President Trump
Donald Trump’s attorneyEx-Trump Cohen will indicate the impeachment book Murkowski says it would be “appropriate” to prevent Trump from taking office again. ordered the Pentagon to include Israel in the United States military command structure for the Middle East, the Department of Defense (DOD) confirmed on Friday, a major change that should reflect a reduction in tensions between Israel and several Arab countries.
The move, which comes as Trump prepares to leave the White House next week, means that Israel will be transferred from the U.S. European Command to the U.S. Central Command (Centcom), which oversees U.S. military policy involving Arab nations. Israel for decades was grouped with European countries due to the animosity between Israel and some Arab countries.
“DOD reviews the [Unified Command Plan] every two years and reassesses all limits and relationships with the operating environment. We have structured limits to better mitigate risks and protect US interests and partners, ”the Pentagon said in a statement.
The easing of tensions between Israel and its Arab neighbors brought about by the recent “Abraham Agreements” “provided a strategic opportunity for the United States to align key partners against shared threats in the Middle East” and “will open up additional opportunities for cooperation with our Command partners. Central America ”, adds the statement.
The change was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Securing peace agreements between Israel and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa has been one of the top priorities of the Trump administration’s foreign policy in its final days.
The US helped to organize agreements to normalize ties between Jerusalem and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan in agreements that mark the first such agreements between Israel and any Arab country since the 1994 pact with Jordan. The pacts were dubbed Abraham Agreements according to the biblical figure honored in both Judaism and Islam
Pro-Israel groups have long pressured the country’s move to Centcom to encourage cooperation between Middle Eastern countries against Iran.
The Jewish Institute for National Security of America in November asked for the relocation, as it “would send a strong message of deterrence of unity and continue the US commitment to regional leadership” as well as “facilitate the way for the Pentagon to use more Israel to regional operations. ”
It remains to be seen whether the change will promote such cooperation. Israelis still have a long-standing unresolved dispute with the Palestinians. And Jerusalem still needs to normalize relations with its southern neighbor, Saudi Arabia, the region’s most important Arab nation.