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Israeli opposition leaders on Tuesday accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of failing the country after US President Donald Trump said Washington would stop providing financial assistance to Israel by the end of the year.
Yair Golan, leader of the Democrats party, said in a post on X that Netanyahu had “another enormous failure to his name.” He warned that ending US assistance would damage Israel’s security and quality of life by leaving the Israeli public to carry the full cost of its military needs.
“A responsible prime minister would have fought to increase US assistance, not end it,” Golan said.
Trump announced the move in an interview on Fox and Friends, saying the US was ending a 10-year security assistance arrangement that provides Israel with about $3.8 billion a year.
He said he had agreed with Netanyahu several months ago to cut the aid and that Israel was “fine” with the decision.
“Israel’s our number one; we give them more than anybody else, and they no longer need it,” Trump said, adding that the US would help Israel “if they need it.”
Trump also referred to Abdul El-Sayed, a leftist Democrat running for the US Senate, as part of his reasoning. He asked why Washington should “suffer the slings from lunatics like an El-Sayed” when Israel does not need the aid.
His remarks came as Americans voted in the congressional midterm elections, which cover all 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats.
Israeli public broadcaster KAN reported that officials in the Defense Ministry and the military were surprised by the announcement.
Private broadcaster Channel 12 reported that the Finance Ministry did not know of Washington’s intention until Trump spoke. According to the channel, the annual $3.8 billion had been expected to be an important source of funding for Israel’s defense budgets in 2027 and 2028.
Gadi Eisenkot, an opposition candidate, said the fact that Israel’s defense establishment learned of a shift in the strategic relationship through the media, at the same time as the public, showed how dangerous Netanyahu’s conduct was.
“He can no longer be trusted and must be replaced,” Eisenkot said in a statement.
Golan said Israel’s defense spending had reached “enormous levels” and that the country needs to replenish its stockpiles of offensive weapons. He added that its air defense capabilities had been depleted by a prolonged war.
The assistance falls under a memorandum of understanding signed in 2016 under President Barack Obama, in which the US committed $38 billion in military aid to Israel over a decade, through 2028.
The funds support Israeli purchases of US weapons. According to figures from the Council on Foreign Relations, Israel has received more than $300 billion in US economic and military assistance, adjusted for inflation, since its founding in 1948. That is far more than any other country has received since 1946.
Netanyahu has previously said he wants Israel to rely less on Washington. In January he told The Economist he hoped to achieve that within a decade, and in May he told CBS he wanted support to reach “zero.”
In June he called for greater Israeli military autonomy and a stronger domestic defense industry.
The criticism came a day before Israel’s Central Elections Committee was expected to announce official final election results on Wednesday.
Netanyahu’s bloc won 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset, while the opposition secured 48 and Arab parties won 19. The opposition remains short of the 61 seats needed for a majority on its own, which could make Arab lawmakers decisive in any effort to form a government.
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