Netanyahu entertains court by recounting John Kerry’s invitation to Afghanistan

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s court testimony Tuesday in his criminal trial inevitably touched on some of the more unusual aspects of his relationships with businessmen and media moguls that are at the heart of the charges against him.

Netanyahu, however, was careful to highlight what he presented as his tireless dedication to the service of the State of Israel, with particular emphasis on his ability, according to him, to resist external pressures, notably those from the United States. , as well as what he perceives as biased trends in the Israeli press.

One particularly colorful anecdote he shared with the court concerned a secret invitation to visit Afghanistan from the US president and his secretary of state.

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After asking an easy question, defense lawyer Amit Hadad asked the prime minister to detail the many state affairs he handled during his tenure. Netanyahu responded by emphasizing that the arrival of the Obama administration had posed a major challenge to his policies.

He described Barack Obama’s efforts to strengthen ties with the Muslim world, including what he called the US president’s “appeasement speech” in Cairo in 2009. According to Netanyahu, Obama considered Iran not as a threat, but as a country with which it was possible to establish relations.

The prime minister also addressed what he described as Obama’s less-than-warm approach toward Israel, including the president’s explicit demand not to allow “a single brick” of construction in Israeli settlements, while he sought to define a path forward in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

“There was a demand for a total freeze on construction in the settlements. The pressure was enormous,” Netanyahu said in court.

“There were also internal pressures [en Israël] to encourage this goal, whether in the press or elsewhere,” he continued, adding that he had been forced to agree to a ten-month settlement freeze, while US Secretary of State John Kerry came to the area “with all sorts of plans.”

Among those plans was a U.S. program to train Palestinian security forces to combat terrorist organizations, aiming to allay Israel’s fears of a withdrawal of its forces from the West Bank.

“We were told that we could leave the territories [la Cisjordanie] because the Americans were training the Palestinians,” Netanyahu told the court.

“John Kerry also suggested that I make a secret visit to Afghanistan to observe how the Americans were training local Afghan forces,” he continued.

Netanyahu said he told Kerry the plan was a bad idea.

“I said to him, ‘John, I want to tell you something — the minute you leave Afghanistan, the forces you’re building will collapse under the pressure of the Islamists.’ »

“We can’t afford something like that here,” he reportedly told the US secretary of state.

The United States has invested tens of billions of dollars in training Afghan forces. But in mid-2021, after the withdrawal of US troops, the Taliban launched a major offensive in Afghanistan, regaining power in late summer.

Netanyahu said his attitude toward Kerry had generated “horrible coverage” in the press and noted that the Obama administration’s approach to Israel had been one of the major challenges he had faced during his tenure as president. Prime Minister.