WI: Israel in NATO?

Deleted member 9338

I am not sure how. It is not in direct contact with the Soviet Union.
 

HMS Erin

Banned
With a POD no earlier than 1948, could Israel become a member of NATO?

Difficult, because NATO doesn't want the hassle of bailing Israel out all the time, but not outright impossible. A Cold War that takes a turn for the worse might do it. Arab nations might join the Warsaw Pact in response or something.
 
Eh, Israel isn't going to join NATO, the NATO states know that it'll push the Arab states completely into the hands of the Soviet Union if that goes down, and at that point that's just asking for someone to start a staredown over the Middle East that could potentially escalate into WWIII.

Why NATO wants to be running itself roughshod fighting a ton of wars in the Middle East is quite another question worth considering.
 
Why would they join? They get all the support that comes with NATO without having to join. Why buy the cow, when you can get the milk for free?
 
What if Israel never gets its own nuclear deterrent? If Saddam hits Israel even harder with Scuds (maybe some of them have chemical tips?) during the Gulf War, they might ask to join NATO as part of a big package deal involving a Palestinian state, with a permanent NATO presence on their soil including American nuclear missiles. To be honest, they might end up doing that in the future as part of a deal in giving up their own nukes.
 
What if Israel never gets its own nuclear deterrent? If Saddam hits Israel even harder with Scuds (maybe some of them have chemical tips?) during the Gulf War, they might ask to join NATO as part of a big package deal involving a Palestinian state, with a permanent NATO presence on their soil including American nuclear missiles. To be honest, they might end up doing that in the future as part of a deal in giving up their own nukes.
Officially Israel has no nuclear deterrent. Although they definitely have the capability the stance by Israel is that they do not have Nuclear Arms.
 
What if Israel never gets its own nuclear deterrent? If Saddam hits Israel even harder with Scuds (maybe some of them have chemical tips?) during the Gulf War, they might ask to join NATO as part of a big package deal involving a Palestinian state, with a permanent NATO presence on their soil including American nuclear missiles. To be honest, they might end up doing that in the future as part of a deal in giving up their own nukes.

Israel has a deterrent, even Saddam realizes the stupidity of trying to win a "who can drop more destructive firepower on the other first" with Israel in Iraq's position. Chemical weapons against coalition troops? Maybe, but Saddam also has to realize that pushing the envelope that far will forfeit his chances of remaining in power... then again he bothered to attack Kuwait in the first place, we aren't dealing with a clever leader here.

Actually, they neither confirm nor deny these allegations, which makes things even trickier.


The official stance of the Israeli government is that they have no nuclear weapons. Though the whole Mordecai Vanunu incident back in the 80's sort of made that the worst-kept secret in the Israeli government, for all we know Vanunu was a leak the Mossad deliberately allowed to happen so as to quietly, but unofficially inform Israel's enemies of what they were up against.

People know they have them, and Saddam definitely knew they had them, there are a few reasons the Arab-Israel Conflict has shifted to a fight of Israel vs. Arab-backed proxies among the Palestinians, the Israelis having a way to go all Sodom and Gomorrah on people who mess with them is among those reasons.
 
I could see it happening if Israel were at peace with all its neighbors and if the occupation didn't exist.

So let's say the '67 war doesn't occur. Israel and the surrounding Arab states muddle through the next couple of decades, by which point the '47 lines have become near permanent, and perhaps by the late '80s or '90s, Israel normalizes relations with all its neighbors. The '47 lines largely determine the borders, although minor adjustments are made to the Syrian lines, and some modifications to the border with the West Bank. Jordan maintains the West Bank, Egypt annexes Gaza and provides it some autonomy. In Jerusalem, the Old City becomes an international zone governed jointly by the UN, Israel, and Jordan, while access to holy sites is permitted and the borders opened.

Perhaps in this scenario, Israel joins NATO in the '90s or early '00s. Maybe it even joins the EU.
 
If "Israel" is instead created in Central Europe out of some portion of Germany then it seems to happen automatically. That is if it doesn't join the WP...
 
Perhaps Israel could then join CENTO, and when CENTO folds Israel could transfer into NATO alongside its old CENTO Ally Turkey. CENTO members weren't Israel's neighbours so they're a bit removed from the most violent hatred.
 
the effectiveness of israel's nuclear arsenal is by no means certain.....
they can't test their designs with live warheads......
 

Tovarich

Banned
the effectiveness of israel's nuclear arsenal is by no means certain.....
they can't test their designs with live warheads......

Isn't it the case that some nukes, at least in the KT rather than MT range, are so simple they don't actually need testing?
I think I've read 'Little Boy' was one such, the US never bothered testing it first.
 
Isn't it the case that some nukes, at least in the KT rather than MT range, are so simple they don't actually need testing?
I think I've read 'Little Boy' was one such, the US never bothered testing it first.

well, true, but it was a gun type design....comparatively simple compared to arranging dozens of explosive charges around a sphere of uranium or plutonium.....
gun type designs are inefficient....little boy utilized exactly 1% of it's fissile materials to produce a 20 somethingish kiloton explosion.....most got wasted....
gun type weapons are only useful for miniaturization to artillery rounds.....and for proliferation:eek:
 
The Vela incident is assumed to be an Israeli nuclear test, but in any event the design of nuclear weapons was well enough know by 1970ish that a full test isn't absolutely needed. Subcritical tests (tickling the dragons tail) and tests of all other non nuclear components are enough to provide confidence in weapons up to boosted fission level.
 
Actually, they neither confirm nor deny these allegations, which makes things even trickier.

Israeli PM confirmed it but everybody pretends he didn't.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6170845.stm

What if Israel never gets its own nuclear deterrent? If Saddam hits Israel even harder with Scuds (maybe some of them have chemical tips?) during the Gulf War, they might ask to join NATO as part of a big package deal involving a Palestinian state, with a permanent NATO presence on their soil including American nuclear missiles. To be honest, they might end up doing that in the future as part of a deal in giving up their own nukes.

Stationing foreign troops is something Israel doesn't want and in history did it only twice (1956, 1991). Incidetly both times it was same type of troops (air defence).
 
With a POD no earlier than 1948, could Israel become a member of NATO?

That would have simplified things... if done say in 1995 in concurrence with effective peace accords with Palestine, recognized as an independent state.
Their forces would be useful for peacekeeping duty in the Balkans, Haiti or Subsaharan Africa. Everywhere but in the Middle East.
 
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