IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kochavi (r) led an honor guard to receive the new CENTCOM commander, General Michael Kurilla, May 18, 2022. (IDF/Twitter)
Trump decided to move Israel from EUCOM to CENTCOM, giving the Jewish State equal standing among Middle Eastern nations.
By Vered Weiss, World Israel News
The arrival of CENTCOM general Michael Kurilla to Israel and other countries in the Middle East demonstrates how Trump’s change in policy is still implemented after he left office and continues to protect the Jewish State, observes Joel B. Pollack of Breitbart.
CENTCOM is an organization governing US military forces in the Middle East.
Before Donald Trump took office as US President, Israel was in the category of EUCOM or the US European Command.
Israel’s placement in EUCOM not only didn’t make geographic sense, but it also put Israel at a disadvantage to other Middle Eastern countries that CENTCOM covered.
Pressure from Arab nations hostile to Israel influenced previous US administrations to place Israel in EUCOM rather than CENTCOM.
However, the success of the Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states and aggression from Iran encouraged a desire to cooperate with Israel.
In January 2021, before leaving office, Trump decided to move Israel from EUCOM to CENTCOM.
Although US President Biden had reversed some of Trump’s Middle Eastern policies, including categorizing the Houthis as a terrorist group, he allowed Israel to remain the category of CENTCOM.
Gen. Erik Kurilla, commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), arrived in the Middle East on Saturday amid tensions arising from Iran’s threat to attack Israel in retaliation for the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Kurilla’s visit will focus on building a multilateral defensive alliance similar to the one that neutralized most of Iran’s missiles launched into Israel in April.
Kurilla is expected to visit several Gulf states, Jordan and Israel. Amman is an essential stop because King Abdullah II was pivotal during the April 13 onslaught.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “has ordered adjustments to U.S. military posture designed to improve U.S. force protection, to increase support for the defense of Israel, and to ensure the United States is prepared to respond to various contingencies,” the Pentagon statement from deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said.
Austin ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group to replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group.
“The secretary has also ordered the deployment of an additional fighter squadron to the Middle East, reinforcing our defensive air support capability,” said Singh.
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