Anti-NATO protesters gathered again in Montreal on Saturday to demand Canada withdraw from the alliance, a day after a demonstration organized by different groups resulted in arrests, burned cars and shattered windows.
the purpose of the protest was to demonstrate against what he called NATO’s “complicity with Israel’s military while it’s conducting its genocide in Gaza, … war crimes in Lebanon, Syria” and that “it’s enforcing illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.”
However, Allard rejected accusations of antisemitism. He said the protests were against the actions of the state of Israel and not Jewish people, adding that earlier this week the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Yes, those are US bootlickers stating their verbal support, but NATO cannot participate in Palestine because to deploy NATO forces article 5 must be invoked by a member country and it must be in response to an attack on said member country. That is the core principle of the treaty. It’s a self defense treaty, of which Israel is not a part of.
If any country participates in the genocide of the Palestinian people, they do so of their own volition and not at the behest of NATO. Canada leaving NATO or NATO being dissolved would have no bearing whatsoever on the Israeli genocide. The shared NATO membership may foster relationships and cooperation on extra treaty operations, but these are not NATO operations. To be a NATO operation, it has to be an article 5 operation or some operation mandated by the UN, and while the latter has happened, it was highly controversial that it did, as it was beyond the scope of the NATO treaty.
This protest demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what NATO is or how it works and ultimately even if they got what they wanted, which they won’t, it wouldn’t have accomplished what they were aiming for. The fundamental difference between a NATO operation and an operation of NATO member countries not consecrated in the treaty, is that the former is required to remain in NATO and the latter is completely voluntary.