Congress Weighs US-Israel Defense Technology Bill Pushed by Israel-Backed Lobby Groups

Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick, writing an opinion piece in The Guardian, say Congress is considering legislation that would embed Israel’s military deeply within the US military-industrial complex. They argue that Israel’s advocates, facing a decline in public support for Israeli policies in Gaza, Lebanon and the West Bank and toward Iran, are seeking to preserve and even escalate US support in ways that avoid defending those policies or allowing scrutiny of them.

According to the authors, section 224 of the National Defense Authorization Act would tie the two militaries together through bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements and an unprecedented integration of the US and Israeli weapons industries. News of the section prompted an immediate backlash led by Representatives Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, who sought to strip it from the defense budget.

The authors trace the provision’s origins to earlier legislation. In February, 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, with companion legislation in the Senate from Ted Budd, a Republican from North Carolina, and Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat from New York. The authors write that Israel’s lobby prominently endorsed and lobbied on the bills.

The authors describe the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which they call a pro-Israel thinktank, as having advocated closer integration of US and Israeli militaries and weapons research in a December report. They note that on Davis’s February 19 press release, the foundation was the only outside validator named. Tyler Stapleton, senior director of government relations at the foundation, was quoted in that release saying that “FDD Action strongly supports the bipartisan United States-Israel Futures Act.”

The authors also report that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) endorsed the legislation on February 19, highlighting provisions including “encouraging US-based co-production, joint ventures, and manufacturing partnerships with Israeli industry.” Aipac also reported lobbying on the act on Capitol Hill and at the Department of Defense in the first quarter of the year. Neither the House nor the Senate bill left committee, but the authors say the same legislative framework and much of the same language appeared in section 224 of the NDAA, within a 505-page draft. Placing such language deep in a long draft raises questions of honest dealing (Proverbs 11:1).

The authors argue that the intent and consequences of the proposal, which they say is dubbed the United States–Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative, go well beyond the sharing of military technology that has traditionally drawn bipartisan support. In their account, making the United States increasingly dependent on Israeli technology in areas such as AI, quantum computing, high-powered lasers, cyberwarfare and anti-drone systems, while transferring America’s most sophisticated technologies to Israeli governments, would steer the relationship toward an asymmetrical structure.

The authors connect this vision to David Wurmser, whom they describe as the main author of the 1996 Clean Break document, a policy paper submitted to Benjamin Netanyahu. They say Wurmser introduced a “Zionism 2.0” framework in a report titled Israel 2048: A Blueprint for a Rising Asymmetric Geopolitical Power, published in the same month the US-Israel Futures Act was introduced. The authors say the report advocates “preventative wars” and an intimate Israeli-US military relationship. They also note that Clean Break’s signatories included Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, both of whom they say were highly placed in the George W. Bush administration. The authors conclude that these ideas exposed “the influence of well-funded dark-money groups and thinktanks exerting their influence on behalf of Israel’s government.”

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