Netanyahu wants Israel "to draw down to zero the American financial support"

The ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran was tested again today by suspected Iranian drone strikes in the Persian Gulf, another spurt of hostilities in a war that has now spread from the Gulf to Lebanon, further complicating White House efforts to close a deal that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz and stabilize energy prices. 

With so much at stake — and as the war stretches into its 11th week — our CBS News colleague Major Garrett spoke yesterday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This is Netanyahu’s first U.S. broadcast interview since the war began. He was careful with his words, but if you listen closely, you can find signs of where the war, and the region, may be headed.

Major Garrett: Is the war with Iran over? And if it isn’t, who will decide when it is?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: 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. 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. 

Major Garrett: How do you envision the highly enriched uranium will be removed from Iran?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: You go in, and you take it out.

Major Garrett: With what? Special Forces from Israel, Special Forces from the United States?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Well, I’m not gonna talk about military means, but the pres– what President Trump has said to me, “I want to go in there.” and I think it can be done physically. That’s not the problem. If you have an agreement, and you go in, and you take it out, why not? That’s the best way.

Major Garrett: What if there isn’t an agreement? Can it be taken out by force?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Well, you’re gonna ask me these questions. I’m gonna dodge them. Because I’m not gonna talk about our military– possibilities, plans, or anything of the kind. 

Major Garrett: And I’m just tryin’ to get at, “How long is it going to take to achieve that aim?”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: I’m not gonna give a timetable to it, but I’m gonna say that’s a terrifically important mission.

Hours before we sat down with the prime minister, Israel targeted Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon. This is the second front in the war with Iran – much more Israel’s than America’s. 

Major Garrett: Is it possible, Mr. Prime Minister, that the war with Iran could end but the war with Hezbollah could continue? That these would be separate–

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: If we–

Major Garrett: –and divergent battlefields–

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Well, they should be. They should be. B– what Iran would like to do is to say, “No, you know, if we achieve a ceasefire here, we want a ceasefire there–“

Major Garrett: They do.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Yeah.

Major Garrett: Clearly.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: You know why? Because they want Hezbollah to stay there and continue to torture Lebanon, continue to hold its people hostage, and continue–

Major Garrett: Will you accept that?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: No. No, we’ve said–

Major Garrett: Even if President Trump asks you to?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Well, look, he understands what I’m saying. I mean, we are– we want to get rid of that danger to our communities, to our cities. They rocket our cities all the time. They rocket our communities. And of course he– would you want to live like that? 

Major Garrett: So this could go on?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Yeah, but I–

Major Garrett: Even if Iran is solved?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: I hope– I– no. If Iran– if this regime is indeed weakened or possibly toppled, I think it’s the end of Hezbollah, it’s the end of Hamas, it’s probably the end of the Houthis, because the whole scaffolding of the terrorist proxy network that Iran built collapses if the regime in Iran collapses. 

Major Garrett: Do you believe it is possible to topple the Iranian regime?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: I think that you can’t predict when that happen. Is it possible? Yes. Is it guaranteed? No. 

But in the days before the war, according to a New York Times investigation, the prime minister presented a more optimistic case to the president.

Major Garrett: And the New York Times reports as follows. Quote, “In the Situation Room on February 11, Mr. Netanyahu made a hard sell, suggesting that Iran was ripe for regime change and expressing the belief that a joint U.S.-Israeli mission could finally bring an end to the Islamic Republic.” Is that correct?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: No. That’s actually incorrect, because–

Major Garrett: In what ways is it incorrect?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: It’s incorrect in the sense that I said, “Oh, well, it’s guaranteed we can do it,” and so on. 

Major Garrett: In the confines of that conversation–

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Oh, yeah.

Major Garrett: –you noted the uncertainty?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Not only did I note it. We both agreed, you know, that there was both uncertainty and risk involved. And I remember that we– I said, and he said that the danger– there’s danger in action, in taking action. But there’s greater danger in not taking action. 

Major Garrett: and continuing what the New York Times reported, quote, Mr. Netanyahu and his team outlined conditions they portrayed as pointing to certain victory, adding “the regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz.” Is that factually incorrect?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: I don’t think we could quantify it exactly, but I think that– the– the problem of– the Hormuz Straits was– was understood as the fighting went on. I think that’s–

Major Garrett: It became understood?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: It became understood.

Major Garrett: Was it misread at the beginning?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: I think– I’m not sure it was misread. But the– you know, there’s a– great risk for Iran to do it. And it took a while for them to understand how big that risk is, which they understand now. No, I– I don’t claim– perfect foresight, and nobody had perfect foresight. Neither did the Iranians.

Also not foreseen: the degree of Iranian military retribution against neighboring Gulf states and the damage it has caused. The prime minister told us we’d be surprised how many Arab states are interested in strengthening ties with Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: I now see the possibility of the expansion and the deepening of the agreements we do have to alliances with Arab states of the kind that we never even dreamed of. 

Major Garrett: There is concern rising among the Gulf monarchies that it will not allow and does not want Israel to exercise strategic dominance over the Middle East. So has any of this been jeopardized?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: I’m hearing different things. I’m hearing the fact from Arab countries, which I won’t get into.

Major Garrett: All of them?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: No. But some of them, and I never heard that before. “Let’s strengthen our alliance with Israel,” because that in fact, deters Iran. Let’s strengthen our alliance with Israel because we can do amazing things with Israel.

