‘Like a bolt from the blue’: Israel’s president shocked by Trump announcing end of aid
By Tal Shalev, Oren Liebermann, CNN
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said it was “like a bolt from the blue” when President Donald Trump announced he would end US aid to Israel on Tuesday, the day of the midterm elections.
Herzog brought up the issue during a meeting with the Yashar party, led by Gadi Eisenkot, the main rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The issue of the American aid worries me greatly, and it also fell on me like a bolt from the blue. We have an (memorandum of understanding) with the US that is supposed to last until 2028 and this is one of the major goals, and therefore a government must be formed and not go to repeated elections,” he said.
Trump said aid to Israel would end this year, two years ahead of the formal end of the memorandum of understanding (MoU), which provides Israel with $3.8 billion per year to purchase American weaponry.
But he offered few details in the announcement, which was made in an Election Day phone interview with Fox News. Netanyahu has not made any public comment on the announcement.
“It’s a bad talking point because when 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,” Trump told Fox.
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said he was looking for clarification on what would happen. In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 News, he defended military aid, which has grown increasingly unpopular in both the Democratic and Republican parties.
“Americans need to know the value of the relationship,” he said. “It’s not about what Americans are putting into it. It’s about what they are getting out of it. Maybe we haven’t done a good job helping the American public to recognize and be grateful for the partnership with Israel, which has benefited their lives every day.”
Huckabee also disagreed with Vice President JD Vance, who said on X that the relationship with Israel contributed to Republican losses in the midterms. A staunch support of Israel, Huckabee said, “I don’t think support for Israel is toxic in the conservative wing and the Republican Party.”
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