Netanyahu says he wants to wean Israel off US military support

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hopes to wean Israel off US military support within a decade as his country pushes to strengthen ties with Gulf states, he said in an interview that aired on May 10.

“I want to draw down to zero the American financial support, the financial component of the military cooperation that we have,” he told CBS News’ 60 Minutes programme.

Israel receives about US$3.8 billion (S$4.8 billion) in US military aid a year, he said. The US has agreed to provide a total of US$38 billion in military aid to Israel from 2018 to 2028.

But it is “absolutely” the right time to possibly reset the US-Israeli financial relationship, Mr Netanyahu said.

“I don’t want to wait for the next Congress,” he told CBS. “I want to start now.”

Israel has long had bipartisan consensus within the US Congress for military aid, but support from lawmakers and the public has frayed since the outbreak of war in Gaza in October 2023.

Sixty percent of US adults have an unfavourable view of Israel, and 59 per cent had little or no confidence in Mr Netanyahu to do the right thing regarding world affairs, according to a Pew survey conducted in March.

Both percentages were up 7 percentage points from a year earlier.

Mr Netanyahu said deteriorating support for Israel in the US “correlates almost 100 per cent with the geometric rise of social media”.

He said several countries, which he did not identify, have “basically manipulated” social media in a way that “hurt us badly”, though he personally did not believe in censorship.

No timetable in Iran

Support for US President Donald Trump, a close ally of Mr Netanyahu, has also ebbed since the US and Israel launched a war against Iran on Feb 28.

The war has led to higher petrol prices, which contributed to US inflation rising on an annualised basis in March to the highest level since May 2023.

A significant factor behind higher fuel prices has been Iran’s throttling of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, where 20 per cent of the world’s oil normally passes.

Only after the war began did Israeli planners recognise Iran’s ability to close the strait, Mr Netanyahu said. “It took awhile for them to understand how big that risk is, which they understand now,” he said.

In the 60 Minutes interview, Mr Netanyahu declined to discuss Israel’s military plans or timetable in Iran, but he addressed the potential ramifications if Iran’s leadership changed.

“If this regime is indeed weakened or possibly toppled, I think it’s the end of Hezbollah, it’s the end of Hamas, it’s probably the end of the Houthis, because the whole scaffolding of the terrorist proxy network that Iran built collapses,” he said.

Asked if it were possible to topple the Iranian regime, Mr Netanyahu said: “Is it possible? Yes. Is it guaranteed? No.” REUTERS