Israel should end reliance on US cash – Netanyahu

The Israeli PM said he hopes to bring the “financial component” of American military aid down to zero.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed that he plans to “wean” his country off US financial aid within the next decade, while blaming social media “manipulation” for declining public support for his country among Americans.

Israel is the largest recipient of aggregate US foreign aid since World War II, having received more than $300 billion in economic and military assistance from Washington since 1948.

Under a ten-year agreement signed in 2016, the US committed $38 billion in military aid to Israel through 2028, including $5 billion for the Iron Dome missile defense system. Overall, American assistance accounts for roughly 16% of the country’s military budget.

In an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes aired on Sunday, Netanyahu was asked whether it was time for the Jewish state to “reexamine and possibly reset” its financial relationship with Washington.

“Absolutely. I’ve said this to President Trump. I’ve said it to our own people. Their jaws drop,” he replied.

“I want to draw down to zero the American financial support, the financial component of the military cooperation that we have,” the prime minister said, stating that the process should “start now” and be completed “over the next ten years.”

Netanyahu noted that he is well aware of declining support for Israel in the US. A recent Pew poll indicated that six in ten Americans have a very or somewhat unfavorable view of Israel, up seven percentage points since last year and nearly 20 points since 2022.

The Israeli leader outright dismissed the notion that the war in Gaza might have “contributed to this negative impression of Israel,” blaming the shift almost entirely on social media.

“Israel is besieged on the media front, on the propaganda front, and we’ve not done well on the propaganda war,” he said.

“We have several countries that basically manipulated social media with bot farms with fake addresses, to break the American sympathy to Israel.”

More than 71,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli war in Gaza, which was triggered by the deadly October 7, 2023 Hamas raid. Israeli military operations in Lebanon and Iran have also resulted in a large civilian death toll, fueling criticism among the American public and prominent commentators, including Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, and Candace Owens.

In March, US Senator Bernie Sanders filed three resolutions seeking to block nearly $660 million in arms sales to Israel, arguing that three-quarters of Democrats and two-thirds of independents oppose Washington sending weapons to the country.