‘Like a bolt from the blue’: Israel’s president shocked by Trump announcing end of aid
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said it was “like a bolt from the blue” when President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday, the day of the midterm elections, that he would end US aid to Israel. Herzog brought up the issue during a meeting with the Yashar party, led by Gadi Eisenkot, the main rival of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “The issue of the American aid worries me greatly, and it also fell on me like a bolt from the blue. We have an (memorandum of understanding) with the US that is supposed to last until 2028 and this is one of the major goals, and therefore a government must be formed and not go to repeated elections,” he said. Trump said aid to Israel would end this year, two years ahead of the formal end of the memorandum of understanding (MoU), which provides Israel with $3.8…