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.

  • ShadowRam@fedia.io
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    WTF does NATO have anything to do with Israel or Palestine?!

    WTF would leaving NATO have any effect on Israel or Palestine?!

    WTF are these people even on about?

    NATO’s “complicity with Israel’s military while it’s conducting its genocide in Gaza

    NATO isn’t helping Israel… (while some NATO members might be, that’s not NATO)

    It’s not NATO’s job to get involved with with Israel or Palestine…

    • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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      Organizers and people arrested should be put on a plane and given a tour through Ukraines east… to see with their own eyes. Too many people seem to be unaware why a counterforce to Russia was created in the first place.

      Arguing against NATO for the reasons they state just means more people will suffer like the Palestinians do.

      • solo@slrpnk.netOP
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        1 year ago

        Arguing against NATO for the reasons they state just means more people will suffer like the Palestinians do.

        I don’t know why you say this. NATO has been supporting Israel, not Palestine

        • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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          That was not my point. NATO is a stabilizing force. If you remove it, Russia and others will just go on the war path and more people will suffer…

          I acknowledge the suffering of the Palestinians and think that needs to stop. In the past I argued that the war crime angle against Netanyahu should be picked up by the icc… and now they ruled there is enough evidence to issue an arrest warrant.

          But NATO does not support these atrocities. Countries in NATO do… but how does the NATO organisation do that?

          This seems to be of the same mold as “the UN does not do anything but talk” yeah… the UN is a talking organisation… that’s their goal… keep people in dialogue and serve as a platform to hopefully have member countries do stuff.

          NATO is a defense alliance… member countries not actively doing something against Israëls agression does not mean that it would be up to NATO to do something.

          • solo@slrpnk.netOP
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            I’ll try to put things into some historical perspective, as briefly as I can.

            NATO was supposed to be a stabilizing force against the Soviet Bloc. During the cold war that was the rational.

            Some claim that it was a tool to confirm and maintain US military hegemony and I tend to agree with this take. After approx 1993, through its interventions this started to be more and more obvious, especially to those living in the global South.

              • barsoap@lemm.ee
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                NATO didn’t go to war with Iraq, the coalition of the willing did. NATO got involved later on with a mission to train the Iraqi army but that’s a footnote, also, not actual combat.

                Afghanistan was a NATO war, triggered by the US invoking Article 5. NATO also intervened in Yugoslavia. Everyone was pretty much genociding everyone there, massacres left and right, but the Serbs had a disproportionate amount of military resources and were able to do systematic genocide which prompted the intervention. And please for your own sanity ignore anything Chomsky has to say about the thing he’s still calling concentration camps refugee shelters. “CIA says something so the opposite must be true” brainworms.

                • barsoap@lemm.ee
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                  It’s not a benevolent alliance between partners, it’s a vassal-overlord relationship,

                  Why do I only hear that kind of thing from Americans with their penchant for exceptionalism, or vatniks.

                  You could see just how much control the US has over NATO by the amount of states telling them to pound sand when it came to Vietnam, when it came to Iraq.

                • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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                  Well that’s a constructive answer, and not even a good one. Maybe spend a little less time in your echo chambers and look at all factors of conflicts instead of US bad… rest is irrelevant.

            • NeuronautML@lemmy.ml
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              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.

        • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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          Haha, no… the USSR made themselves go bankrupt and caused the country to devolve until it was no longer viable all the while genociding their own population. You’ve got some revisionist history on your shirt.

      • Encephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win
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        Because Canada has no reason to be concerned about Russian aggression? Isn’t literally right next door to them? Doesn’t regularly intercept russian incursions into Canadian airspace? Has nothing to be concerned about regarding the NW passage and Arctic expansion?

        Straight up Russian propaganda you’re selling here.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    Yeah, I’m sure Canada not being allied with a bunch of other naval powers would be a lot better for the residents of Монреаль in the long run.

  • acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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    Russia sponsored protest gets reported by local news, after the break.

