In an interview broadcast yesterday, Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his hope that Israel would get rid of dependence on American military support within ten years, at a time when his country seeks to strengthen its relations with the Gulf states. “I want to reduce American financial support, which is the financial component of our military cooperation, to zero,” Netanyahu told CBS News’ 60 Minutes. He added that Israel receives about $3.8 billion in US military aid annually. The United States agreed to provide a total of $38 billion in military aid to Israel from 2018 to 2028. But Netanyahu said this is "certainly" the right time to reset the financial relationship between the United States and Israel. "I don't want to wait for the next Congress," he told CBS. "I want to start now." Although Israel has long enjoyed bipartisan consensus in the US Congress on military aid, support from lawmakers and the general public has waned since the outbreak of war in Gaza in October 2023. According to a Pew Research poll conducted in March, 60 percent of adults in the United States have a negative view of Israel and 59 percent have little or no confidence in Netanyahu's ability to take the right actions regarding world affairs. These two percentages increased by seven percentage points from the previous year. Netanyahu noted that the deterioration in support for Israel in the United States is “almost 100 percent linked to the huge rise in the use of social media.” He pointed out that several countries, which he did not specify, “fundamentally manipulated” social media in a way that “deeply harmed us,” although he personally does not believe in censorship. In the interview with 60 Minutes, Netanyahu refrained from discussing Israeli military plans or the time frame in Iran, but he touched on the potential repercussions if the Iranian leadership changes. He said: "If this regime is actually weakened or perhaps overthrown, I think that will be the end of Hezbollah, the end of Hamas, and perhaps the end of the Houthis, because the entire structure of the terrorist proxy network that Iran has built will collapse." In response to a question about the possibility of overthrowing the Iranian regime, Netanyahu said, “Is this possible? Yes. Is it guaranteed? No.”