Israel Must be Allowed to Join NATO

The OpinionJournal posted an interesting piece yesterday on the importance of Israel's accession to NATO:

Israel's NATO membership has been mooted before, but the suggestion is especially compelling as a response to the Iranian nuclear threat. Iran's apocalyptic President Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map," and influential former President Hashemi Rafsanjani has said an Islamic bomb "would not leave anything in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world."

Those are unprecedented threats, which are all the more likely to be carried out if the mullahs think that the only retaliation would come from Israel itself. It may be that the mad mullahs aren't deterrable, since they claim to welcome mass martyrdom. But if Israel were part of NATO, the saner elements in Tehran would at least have to worry about the collective response of the West. Only last week President Bush promised that the U.S. would come to Israel's defense against Iran, but the NATO proposal has the additional virtue of forcing Europe to take a firmer stand against an Iranian bomb.

Read the entire article.

Iran won't listen if they think that Israel alone will threaten them but if all the members of NATO become involved they will have no choice. As it stands now, an American supported attack on Iran would be strategically difficult especially since our forces are spread thin in other regions. Of course, many argue that Israel could not be allowed accession into NATO for geographic reasons but, as the OJ points out in the article, NATO has already expanded its operations into Afghanistan.

Israel needs to be allowed entry into NATO. Much of the unrest in the Middle East stems from the west's recognition of Israel as a sovereign nation, which Muslims view as an invasion into their culture. By allowing Israel entrance into NATO the west would be sending a collective message to those nations that support terrorism (Iran, Syria, etc.) We must stand together and support Israel in actions as well as in words. This is the only way we can stand against the rising threat of Islamofascism.

Linked to: Don Surber