NETANYAHU: 'WE MUST NOT RELY ON OTHERS TO KEEP US SAFE. ONLY WE CAN PROTECT OURSELVES'

Netanyahu: John Kerry Wanted ‘Afghanistan Model’ for Palestinians, I Refused the Offer

 

Israel Today 

August 18, 2021

 

 

 

With the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, despite a decade of American efforts to build a strong central government and military force there, many are wondering what are the lessons for Israel.

Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he already learned those lessons long before the debacle in Kabul last week, and prevented the Americans from repeating them here.

“In 2013, I was approached by then-US Secretary of State John Kerry to quietly visit Afghanistan to see, according to him, how the United States had built a local military force that could stand on its own against terrorism,” Netanyahu posted to Facebook on Wednesday.

He said the clear message from the Americans was that they’d like to replicate the “Afghanistan Model” among the Palestinians, as a means of facilitating a final status peace agreement that Israel could accept.

“I politely refused the offer,” continued Netanyahu. “I foresaw that once the US leaves Afghanistan, everything would collapse. And this is what we now unfortunately see, an extremist Islamic regime that will endanger world peace has taken over Afghanistan.”

The exact same thing will happen if the Palestinians are granted full sovereignty, warned Bibi. “The Palestinians will not establish Singapore. They will establish a terrorist state in Judea and Samaria, a short distance from Tel Aviv,” he stressed.

At the end of the day, Netanyahu insisted, “we must not rely on others to keep us safe. Only we can protect ourselves.”