    They could have protested against the involvement of Canada in the war (is there any?), against Israel, in favor of a Palestine state…

  • takeda@lemmy.world
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    Looks like Russia is bout wasting time and once again uses their distinguishers network.

    Remember trucker blockages of supply routes they did right before the full invasion?

  • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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    Glad to see all the genocide sympathizers are out here in force, playing apologist for Russia.

  • rbesfe@lemmy.ca
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    Disappointed that this happened at all, but the fact that it was only 80 people is a plus. Seems like it’s just a small group of terminally online agitators.

  • maplebar@lemmy.world
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    Expert level challenge: hit a bong every time someone blames the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on some party who isn’t even fucking involved…

    God forbid we ever acknowledge the basic truth that the two most culpable parties responsible for the ~80 years of war are, unsurprisingly to many, Israel and Palestine for empowering the worst possible political leaders on both sides. Netanyahu and Hams got the violence and anger that they always wanted and have been working towards for most of our lives, and somehow that’s NATO’s fault in the peabrain’s shallow mind.

    NATO is the main thing keeping the western world and democratic ideology safe from countries like Russia, Iran and China. Is this another thing we’re gonna throw under the bus for no reason other than some vague, nonsensical whining about Gaza?

    • kaffiene@lemmy.world
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      Nah. The US has blood all over it’s hands Re Gaza. Agreed that blaming NATO is nonsense

    • GingaNinga@lemmy.world
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      Its important for countries to work together. Could we do better? absolutely but things are worse off when we try to go it on our own, I don’t understand the point of all this isolationism.

      • bdonvr@thelemmy.club
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        Sure but maybe we could have an organization that doesn’t support Genocide and imperialism like NATO

        • Encephalotrocity@biglemmowski.win
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          How does NATO support genocide and imperialism?

          Edit: they’ve started posting other comments elsewhere since this ask which tells me they don’t actually believe the BS they’re spewing.

        • GingaNinga@lemmy.world
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          Thats fair. So is the solution giving up and leaving or working day by day to try to make change and improve the situation? Its a little bit smarter to put pressure on our representatives. Protests should revolve around people who have the power to make these changes. Its slow and frustrating but works, they’ll cave if they’re on the unpopular side of an issue. These organizations are too important to just throw away.

  • MisterD@lemmy.ca
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    Send them to fight in Ukraine. Let them pick a side too.

    When they ask why, tell them this is what would happen if there was no NATO. They would be drafted into the war. Just like in WW2.

    • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.world
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      Oh, I think we all know which side they would fight if given the choice. They would twerk for ‘Daddy Vladi’.

      • _cryptagion [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.comBanned from community
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        The problem would sort itself out pretty quickly then. Tankies are what you would refer to as полезные дураки, or useful idiots. If Putin doesn’t care about sending full blooded Russians to die in meat grinder assaults against fortified positions, then he sure as hell wouldn’t give a shit about a bunch of western groupies who want to cosplay the USSR. Most of the idiots on Lemmy.ml and Hexbear wouldn’t last more than a week, I would wager.

      • Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works
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        It’s a military and imperialist organization lol. I’ll give you a detailled reply but will also return the question: what good had NATO done exaclty?

        From my Canadian perspective, NATO pressures Canada to increase military spending to 2% of GDP. Meanwhile we are in the middle of the biggest housing crisis of the past 50 years, but our (most probably) next prime minister will inject billions in the army.

        NATO has supported Israel intervention on multiple occasion. Although they have timidly requested a ceasefire, they continue the official discourse on “the right to defend oneself”.

        NATO has embarked on numerous interventions over the past 30 years, notably the "war against terrorism” and wars in Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria… All with great results /s

        NATO isn’t doing shit for Ukraine.

        Your turn!

      • PumpkinSkink@lemmy.world
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        I get why in this momement where Ukraine appears to be dependent on NATO support, and where it seems like NATO is required to counterbalence Russia, why people would support the existence of it. But, it is absolutely a tool of US global hegemonic power. The US has committed some incredibly horrific acts to secure its position as sole global super power and NATO as a tool to develop and maintain that power has been used to that end, and will continue to be used in that way. We should not confuse tools of imperial power projection to be a good thing.

