Two Israeli ex-defense ministers slam PM on US aid deal

Ehud Barak, ex-prime minister and former defense minister, wrote in a Washington Post op-ed Thursday that due to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s “reckless and irresponsible management of relations with the White House,” the $3.8bn US annual military aid granted Israel over the next decade was "far less than could have been obtained."
His successor in defense, Moshe Ya’alon, commented to a Washington think tank that Israel’s needs were not met by the aid package and its defense budget would have to be slashed accordingly.
Responding to these critics, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said Israel thanks America for its exceptional generosity in granting Israel the largest sum of defense aid to any foreign country, at a time when its own military spending was being cut down. The two ex-defense ministers may have intended undermining Netanyahu, he said, but their remarks could have been much more harmful to US-Israel relations.