by Keren Setton
JERUSALEM, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- The abrupt U.S. decision last week to withdraw all its troops from war-torn Syria has evoked warnings from Israeli officials and experts about the danger of Israel's reliance on Washington when it comes to security and defense.
The presence of an estimated 2,000 American troops in Syria was part of an effort to defeat the Islamic State (IS) militant group, a goal which U.S. President Donald Trump believes has been attained.
However, the U.S. military presence actually helped push back forces hostile to Israel, namely Iran and the Lebanese militant organization Hezbollah, as both were in Syria in support of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
Syria and Lebanon border Israel in the northern part of the country, an area where plenty of blood were shed in the past, while the leaders of Iran, Israel's arch-enemy, have been repeatedly calling for the destruction of the Jewish state.
"The U.S. absence allows Iran to freely transport weapons, soldiers or whatever else it wants, through the shortest continental path," said Sarit Zehavi, a former Israeli military intelligence officer.
"There are plans to build a network of highways between Iran, Iraq and Syria and therefore a U.S. presence is very important," Zehavi told Xinhua.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has routinely said Israel will take all necessary measures to protect itself from Iran and its proxies, particularly Hezbollah.
The Israeli military recently said it had found a network of tunnels allegedly dug by Hezbollah to infiltrate northern Israel. Over the weekend, Israeli forces began destroying the tunnels.
Hezbollah has not yet to respond.
Netanyahu's government has prided itself on an excellent relationship with Trump and his administration. But clearly, the latest U.S. move does not serve the Israeli interests in the region.
The Israeli government had overestimated the importance of Israel to Trump, and the degree to which Trump was influenced by the Jewish state, said Jonathan Rynhold, an expert on U.S.-Israeli relations from the Bar Ilan University.
"Clearly the Israeli government banked on the advisors and their own ability to influence Trump, but they got it wrong," he said.
Meanwhile, the U.S. withdrawal will, in turn, strenghthen the Russian presence in Syria, and Israel will have to deal with a recently souring relations with Russia over a diplomatic row between the two countries.
"Israel will have to act a lot more directly and that will complicate relations with Russia," Rynhold said.
"When a great power pulls out, there is then a vacuum which has to be filled and from Israel's perspective whatever goes into that vacuum is worse," he added.
Trump's policies "can be just has disruptive to Israel's national security interests," as in other cases of American foreign policy, wrote Chemi Shalev, the U.S. editor for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
"Without American backing, Israel's position is weakened, as Israel ... can't fill the U.S. role in Syria. It does not have the same capabilities," Rynhold stressed.