Major Garrett: That was clearly the trajectory before this conflict.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: It’s more than you think now in ways that I cannot– I guess will become public, although, you know, I can’t give everything to 60 Minutes or to you in one shot. But I’m telling you that the degree of economic cooperation on energy, on AI, on quantum, the– the areas where Israel is so strong. And they see the possibility now of sharing– the fruits of these capabilities with them. And that’s happening right now.

Also happening now – or later this week – a summit between Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Trump. China is the world’s largest importer of crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz. We were curious about China’s military involvement with Iran. 

Major Garrett: I’d like to ask you about what you know about China providing materially valuable military support to what remains of the Iranian regime. True?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: China gave certain amount of support and particular components of– missile manufacturing. But I can’t say– more than that.

Major Garrett: Does that disturb you?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Well, I didn’t like it. 

Major Garrett: ‘Cause it’s apparently doing it right now.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Could be. Could be. I don’t want to speak for China. I don’t want to speak also–

Major Garrett: But you have eyes and ears on this–

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: –for President.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Yeah, well, you know– but I also have a closed mouth when necessary.

American military aid to Israel has enjoyed bipartisan consensus for decades. It is now $3.8 billion per year and subject to new political scrutiny because of shifting public attitudes about Israel and foreign aid in general.

Major Garrett: Do you believe it’s time for the state of Israel to reexamine and possibly reset its financial relationship to the United States? Meaning, what the United States provides to Israel on an annual basis.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Absolutely. And I’ve said this to President Trump. I’ve said it in– to our own people. Their jaws drop, but I said, “Look.”

Major Garrett: What do you mean? What are you saying?

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

Major Garrett: Can you give me a time table?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: I said, let’s start now and do it over the next decade, over the next ten years, but I want to start now. I don’t want to wait for the next Congress. I want to start now. 

Well-versed in American politics, the prime minister is keenly aware of declining support for Israel. According to a recent Pew survey, 60% of U.S. adults reported having an unfavorable view of Israel, up nearly 20 points in four years. 

One of the big reasons: the war in Gaza, where according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, more than 70,000 people have been killed. That includes civilians as well as Hamas terrorists.

Netanyahu attributes the reputational harm to Israel almost entirely to social media which he calls the eighth front of the war. 

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: This, this is yours, right? (holds phone)

Major Garrett: Uh-huh.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: You’re not immune either. Because you can penetrate this machine. You can penetrate this– this little instrument. And you can say about Major Garrett anything you want. And I can paint you as a monster. And if I say it often enough, enough people will believe it.

Major Garrett: Do you believe Israel is at risk of losing this war on that social media front? And this is particularly, I believe, important in America for younger Americans, Republican and Democrat, scrolling through images. And they would use words like barbaric in Gaza and in Lebanon.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Israel has gone to unbelievable lengths to get innocent civilians out of harm’s way. 

We text message millions of text messages to them– make millions of phone calls to them, pamphlets, leaflets, you name it, okay? 

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. And I– 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– that’s something that has hurt us badly. 

Major Garrett: Is it your belief, Mr. Prime Minister, that nothing that Israel has done tactically or strategically has made no mistakes either in Gaza or the West Bank that have in their own way contributed to this negative impression of Israel, whether it’s on social media or someplace else?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: No, of course not. Look, it’s war. And in war, armies sometimes miss and civilians die. And these are mistakes, these are not deliberate things that happen. Israel is besieged on the media front, on the propaganda front, and we’ve not done well on the propaganda war

The International Criminal Court, which neither Israel nor the U.S. recognize, has accused the prime minister of war crimes for Israel’s conduct in Gaza, where he says he has not yet achieved one of his most important goals – disarming Hamas. 

Major Garrett: Now what?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Somebody has to disarm them. Somebody has to then– demilitarize Gaza. I would say, disarm, demilitarize, deradicalize, because you don’t want these fanatics there.

Major Garrett: Is that Israel’s obligation? Or is that the international community’s obligation through the Board of Peace in some sort of–

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Major, Major, find me the countries who would do it. You know, if it comes down to us, then we’ll (NOISE) have to do it, but we’ll choose the time and the circumstances in which to do it because, you know, we’ve got a few other things. But we are not going to let Hamas– ever threaten Israel again. It’ll have to be done. Could be done the hard way, could be done the easy way. I always prefer the easy way, because unlike my– caricature image, having been to war, having seen the– the tragedy of war, having experienced it in my own family– you don’t readily dispatch people, young men and sometimes young women into the battlefield.

Major Garrett: You know, though, Mr. Prime Minister, there is an impression about you that is a hunger that people perceive in you for conflict.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: That’s funny, you know, because for years, I was considered, right, before the October 7th, I was considered perhaps the most restrained prime minister in Israel’s history. was conceived as being, you know, politically tough but militarily very restrained. Obviously, it changed on October 7th, because they were gonna annihilate us. I didn’t think it was just an attack by Hamas. I saw it as it was, an attack by the Iran axis to try to annihilate us through a noose of death. And I said in the second day of the war, I said, “We’re going to change the Middle East.” We’re going to change this condition where they’re ganging up on us thinking they’re going to wipe out the one and only Jewish state, wipe out 3,500 years of Jewish history. It’s not gonna happen, not on my watch. And I said to the Israeli citizens, “Not on your watch.” 

Produced by Arden Farhi, Andy Court, Marc Lieberman and Erin Lyall. Field producer, Michal Ben-Gal. Associate producers, Jane Greeley, Meghan Lisson, Cassidy McDonald and Georgia Rosenberg. Edited by Peter M. Berman and Warren Lustig. Assistant editor, Aisha Crespo.