Ronald Lauder, writing in the German newspaper Die Welt, called for Israel to be admitted into the Western alliance NATO: "Israel needs real guarantees for its security. European NATO member states – including Turkey – must admit the state of Israel into the Western alliance," the WJC president wrote. He referred to the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia and said they were reminders of how "unpredictable" developments in the Middle East were. Israeli NATO membership "would send a strong signal to other countries not to take on Israel", Lauder argued.