Netanyahu Seeks to End US Financial Aid to Israel Over Next Decade

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he hopes to reduce U.S. financial support for his country to zero.

In a CBS News interview, correspondent Major Garrett asked if Israel should reset its financial ties with the United States. Netanyahu agreed and said he raised the matter with President Donald Trump.

"Absolutely. And I've said this to President Trump," Netanyahu said. "I've said it to our own people."

He told CBS it was time for Israel to end its reliance on both financial and military aid from the U.S.

"I want to draw down to zero the American financial support, the financial component of the military cooperation that we have," Netanyahu said. "Because we receive $3.8 billion a year. And I think that it's time that we weaned ourselves from the remaining military support."

Pressed on a timeline, Netanyahu said the process should begin now and unfold over the next decade.

"I said, let's start now and do it over the next decade, over the next ten years, but I want to start now," he said. "I don't want to wait for the next Congress. I want to start now."

Netanyahu linked a shift in Israeli public opinion to the rise of social media.

"Israel has gone to unbelievable lengths to get innocent civilians out of harm's way," he said. "We text message millions of text messages to them, make millions of phone calls to them, pamphlets, leaflets, you name it, OK? We have seen the deterioration of the support for Israel in the United States almost, I would say, it correlates almost 100% with the geometric rise of social media."

"And that, by itself, is not what caused it," he continued. "And I don't believe in, you know, in censoring them or anything. But I'll tell you what happened. We have several countries that basically manipulated social media. And they do it in a clever way. And that's something that has hurt us badly."

On the war in Iran, Netanyahu told "60 Minutes" that much had been achieved but more remained.

"I think it accomplished a great deal, but it's not over, because there's still nuclear material, enriched uranium that has to be taken out of Iran," he said. "There are still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled. There are still proxies that Iran supports. There are ballistic missiles that they still want to produce."

"Now, we've degraded a lot of it. But all that is still there, and there's work to be done," he added.