President Trump generated a lot of commentary today with his remarks that he was cutting off Israel from their annual $4 billion of direct funding from the U.S. What he actually said this morning on Fox & Friends was along these lines: “We were giving them $4 billion. We are, but it gets cut off at the end of the year.”
Then when host Brian Kilmeade asked why, the president replied, “Because they don’t need it,” and that Israeli officials had told him as much.
He continued: “Why should we suffer the slings from lunatics like an [Abdul] El-Sayed when they don’t need it? It’s a bad talking point, because you say, why don’t we give everybody $4 billion? Israel’s our number one, we give them more than anybody else, and they no longer need it. We’ve been doing it for years, I’ve been doing it. But Israel is a very thriving country, they don’t need it.”
Trump also explained that Israeli PM Netanyahu initiated the cut. “He brought it up. He brought it up,” Trump said. “He said, ‘I think it would be appropriate if we do not receive aid,’ because he understands that this is one of their points of contention” made by critics of Israel.
“Now, as far as paying Israel, Bibi Netanyahu and I have made a deal that we give Israel $4 billion a year, and we made a deal months ago that we’re stopping. We’ve already agreed that by the end of this year we won’t be paying Israel. Now we’ll help Israel if they need it.”
The 2016 deal which initiated the U.S. providing $3.8 billion annually to Israel was to run through 2028. However—just as with AIPAC finding that, after the genocide in Gaza, their funding of candidates had yielded negative results and that it was better to continue the funding surreptitiously—Netanyahu and his sponsors preferred getting increased military support by merging U.S. and Israeli defense concerns, without the eyesore of $3.8 billion coming from the official budget.
Netanyahu had called for phasing out the $3.8 billion beginning in 2026; it is not clear whether Trump now has moved up the schedule by saying everything is cut by the end of 2026.
Netanyahu’s office today had no immediate comment. Today, he’s being attacked in Israel for not managing Washington properly.
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