"Collective Defense," The principle of collective defence is at the very heart of NATO’s founding treaty. It remains a unique and enduring principle that binds its members together, committing them to protect each other and setting a spirit of solidarity within the Alliance.
This principle is enshrined in Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. It provides that if a NATO Ally is the victim of an armed attack, each and every other member of the Alliance will consider this act of violence as an armed attack against all members and will take the actions it deems necessary to assist the Ally attacked.
The "Jerusalem Post" reports that:
Israel has received approval to participate in NATO activities in 2013 that had been held up amid tensions with Turkey, Israeli officials told The Jerusalem Post.
The officials said the approval had come as Turkey’s request that NATO station Patriot missile batteries along its border with Syria was granted, leading them to assess that NATO was using the deployment as leverage to induce Ankara to thaw its relations with Israel.
Israel is a NATO partner and has accordingly participated in seminars, exercises and training as part of that status. But over the course of the past year, as new NATO activities were planned for cooperating countries such as Israel, Turkey objected to their going forward, according to Israeli sources.
NATO is a consensus-based organization where any one of its 28 full members can veto a proposal, though often opposition is conveyed through informal channels.
However, as Turkey’s request for the Patriot systems was approved by NATO and deployment began, a NATO work plan for 2013 that would include Israeli participation in a range of courses and conferences went through.
Israeli officials don’t think the timing was a coincidence.
“At the last minute – and I think it was dependent on the Patriots – it was approved,” said one Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A NATO official, also speaking anonymously, didn’t address the specifics of the arrangements with Israel or the decision to grant Turkey Patriot batteries but said of Israel’s connecting them: “This is their assessment of how elements are linked.”
“We have a lot of common interests with Israel,” said another NATO official, pointing to the country’s expertise in counterterrorism, cyber security, missile defense and more. Yet as “Turkey has made no secret” of its opposition to upgrading Israeli involvement after the break between the two countries, he said the issue ultimately needs to be resolved at the country-to-country level.
“We would like the issue to be resolved sooner rather than later,” he said. “For the time being we’re trying to find ways to keep the conversation going with Israel.”
