urgent requests by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Europe, with nearly two million men and women in uniform, has dispatched only a few thousand troops to the region.

However, during the past few years a growing and influential constituency has emerged that is actively lobbying for Israeli inclusion in the alliance. Policymakers and commentators, ranging from former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar to the editors of the Wall Street Journal, have called on NATO to act quickly in advancing Israel's candidacy for full membership. Proponents of this initiative, who include longtime NATO supporters Ronald Asmus, Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino and U.S. Congresspersons Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Robert Wexler (D-FL), cite an array of arguments as to why Israel should urgently be incorporated into NATO. Israeli membership in NATO, they argue, could ameliorate the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and ultimately prove key to a successful two-state solution, facilitate Western efforts in the War on Terror, and, most importantly for some, decisively enhance the containment or elimination of Iran's growing WMD program. Some of these points have been reiterated in the proposals advanced in this issue by Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman.

NATO'S ENTRY into postCold War Middle East and Mediterranean politics commenced in 1994 with the initiation of the alliance's Mediterranean Dialogue linking Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria in a range of security-related discussions. The Mediterranean Dialogue, however, yielded modest results throughout the 1990s.

In the aftermath of 9/11, however, many alliance supporters called on NATO to further expand its presence in the region. In June 2004, NATO leaders launched the Istanbul Cooperation Initiative that promised to transform NATO relations with Middle Eastern states from dialogues into partnerships. Brussels intended for closer ties between the alliance and Middle East governments to yield regional-defense reforms, to improve interoperability among military forces and to facilitate multilateral cooperation in combating terrorism and proliferation of WMD.

Of all the states in the region, Israel has established the closest linkages with NATO. Jerusalem is an active member in the alliance's Individual Cooperation Program, and in summer 2006--before the outbreak of hostilities along the Lebanese-Israel border--Israeli naval and air force units participated for the first time in a NATO military exercise, "Cooperation Mako", in the Black Sea.

Israel's trajectory from NATO partnership to possible membership was advanced in October 2004, when NATO's former Supreme Allied Commander U.S. General Joseph Ralston called on the alliance to establish formal ties with Middle East states--comparable to the Partnership for Peace program that facilitated NATO membership for ten East European and Balkan states between 1997 and 2004. Ralston also encouraged NATO to significantly expand its...