Taliban Wants Relations With Israel?!
Bombshell report cites Taliban official who suggests Afghanistan could one day soon board the Abraham Accords train.
The name Taliban is for many in the West synonymous with Islamic terrorism. The Afghan group is in the minds of most inextricably linked to Al Qaeda, which it hosted for years in the mountains of Central Asia.
So it comes as something of a shock that Taliban is now signaling that it is open to establishing relations with the State of Israel.
Speaking with Israel’s i24News last week, an unnamed Afghan official with ties to the Taliban government said certain elements within the group want to begin establishing preliminary ties to the Jewish state.
“In the preliminary stages, they are interested in establishing confidential relations with the intent of seeing these negotiations bear fruit in years or even a decade,” said the source, noting that the end goal is full blown diplomatic relations.
Taliban sees itself as at least somewhat isolated, and knows it must forge relations with regional powers to survive.
“They want to empower and sustain their regime. Therefore, they need to form strong relations with superpowers in the region, and they see Israel as a strong influencer,” explained the Afghan source.
It was the signing of the Abraham Accords and Israel’s normalization of relations with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain that apparently got the Taliban members thinking.
“Some Muslim countries made ties with Israel because it is in their national interest, and we also have our own national interest,” the source added.
i24News recalled that a month ago a senior Taliban government official told Al Jazeera that his group and Afghanistan as a whole doesn’t really have a problem with Israel.
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