Taliban spokesman gave interview to Israeli media, then repented and gave unusual excuse

The Taliban said they unknowingly gave an interview to Israeli media on Tuesday, in which they asserted that minorities, including the so-called last Jew living in Afghanistan, would not be persecuted under their rule.

Suhail shaheen, spokesperson for the Taliban in the negotiations in Qatar, assured in a telephone interview with the Israeli state television channel may that members of minorities would be safe, in the midst of Growing skepticism about the behavior the insurgent group will maintain after taking power.

Shaheen later said that, if he had known it was Israeli media, he would not have granted the interview.

“I have many interviews with journalists every day after the fall of the provincial capitals of Afghanistan and the capital Kabul to the benefit of the Islamic Emirate, some journalists may have infiltrated, but I was not interviewed by anybody coming from an Israeli media “he wrote on Twitter, suggesting he had been misled.

King Kais, the reporter who spoke to the Taliban spokesman, said that “We identify ourselves as the news channel may, but we are not emphasizing that we are an Israeli media. “

During the interview, Shaheen assured that the Afghan population “must not be afraid and flee. Application of Sharia [la ley islámica] This does not mean that people will die, but that there will be more peace and stability ”.

“We want to make sure there is no damage to property or to life, and that everyone leads normal lives.”Shaheen added.

Shaheen is not in the presidential palace occupied in Kabul after the US withdrawal, but in the Qatari capital, where negotiations between the insurgent group and the Afghan government were taking place.

The spokesperson tried to send a reassuring message to the population: “I don’t understand why people are running away, nothing is happening here. It is not based on reality. In the past, Americans fought for 20 years. It was an occupation that the Afghan people did not want, they wanted freedom and not oppression “, He said.

At the same time, Shaheen assured that the Taliban are interested in good relations with the world. “There is a lot of destruction in the country, people have suffered in a war that has lasted 20 years ”, of. “We want help to rebuild the country and we also want there to be freedom “. Added that “We hope the Americans will come here and get along with us.”

On the other hand, in the interview that the Israeli media, the Taliban spokesman also denied cooperation with Palestinian terror group Hamas: “If they congratulated us on freedom and the end of the occupation, that’s good, but we have no cooperation with Hamas in any area. We only fight the occupation in Afghanistan. Whoever congratulates us on our independence, I thank you, ”he declared.

The last Jew in Afghanistan

Shaheen was also asked what will be the attitude of the Taliban towards minorities in Afghanistan, included Zevulun Simantov, the last Jew is said to have gone to Kabul.

“I don’t know the last JewShaheen said, but emphasized: “We are not harming minorities. There are Sikhs and Hindus in the country, and they can practice their religion. “

Jewish presence in Afghanistan dates back to the 7th century. Although several thousand Jews, some say tens of thousands, lived in Afghanistan in the early 1900s, persecution by successive governments forced them to flee virtually all of the country, leaving Simentov as the sole representative of the community in the midst of the 2000s.

Simentov, who runs Kabul’s only active synagogue, he originally announced in April that he would be leaving Afghanistan to join his family in Israel.

However, according to Indian media WIONon Tuesday he said he would not be leaving.

“I will not leave my house. If I had left, there would have been no one to maintain the synagogue. “, He said. “I had the opportunity to go to the United States, but I gave up.

Returning to Afghanistan in 1998, after several years in Turkmenistan, Simentov was imprisoned and tortured by the Taliban, who then controlled the country, because they believed he was a spy.

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