Washington. US President Donald Trump surprisingly announced that he would stop billions in aid to Israel at the end of the year. He and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had agreed that Israel would no longer be dependent on the subsidies amounting to four billion US dollars (almost 3.6 billion euros), Trump said in a telephone conversation with the US broadcaster Fox News.
Trump claimed that the idea came from Netanyahu to stop the “waste” of funds that has been going on for years. Netanyahu's spokesman initially did not comment on the alleged agreement.
Netanyahu's main rival in Israel's most recent parliamentary election, ex-military chief Gadi Eisenkot, sharply criticized the process. The special relationship with the USA is “a central component of Israel’s national security,” wrote the chairman of the center party Jashar in a post on Platform X.
However, the Israeli security apparatus and the population only learned about the central change in the structure of strategic relations from the media. This shows that Netanyahu’s actions pose a “real danger” to Israel, Eisenkot wrote. "He can no longer be trusted. He must be replaced." The ex-military chief wants to become head of government instead of Netanyahu, but it is unclear whether he can secure a majority in parliament to do so.
Netanyahu had already announced in interviews this year that he wanted to completely phase out annual US military aid, currently around $3.8 billion, within a decade. However, cooperation with Washington, particularly on missile defense, should continue.
“We view our military aid as important not only for the State of Israel, but also for the security of the USA,” then US President Barack Obama said in a meeting with Netanyahu in 2015. The aim at the time was, among other things, to stop the activities of the terrorist militia Islamic State (IS) and the Iran-backed Shiite Hezbollah militia.
US military aid to Israel has been increasingly controversial in the United States in recent years. Criticism of the billion-dollar payments grew, especially among Democrats, but also in parts of the Republican Party - especially against the background of the Gaza war and the harsh Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli news portal “ynet” reported that the Finance Ministry in Israel was surprised by Trump’s announcement. If the aid is actually stopped at the end of the year, this would be two years earlier than planned, the portal wrote. The Ministry of Finance did not want to officially comment, but senior business representatives classified it as a serious decision for the Israeli economy: "Giving up two years of military aid actually means eight billion dollars. Where should we get this money from? Clearly: from the citizens' taxes."
The left-liberal opposition politician Gilad Kariv accused Netanyahu in a post on Platform Netanyahu will soon be required to appear before a committee of the new parliament “and reveal all the details of his military aid deal with President Trump.” If US military aid were to actually stop shortly, it would be “another serious attack on the security of all citizens of Israel on Netanyahu’s account,” wrote Kariv.
The former editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, Yaakov Katz, also rated Trump's message as deeply disturbing. The publication on the day of the midterm elections in the USA, the so-called midterms, is no coincidence. "Trump seems to be assuming that cutting aid to Israel and announcing it today could potentially help Republicans in a hotly contested Senate election," Katz wrote on
Other commentators, however, wrote that an end to US military aid should be seen as a positive development and would give Israel more freedom and independence. The Jewish state would then be less obliged to buy US weapons systems and could instead turn to other suppliers if necessary, wrote the business newspaper “Calcalist”, citing a former Treasury Department representative. The aid has so far been tied to the purchase of American weapons and military equipment.