        • takeda@lemmy.world
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          No war since WW2 for 80 years. The full invasion of Ukraine happened, because putin was convinced NATO was too weak.

          • Not_mikey@slrpnk.net
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            No war in western europe*

            And that is mostly due to mutually assured destruction and decolonization and the destruction of European imperial ambitions. If these grand entangling alliances prevented war then WWI wouldn’t have happened. If nukes weren’t a thing then nato would probably be a factor contributing towards another world war rather then preventing it.

            • takeda@lemmy.world
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              No war in countries that joined NATO. #2 goal of NATO is to be prepared to fight enemy together when attacked. #1 goal of NATO is to discourage war, because it’s you attack one NATO country, you start war with 32 countries.

          • Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works
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            No war since 80 years?!? Did I miss something or do you just choose to exclude Irak, Afghanistan, Syria, Bosnia? I guess that wars that do not directly affect the comfort of Westerners are not ‘real’ wars.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NATO_operations

            NATO and the USA basically destroyed Afghanistan and left all of the women of in the hands of barbarians, but fuck them I guess. 20 years of interventions and the situation is worse for everyone except Talibans, thanks NATO!

            And again, NATO isn’t doing shit in Ukraine.

            • takeda@lemmy.world
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              NATO is a defensive alliance, but it also standardizes weapons, equipment and command.

              The only time when NATO article 5 was actually invoked was Afghanistan after 9/11. The other times it was mostly UN missions where individual countries volunteered to take part. NATO command was used, because it helped to work with multi national presence.

              • Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works
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                I’m asking the question again: What good exactly did NATO do in Afghanistan during 20 years? Bring democracy? Was it the plan all all along to leave a bunch of weapons and the control of the country to the Taliban? You’re aware that girls don’t have the right to go to school anymore, and often get forced into marriage at 12? Is that what NATO is for?

                Are you people just defending NATO because Trump said bad things about it? I’m genuinely curious, since when “leftys” started to cheers for NATO? I’m guessing this is mostly a US thing since being left in this country is basically being center-right in the rest of world.

                And just to clarify before being call a tankie, I think Putin is an evil manipulative piece of shit and I can’t wait for him to die (I hope he suffers a lot) so I can take a piss on his grave.

                • ManixT@lemmy.world
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                  Countries that were subjected to Russian genocide and imperialism place great importance on NATO membership, especially since Russia is doing it all over again. Preventing death and loss of sovereignty is a very real benefit of NATO.

                • nao@sh.itjust.works
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                  since when “leftys” started to cheers for NATO?

                  If living in a nato country means you were able to live in peace for the past decades, I can see why people would like that, regardless of them leaning left or right.

              • Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works
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                You left off the “in Europe” part.

                There is no in Europe in the original comment. “No was since ww2 since 80 years old”.

                If anyone had asked me, the first option would have been my choice.

                Yeah, no one asked you and the US stayed there for 20 years.

                And it was Donald Trump who surrendered the Afghan people,

                Nah it was Biden lol. Pretty much he first thing he did when he got elected. Jeez do you even have wikipedia?

                But I don’t believe that you’re really all that torn up about the fate of Afghan women.

                Fuck off, don’t try to think for me. It’s not because YOU don’t care that nobody does.

                It just feeds your anti-NATO narrative.

                Yeah, I’m anti-NATO lol, and this is one of the reason. Why dont you pro-nato give me some fucking example of what good this organization? Wanna talk about Lybia, how sudden

                Why would they be? Ukraine is not a NATO country.

                Exactly. So Putin can fuck up the entire planet, NATO wont do shit as long as none of the members are directly attacked. Great organization.

                Now do you want to talk about Libya? How Gaddafi was best friend with all the NATO leaders until one day they changed their mind, pushed him away, and send financial sharks to “rebuild” the country.

                Again, I suspect this NATO enthusiasm is a US thing since I have never met someone from the left who was cheering for an imperialist military organization that’s only there to serves the economic interest of the west.