Ignoring National Security Risk, GOP Senators Unanimously Back U.S.-Israeli Military Merger

Not one Republican senator voted against the national defense bill that would have virtually merged the U.S. and Israeli militaries.

Defeated by a 50-46 vote yesterday was a cloture motion that would have permitted the full Senate to consider the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act.

Media reports said Democrats defeated the motion, which needed 60 votes to pass, because of the Iran War.

But buried inside the 1,562-page bill is a measure similar to one in the House version. Both would permanently entangle the U.S. and Israeli militaries and endanger national security, along with making the United States a party to Israel’s reckless foreign and military policies.

Myriad voices on X, notably former GOP Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, called the Republican votes “treason.”

Section 1217

The U.S.-Israeli merger would occur pursuant to Section 1217, the “United States-Israel Framework for Upgraded Technologies, Unified Research, and Enhanced Security (FUTURES) Act of 2026.”

The U.S. secretary of defense will join his Israeli counterpart to build the “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” which will “expand and accelerate bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, coordination, and industrial cooperation by doing the following, the bill says:

(A) identifying jointly developed or Israeli-origin technologies with operational utility for integration into United States systems and programs of record;

(B) conducting collaborative research initiatives involving government, private sector, and academic institutions in the United States and Israel, in a manner that protects sensitive technology and information and the national security interests of the United States and Israel;

(C) facilitating the transition of technologies from research and development into procurement and acquisition pathways;

(D) establishing frameworks for joint ventures, licensing agreements, and United States-based co-production or manufacturing partnerships with Israeli industry;

(E) coordinating with relevant Department of Defense components … ; and

(F) promoting joint training exercises and information-sharing mechanisms to enhance operational readiness to deploy jointly developed technologies. 

The measure goes on, but the intent is clear. The U.S. and Israeli militaries would virtually merge, which in turn jeopardizes U.S. military, technology, and intelligence secrets. Worse, the United States will be attached to Israel’s foreign and military policies.

The House NDAA contains a similar section, 219, formerly 224.

Both would give Israel unprecedented access to U.S. national security secrets.

Even More Israeli Control

As Ben Freeman of Responsible Statecraft explained of the House version, the measure “lays the groundwork for bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and seemingly every manner of U.S.-Israeli military-industrial complex cooperation.”

“The U.S. and Israel already work together heavily on missile defense, but this provision would greatly expand coordination to seemingly every area of defense tech, including AI, quantum, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyber, biotech, and many more. It also proposes ‘network integration’ and ‘data fusion,’” he wrote:

In other words, the U.S. military’s data could soon be the Israeli military’s data.

As well, Freeman continued, Section 219 will “give the Israeli government the opportunity to greatly expand one of the most powerful levers of influence in U.S. politics: jobs in the U.S.”:

By expanding or starting new co-production facilities like it already has in Mississippi and Arkansas, the Israeli government could boast of providing jobs on U.S. soil, thereby securing allies among members of Congress who represent the districts where those jobs lie.

“The result could well be a U.S. political system even more susceptible to the whims of an Israeli government that seemingly has no qualms about drawing the U.S. into military conflicts in the Middle East” the analyst continued.

Representatives Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Ro Khanna of California, Republican and Democrat, fought the measure, but the House Rules Committee nixed their effort.

Massie will reintroduce an amendment to block the imprudent provision.

Israel First GOPers

Notably, all 46 votes in favor of cloture were Republican, including the normally sensible Rand Paul of Kentucky. Politico noted that the bill “became a casualty in the monthslong fight to rein in President Donald Trump on Iran.”

Every Democrat voted against cloture. Every Republican voted for it.

Not voting were Republicans Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Jim Justice of West Virginia, and Democrats Alex Padilla of California and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.

“Donald Trump is dragging America deeper into a war in Iran with no authorization, no plan, and no exit strategy,” said Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York:

Democrats will not go along.

Trump is expecting Congress to look the other way and ignore his illegal war, just days after he tore up his own ceasefire deal and dramatically escalated the fighting. We won’t look away.

Senate Democrats just sent a clear message: the day after Trump notifies the extension of this unauthorized war, defies bipartisan majorities in Congress, and refuses to level with the American people about the cost, the mission, or the endgame, we will not proceed as if business is usual while our servicemembers’ lives are at risk and Trump drives costs for groceries and gas out of control.

But, Trump’s unconstitutional war aside, for now the U.S.-Israeli merger is only stalled — not dead.

“This is good news, but the fight is not over,” wrote former U.S. counterterrorism chief Joe Kent:

The Senate just rejected the NDAA that would merge our military with Israel’s, which will now proceed to the House. 

Call your senators & representatives and tell them not to support the NDAA until the merger w/ Israel (Section 219) is removed. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene called the vote treason.

“Every Republican Senator voted to merge our military with Israel’s military,” she wrote on X:

The most America LAST thing they could possibly do, selling our military out to a foreign country.

It’s absolute treason and betrayal.

Frighteningly, a similar measure buried in the Senate’s 2027 Intelligence Authorization Act would force the president to share U.S. intelligence with Israel and virtually merge the two nations’ intelligence combines.

The nation’s lawmakers apparently learned nothing from the Pollard espionage scandal.