Israel-First: U.S. Congress is quietly merging America's military with Israel's

When Congress wants to do something that it knows the American public would object to, it buries it. That is exactly what it did with Section 224 of the House Armed Services Committee’s draft Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act. It is a sinister, Israel-first, AIPAC-backed insertion designed to merge American military industries with the military of a country, Israel, that has been caught spying on and stealing American technology. The proposed section is hidden inside a $1.15 trillion defence bill, advanced with virtually no public debate.

The provision, titled the “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” goes far beyond traditional military aid. It authorises joint weapons co-production, bilateral research and development, technology licensing, and deep integration across artificial intelligence, cyberwarfare, autonomous systems, and biotechnology. Most extraordinarily, it would create a permanent Pentagon executive agent dedicated exclusively to coordinating military cooperation with Israel.

In advancing this legislation, members of the House and Senate are not representing their constituents; they are defying them. According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in March 2026, a month into the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, 60 per cent of American adults now hold an unfavourable view of Israel, up seven points in a single year and nearly twenty points since 2022. Among Democrats, the figure is even 80 per cent. In both political parties, majorities of adults under fifty now rate Israel and Netanyahu negatively.

The gulf between congressional action and public reality extends far beyond American borders. A separate Pew survey published in June 2026, spanning thirty-six countries and more than 44,000 respondents, found that a median of 67 per cent of people worldwide hold an unfavourable view of Israel. Unfavourable majorities exist across every European country surveyed, including Spain and Sweden at 78 per cent, the Netherlands at 76 per cent, Germany at 73 per cent, and Poland at 70 per cent. In Japan, 93 per cent of respondents viewed Israel unfavourably. At a moment when America's global standing depends on the credibility of its alliances and the integrity of its foreign policy, Congress is moving to cement an institutional merger with a government that two-thirds of humanity views as a pariah.

Beyond defying the will of American voters, Congress has recklessly ignored the national security consequences of its own legislation. By granting Israel direct leverage over American defence priorities and supply chains, Section 224 ties U.S. military readiness to Israel's endless regional wars. Every stockpile drawn down and every weapons system co-opted in service of those conflicts is a direct cost to American defence preparedness. This does not make America safer. It makes America a subordinate, binding its military might to the endless wars of a foreign government that answers to no American voter.

This comes days after the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency rated Israel's espionage threat against the U.S. as 'critical', the highest designation, surpassing even enemy states. The seven-page internal brief documented Israeli spying that was more aggressive than anything expected between allied nations or adversaries. U.S. counterintelligence officials found that Israel had planted spyware on the phones of American negotiators with Iran and attempted to plant a listening device inside a U.S. Secret Service vehicle.

This is the “partner” Congress proposes to merge America's military with. If Israel is already planting spyware on American officials who report directly to the president and probing Secret Service vehicles for listening devices, Section 224 would not merely open all doors to Israeli spies; it would hand them the keys through institutionalised intelligence access that is far harder to restrict and virtually impossible to reverse.

The history of Israeli technology transfers to China makes this risk real, not hypothetical. In the 1990s, Israel sold its Harpy loitering drones to China and moved to upgrade those same systems for Beijing despite direct American objections. The Pentagon investigated Israel’s covert transfer of U.S. Patriot missile technology to China. American intelligence officials were convinced that the transfer had taken place. U.S. pressure forced Israel to cancel the sale of Phalcon airborne radar systems to China, at a cost of $350 million in compensation payments to Beijing. The pattern is consistent: Israel obtains American technology, and American technology finds its way to China. Deeper integration will only widen that pipeline.

When the Pentagon's own intelligence apparatus rates Israel's espionage threat against the U.S. at its highest possible level, the answer is not to reward Israel with open access to every layer of American military technology. Yet that is precisely what Congress is doing. As public support for Israel collapses, Israel-first Zionists are migrating their agenda into Pentagon procurement channels and, backed by both parties, burying it from public scrutiny. Democrats and Republicans fight each other over America First. On Israel First, they unite.

If you're an American citizen, don't get mad, get loud. Call Congress at (202) 224-3121 and tell your representative that you are part of the sixty per cent. They work for you, not for Zionist billionaires and the Israeli lobby.

Jamal Kanj is a commentator on Arab affairs whose work appears regularly in national and international publications. He is the author of Children of Catastrophe: Journey from a Palestinian Refugee Camp to America and several other books.

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