Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he wants to “reduce to zero” the military aid Israel receives from the United States over the next decade.
Speaking on May 10 in an interview with the CBS programme 60 Minutes, the PM said it was time for his country to stop “depending” on American financial support.
“I want to bring American financial aid to zero, the financial component of the military cooperation we have, because we receive $3,800,000,000 a year,” he told the broadcaster, referring to the $3.8 billion (€3.5 billion) annual package.
Netanyahu said the process would unfold “over the next decade” but should begin “now”, adding that “it could come down very fast”.
Asked about a Pew Research Center survey indicating that 60 per cent of US adults hold an unfavourable view of Israel — driven in part by the wars in Gaza and Lebanon — Netanyahu attributed the shift to social media, which he described as the “eighth front of war”.
He said Israel “has done everything humanly possible to keep innocent civilians out of harm’s way”, citing “millions of text messages”, “millions of phone calls” and the distribution of “leaflets and pamphlets”.
The “deterioration of support for Israel in the United States”, he argued, “correlates almost 100 per cent with the exponential growth of social media”.
Netanyahu also claimed that “several countries” had “manipulated social media” in a “clever” way that had badly “hurt” Israel. “Israel has been besieged on the media front, on the propaganda front… and we have not done well in the propaganda war,” he said.
Pressed on possible “mistakes” committed by Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank, the PM conceded that “in war, armies sometimes fail and civilians die”, framing such incidents as “mistakes” and “not things that happen on purpose”.
According to the latest figures from the authorities in the Gaza Strip — controlled by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) — around 850 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli army operations on the enclave, despite a ceasefire that has been in place since October 2025.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Health confirmed on May 10 that Israeli bombardments since March 2, which followed the reignition of hostilities with the Shi’ite Lebanese militia party Hezbollah during the Iran war, have left 2,846 dead and 8,693 wounded. Fresh clashes between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters have been reported in recent days.
Netanyahu’s pledge marks a notable shift in the long-standing security relationship between Washington and Jerusalem, which has underpinned Israel’s defence posture for decades and remained largely untouched by changes of administration in either country.
