Hommam Al Nassim 
The Financial Times reported on Friday that the United States invited the foreign ministers of Israel and a number of Arab countries to attend the NATO summit in Washington next month.
The newspaper quoted a NATO official as saying: “Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg invited the heads of state and government of all thirty-two allies, in addition to the leaders of our partners in the Indo-Pacific region.”
The United States invited the foreign ministers of as many as 31 countries that have partnerships with the alliance, including Japan, Australia, and South Korea, and among the Arab invitees were Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain.
According to analysts for the newspaper, including some Arab countries and Israel in the summit “is a way for the United States to clarify its value as a societal power and the benefits of its multilateral alliances.”
“This has been a long-term vision and ambition of many American administrations to build some version of an Arab NATO,” said Jonathan Lord, director of the Middle East Security Program at the Center for a New American Security think tank in Washington, noting that “giving people a shaky tour of the benefits and advantages of… “This kind of multilateral alliance is probably the most important message.”
The Arab NATO is an American idea that is renewed from time to time under the name “Middle East Strategic Alliance,” and the international media described it as an Arab version of NATO.
It is noteworthy that NATO on Wednesday appointed outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte (57 years old) as the new Secretary-General of the Alliance, who will take office on October 1.
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