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US policy changes leave Israel alone against Iran

Israel is suddenly facing a new reality in which the Iranians are free to attack Saudi infrastructure and the Turks attack Kurds in Syria.
An Israeli soldier stands near the Quneitra crossing in the Golan Heights on the border line between Israel and Syria, October 15, 2018. REUTERS/Amir Cohen - RC1FD4BF4A00
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finally found time to react to the Turkish invasion of northern Syria, condemning it in a politically correct tweet Oct. 10. While he warned of the “ethnic cleansing of the Kurds by Turkey and its proxies,” he made no mention of how the United States had abandoned northern Syria, the issue reverberating most loudly across the Middle East and in the corridors of Israel’s worried defense establishment.

It took Netanyahu three long days to release his feeble condemnation of the Turkish attack. They were three very difficult days, as befits the difficult process of waking up about President Donald Trump. The president’s surprising announcement that the United States would immediately withdraw from Syria, followed by the no less sudden Turkish invasion of the Kurdish region, dealt the death blow to Israel’s hopes and expectations regarding its northern front.

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