Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his comittment to phase out American military assistance to Israel during a meeting with reservists at a combat officers’ course in Gush Etzion last Thursday, the Government Press Office (GPO) announced on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“Right now, we are standing against Iran and its proxies. We have dealt them blows. It is not over yet, but it depends on our strength. Where we will be 30 years from now depends on our strength. Therefore, what we are doing right now is building great strength,” said Netanyahu<\/a>.<\/p>\n “I want armaments independence. I deeply appreciate the support we have received, and which I have also brought over the years, from our American friends. Today I say: We need our own independent armaments network. We must manufacture our own armaments,” he added.<\/p>\n The prime minister continued, “To break free from dependency, to build more and more power, to integrate more and more technology, and to train more and more generations of commanders like you, because that is what will ultimately determine where we will be. With God’s help and with your help, we will be in a good place.”<\/p>\n The comments come after a proposal was filed in Congress by Rep. Marlin Stutzman<\/a> (R-Indiana), introducing a resolution calling for negotiations on a new memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the United States and Israel that would phase out an annual $3.8b. of military assistance<\/a> to Israel, aiming to replace it with a new framework of cooperative defense and trade.<\/p>\n \u201cThe time has now arrived for us to move from aid recipient to partner,\u201d the prime minister said in the letter.<\/p>\n According to Stutzman, Netanyahu argued that \u201cit was important to them that they stand on their own two feet and that the relationship between the United States be of mutual interest, independent countries standing together.\u201d<\/p>\n The congressman stressed that ending direct military assistance would not weaken the alliance but instead redefine it around shared strategic interests.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things that we want to, first of all, acknowledge is that the relationship between the United States and Israel is strong,\u201d he said, adding that the future partnership would be built around \u201cmutual defense projects and joint economic investments and projects.\u201d<\/p>\n The measure has already begun attracting support among congressional Republicans, according to its sponsors, and Stutzman argued that the proposal appeals to both fiscal conservatives and traditional supporters of Israel.<\/p>\n Amichai Stein contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his comittment to phase out American military assistance to Israel during a meeting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":175353,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[29309,13054,41,38,16210,8459,33344,423,17081,2745,26635,37,53691,2744,256],"class_list":["post-175352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-aid-package","tag-arms-trade","tag-benjamin-netanyahu","tag-donald-trump","tag-foreign-aid","tag-gop","tag-gush-etzion","tag-idf","tag-idf-israel","tag-idf-reserves","tag-independence","tag-israel","tag-migdal-oz","tag-reservists","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116804864135873384","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}