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Jerusalem • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he believes U.S. President-elect Donald Trump will be a good friend to Israel and hopes the two countries can work together to dismantle the international nuclear agreement with Iran.
"I know Donald Trump," Netanyahu told CBS's "60 Minutes" in an interview scheduled to air Sunday night. "He feels very warmly about the Jewish state, about the Jewish people. There's no question about that." Netanyahu's remarks are significant in part because critics have accused Trump of tolerating anti-Semitism among some of his supporters.
While the two countries are close allies, relations were sometimes tense between Netanyahu and President Barack Obama because of their different world views on the Iran deal and other issues. And there is sentiment in the nationalist Israeli right wing that Trump's election could usher in a new era of relations with the United States.
The Israeli prime minister has been one of the fiercest critics of the nuclear deal. During the campaign, Trump also spoke harshly about it. Israel fears that Iran's nuclear program is designed to threaten its existence.