May 10 (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hopes to wean Israel off U.S. military support within a decade as his country pushes to strengthen ties with Gulf states, he said in an interview that aired on Sunday.
“I want to draw down to zero the American financial support, the financial component of the military cooperation that we have,” Netanyahu told CBS News’ “60 Minutes” program.
Israel receives about $3.8 billion of U.S. military aid a year, he said. The U.S. has agreed to provide a total of $38 billion in military aid to Israel from 2018 to 2028.
But it is “absolutely” the right time to possibly reset the U.S.-Israeli financial relationship, Netanyahu said.
“I don’t want to wait for the next Congress,” he told CBS. “I want to start now.”
While Israel has long had bipartisan consensus within the U.S. Congress for military aid, support from lawmakers and the public has frayed since the outbreak of war in Gaza in October 2023.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Sergio Non and Paul Simao)
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