Israeli Officials Are ‘Alarmed’ by US Withdrawal From Afghanistan

Quitting forever occupations? Unthinkable

RETIRED COLONEL KOBI MARON SPEAKING ON I24 NEWS ABOUT THE DANGERS OF AMERICAN WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN IN PROJECTING “WEAKNESS” IN THE MIDDLE EAST. SEPT. 3, 2021.

Israeli officials have reacted with “alarm” to the images of the United States leaving Afghanistan, arguing that the U.S. has empowered Israel’s enemies, according to an expert observer. Some say the withdrawal shows why Israel can never leave the occupied Palestinian territories.

Bottom line– The American “Forever war” is still getting raves in Israel.

Israeli government leaders have been careful not to be very vocal about that view. Though Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said two days ago that the U.S. withdrawal could “hugely” impact the battle with al-Qaeda.

Officials speaking privately are more forthcoming. Neri Zilber, an Israeli journalist associated with the Israel lobby group the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the Israel Policy Forum yesterday that he had heard “surprise, shock, and alarm” from ordinary Israelis.

“Israelis don’t like to regard their closest ally, the United States, as being defeated, as being almost humiliated. So that was the general vibe. You had Israelis texting me… quite shocked to see what happened– as I think all of us were.”

“Israeli officials also viewed it with a bit of alarm but not hysteria,” Zilber said. “There is concern in Israeli quarters about what it might mean for Israel’s enemies and America’s enemies.” Israelis worry that the withdrawal will embolden Iran and Hezbollah, he said.

“The whole notion of deterrence and what lessons Iran and ISIS and other bad actors in the Middle East closer to Israel draw from the US Afghanistan story and the 20 year campaign that just ended .. it will be interesting to see if that’s the lesson that bad actors actually draw from Afghanistan.”

The same notion of “bad actors” and enemies was voiced today on the Israeli channel, i24 News. Retired Colonel Kobi Maron said the American withdrawal “projects weakness” and that Iranian officials “sense a lack of determination” on America’s part.

“Those tough pictures [from the Kabul airport] affect Israeli deterrence and American deterrence across the Middle East.”

These claims about the effectiveness of military prowess also touch on Israel’s 54-year-long occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Gaza.

Zilber said that the U.S. withdrawal and the restoration of Taliban control of the country has become a “talking point of the Israeli right…We can’t agree for such an arrangement with the West Bank… Withdrawal from the West Bank should never be countenanced, considered seriously.”

Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu made this point last month.

An extremist Islamic regime has conquered Afghanistan and will transform it into a terrorist state which will endanger world peace.

“We would achieve the same result if, God forbid, we handed over control of the homeland to the Palestinians. They would establish a terrorist state in Judea and Samaria.”

Netanyahu isn’t be the only one. The Bennett government is committed to opposing a Palestinian state. And Israeli president Isaac Herzog, a darling of liberal Zionists, lately toured West Bank Jewish outposts and praised them as representing the essence of Jewish history.

Zilber rejects the Afghanistan analogy, in part because the Palestinian Authority shares the Israeli government’s objective of fighting Islamic Jihad and Hamas in the West Bank.

The Bennett government has adopted a policy different from the Netanyahu government, of trying to make life better economically for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, he said. That includes 15,000 work permits for Palestinians to work in Israel and family reunification permits for Palestinian families divided by the occupation between the West Bank and Gaza.

The American government is pushing this agenda with the hope that such “confidence building measures might be a stepping stone to renewed and actual peace talks,” Zilber said. Not any time soon, of course…

Source: Mondoweiss

13 Comments
  1. yuri says

    another amerikan defeat matters to Israel? until the 3.8$ billion per year in bribes are no longer paid by US to Israel each year why would they care?

  2. Séamus says

    Another nail in the coffin of the genocidal policies of the US,UK,Israel. If Israel persists in its murderous, unintelligent hatred, it may well get what it has consistently lied about after ww11….anyhow another three years at most and goodbye Israel.

    1. ken says

      They’ve turned those genocidal policies inward to their own populations using their new weapon, Sars2. Check out Australia and NZ. Look at what their fighting for ‘freedum’ got them!

      You can’t keep a genocidal killer down!

  3. GMC says

    In other words – the Israelis were also heavy into running the opium rackett.

    1. Mr Reynard says

      Heavy in to running opium racket ??
      Yupp.. It was like the Opium War again, but this time flooding the western market & not China ….

  4. ken says

    That war was costing a couple billion fedbux a day. And now Israel feels a little threatened because their lean and mean rottweiler is now old, broke and not so mean.

    Anyone see or hear of Israel helping financially? From what I gather,,, they just take… and take,,,, and take… ad nausea.

    Anyone remember the dancing Israeli’s on nienleven?

    Nobodies stopping these braggarts from taking over Afghanistan. Go for it, big guy!

    1. Raptar Driver says

      That’s the scam they are fake jews, fake Hebrews.
      They are the chosen you must give to them they do not give to you?

      1. dr. Jack V. B. says

        Apperently this “jew” nothing more than a KHAZARIAN decended, khazarian king “bulad” coverted this herd to judaism. Nothing to do with abraham, nor such as israel. A heatred buch of racist, brainwashed fake gang…

        1. Raptar Driver says

          Agreed.

  5. yuri says

    machiavelli, Livy etc observed that as virtue disappears servitude becomes harsher (angloshere)…as dying empires lose all wars prestige diminishes and colonies strengthen and/or switch allies…as he wrote–gold never wins a war…obviously amerikans believe differently. they spend more on their military than the next 12 largest militaries combined…you cannot fix stupidity

  6. paschn says

    Hey, just have AIPAC contact their tools in D.C. telling em to get their butts back into those poppy fields before the cost increases to the kosher pharmaceutical companies.
    You know… the companies who brought opioid addiction to a town near you?

  7. Dave says

    Funny how often we still see articles mentioning “ISIS” as the enemy, yet the US and Israel created and supports them for the overthrow of Assad in Syria.
    From these perpetual wars that benefit Israel, to this hoax flu designed to shred our rights, each and every TV report and article in the mainstream news is a lie
    ALL of it.

  8. Mark Twain says

    Just another Jew war like all the wars in the Middle East

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