Congress Is Trying to Permanently Integrate U.S. and Israeli Defense Tech

A controversial insertion in the National Defense Authorization Act currently winding its way through the House would permanently intertwine U.S. and Israeli defense technology, including artificial intelligence and autonomous systems.

Lawmakers and military experts told The Intercept that Section 224, named “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” is highly irregular — and closely resembles a bipartisan bill backed by the pro-Israel lobby that died in Congress earlier this year.

“I can’t think of another example of Congress formalizing integration of critical national security technologies with a foreign power,” said retired Air Force Lt. Col. William Astore.

Unlike traditional foreign military aid programs, Section 224 would establish a framework for integrating Israeli-developed technologies directly into U.S. research, procurement, manufacturing, and acquisition processes — which military experts warned would be complicated, if not impossible, to unwind. It would apply across areas including AI, autonomous systems, cyberwarfare, biotechnology, missile defense, and defense industrial production.

Astore, who has taught military history at multiple institutions, said he’s particularly concerned about the AI component. “Israel is a leader in using AI predictive models and programs to surveil and kill people, using manned and unmanned drones,” he said. “The ‘smart,’ even autonomous technologies Israel has used against Palestinians could very well be used by the U.S. government against American citizens — especially the so-called radical left that President Trump appears to see as domestic terrorists.”

The debate is raging as Congress prepares to take up the fiscal year 2027 NDAA, a routine piece of legislation that spells out congressional priorities and budgeting for the armed forces. The House Armed Services Committee approved the legislation on Thursday evening; it now advances for consideration by the full House.

A handful of legislators from both parties have rebuked Section 224. Among them is Rep. Thomas Massie, the Kentucky Republican known for opposing all foreign military aid — a stance that drew the ire of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and drove millions in spending against him in the recent primary he lost to a Trump-backed challenger.

Massie was quick to condemn the proposal before it moved forward, writing: “If the provision in the NDAA to integrate/synchronize the U.S. and Israeli militaries (section 224) makes it out of committee, I’ll offer an amendment to strip it from the bill on the floor.”

Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat and Massie’s frequent collaborator, attempted to do something similar at the committee stage. On Thursday, Khanna introduced an amendment seeking to remove Section 224, arguing that Congress should not deepen military integration with Israel at a time when lawmakers are increasingly questioning the future of the U.S.–Israel relationship. But the amendment failed in committee after opposition from both Republicans and Democrats, including Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Adam Smith, D-Wash., who argued the U.S. benefits from access to Israeli military technologies developed under real-world combat conditions, citing missile defense, drone warfare, and other emerging capabilities as areas of mutual interest.

According to its proponents, the goal of Section 224 is to transition Israel away from decades of dependence on U.S. taxpayer-funded military assistance and toward a model centered on trade, co-development, and defense partnership — mirroring a desire expressed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

With the Obama-era Memorandum of Understanding with Israel set to expire in 2028, Israel and its backers in Congress are searching for new ways to preserve U.S.–Israeli military collaboration. The current U.S.–Israel MOU provides approximately $3.3 billion annually in foreign military financing and $500 million annually for missile defense cooperation, totaling $38 billion over 10 years through 2028.

Netanyahu stated in January that he hoped to replace Israel’s dependence on American military assistance in the next decade. Less than a month later, lawmakers in both the House and Senate introduced the United States–Israel Framework for Upgraded Technologies, Unified Research, and Enhanced Security (FUTURES) Act of 2026, a bipartisan proposal designed to expand U.S.–Israel cooperation in many of the same tech and AI areas as Section 224.

The FUTURES Act was introduced in the Senate by Sens. Ted Budd, R-N.C., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and in the House by Reps. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, and Don Davis, D-N.C. All four sponsors have received substantial campaign support from AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups.

The legislation also received public backing from both AIPAC and FDD Action, the advocacy arm of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, which has long advocated for deeper U.S.–Israel defense and technology cooperation.

The FUTURES Act did not advance as standalone legislation — but many of its core concepts later reappeared in Section 224 of the FY2027 NDAA. Legislative records and congressional offices contacted by The Intercept indicate that Section 224 adopts the same initiative and many of the same provisions previously proposed in the FUTURES Act, including language related to integrating Israeli-origin technologies into U.S. military programs, defense industrial cooperation, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, biotechnology, cyber capabilities, and joint research and development.

The Intercept contacted the House Armed Services Committee and the Department of Defense, including Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s office, seeking clarification on the origins of Section 224 and whether Pentagon officials participated in its development. Neither the committee nor the Pentagon responded to requests for comment before publication.

The Pentagon’s refusal to answer questions about Section 224 comes amid renewed scrutiny of U.S.–Israel intelligence relations. Reporting published this weekend by the New York Times and Military.com detailed Defense Department concerns regarding Israeli espionage risks, raising additional questions about efforts to deepen technological integration between the two countries.

Wes Bryant, a former Air Force special operations member who previously served as chief of civilian harm assessments at the Pentagon’s Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, argued that deeper military integration raises broader concerns about the technologies and doctrines the United States may adopt through closer cooperation with Israel.

“Israel is a terrorist state, wantonly committing atrocity and genocide largely facilitated by its use of AI, and we are further along on the same path but, at the very least, complicit,” Bryant said. “And moreso the more we militarily integrate and partner with Israel.”

In a piece for The Guardian, the co-authors of the upcoming book “Israel’s Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power,” Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick, described Section 224 as “not an alliance with a talented and responsible ally that will help keep the US safe, but a trap being set by Israel and its lobby to bind our country to a state that, for all its past promise, has gone rogue.”