US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that "we give Israel $4.5 billion" security every year, and so "Israel will be very good" even after the US withdrawal from Syria.
The comments, quoted by Haaretz, were made by Trump in reply to a question by reporters on how the US withdrawal from Syria will impact Israel.
"I spoke with Bibi. I told Bibi, you know we give Israel 4.5 billion dollars a year. And they are doing very well at defending themselves," the President said as he spoke to reporters on the way back from his surprise trip to American troops stationed in Iraq.
He added that "I’m the one that moved the embassy to Jerusalem. I was the one who was willing to do that. So that’s the way it is - we are going to take great care of Israel. Israel is going to be good. We give Israel 4.5 billion a year. And we give frankly a lot more than that if you look at the books. They’ve been doing a good job.”
During his trip to Iraq, Trump defended his decision to withdraw US troops from Syria, saying he had told his advisers "let's get out of Syria," but was persuaded to stay, before deciding last week to bring the 2,000 troops home.
"I think a lot of people are going to come around to my way of thinking. It's time for us to start using our head," the president said.
Trump said the United States would remain in Iraq, adding, "In fact, we could use this as the base if we wanted to do something in Syria."
Earlier this week, at the weekly Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made clear that the US decision to withdraw 2,000 troops from Syria “will not change our consistent policy: We will continue to act against Iran's attempts to entrench itself militarily in Syria, and to the extent necessary, we will even expand our actions there.”