Israel announcing partnership with NATO: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Scott Rickard, a former American intelligence linguist in Orlando, about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying Tel Aviv will enhance relations with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and open a permanent mission at the Western military alliance’s headquarters in Brussels.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: I am trying to make sense out of this piece of news, I think there are two pieces of news here in one, first about NATO and Israel and then about Israel and Turkey vis-à-vis NATO?

Rickard: Well seriously Turkey and Israel have very close ties. They have done a lot of illegal petroleum deals, they have been involved in a lot of military arms trade. Five years ago right after the Mavi Marmara there was a block by Turkey because of the attack by Israel on the Mavi Marmara and that was really the block that has been lifted now by Turkey where unofficially Israel has been participating with NATO and NATO allied partners for quite some time and now it is officially being made that way and just to give an example the ambassador from Israel to Belgium is actually going to be the representative for NATO as well so that ought to tell you something about the influence that the State Department has on Israel, on their military. In fact the United States military, the United States intelligence and the United States State Department has massive amounts of influence already coming out of Israeli intelligence, out of Israeli investments, out of the Israeli military trade.

So this is just more or less an official announcement that Israel is participating with NATO when in fact Israel has been an extremely close ally of NATO for well over 20 years and certainly longer than that. They have been a part of the military alliance since 1994, so this is just more or less just some pomp and circumstance, officially announcing Israel as being really pretty much a standardized partner of NATO.

Press TV: Well if it becomes a standardized partner of NATO, does it mean that it is going to follow NATO protocol when it comes to attacking other countries or other entities or how is it going to work? Is it going to increase chances of attacks from Israel or not because we know Israel is one way or another always engaged in some kind of war?

Rickard: Well as you know Israel has constantly participated with attacks with the United States and their NATO allies as well as [Persian] Gulf state allies. Certainly they have bombed Iraq, they have bombed Syria unprovoked, at least half a dozen to a dozen times in the last year or so alone.

So no, absolutely Israel and the United States and NATO partners have the same agenda, it is probably going to increase and certainly if you look at the kinds of military and the kinds of arms trade deals that are going on, Israel, the United States and NATO have the same partners.

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