Congress wants to tie the United States to Israel with this new legislation. It’s a trap |
Congress is considering legislation that would embed Israel’s military deeply within the US military-industrial complex. Stunned by the cratering of public support for Israeli policies in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank and towards Iran, Israel’s advocates are frantically seeking to preserve and even escalate US support for the Jewish state in ways that do not rely on defense of its policies or permit scrutiny of the manipulations involved.
Politically, this means avoiding public discussion of Israeli policies in Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank or Iran and disguising the sources of massive amounts of money pouring into election races to defeat candidates raising questions about US support for Israel. The proposed legislation shows what this means bureaucratically.
News of section 224 of the National Defense Authorization Act – a section that would deeply intertwine the US and Israeli militaries by committing to bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements and an unprecedented integration of the US and Israeli weapons industries – triggered an immediate backlash led by Representatives Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, to strip the section from the defense budget.
The origins of this addition to the defense budget tell us much about how Israel’s lobby pursues a foreign country’s interests even as 60% of Americans now hold an unfavorable view of Israel.
In February, the representatives Don Davis, a Democrat from North Carolina, and Ronny Jackson, a Republican from Texas, introduced the United States-Israel Framework for Upgraded Technologies, Unified Research, and Enhanced Security (Futures) Act of 2026 alongside companion legislation in the Senate introduced by senators Ted Budd, a Republican from North Carolina, and Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York. Israel’s lobby prominently........