Some are treating Donald Trump’s announcement that US aid to Israel will end this year as an ambush. But in truth it was first proposed by Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We were giving them $4 billion – we are – but it gets cut off at the end of the year,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday in an Election Day morning announcement. He said Netanyahu “brought it up” and that it would be “appropriate” to end aid.
Israel’s opposition, which is working to unseat Netanyahu following last week’s election, framed it as a fiasco for the prime minister. Avigdor Liberman asserted that the $3.8 billion a year was the price of Trump’s support for Netanyahu. Yair Golan called it another massive failure under Netanyahu’s name and said a responsible prime minister would have fought to increase American aid, not eliminate it. Netanyahu biographer Anshel Pfeffer called it a personal failure for Israel’s longest-serving leader.
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