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Congress blocks Massie-Khanna effort to kill US-Israel integration

Congress has refused to even allow a full House vote on a provision that would pave the way for an unprecedented integration of the U.S. and Israeli military industrial complexes. The move came through the House’s Rules process for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which determines which of the more than one-thousand proposed amendments to the defense policy bill will be publicly debated and voted upon by the full House. Unfortunately, after no debate on Monday, the Rules Committee chose to reject a bipartisan amendment introduced by Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) that would have stripped the “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative” from the bill. The committee released a list of amendments that were ruled "in order" for a vote on Monday night, and their was not on it. This provision they wanted to squelch, previously known as Section 224, creates an executive agent within the Department of Defense whose sole responsibility is furthering U.S. and Israeli military tech integration across nearly every facet of the defense process, from co-producing weapons to “data fusion.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has described this shift in the U.S.-Israel relationship as “my plan.” Top-ranking former national security officials have lambasted the proposal and raised serious alarms about what its passage would mean for U.S. national security. Joe Kent, the former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center explained that, “The dangers of allowing any other nation to access our sensitive military technologies are obvious, including the fact that back doors and spyware can be installed that will most certainly be used by the Israelis to influence U.S. policy.” Paul Pillar, who spent more than a quarter century working at the Central Intelligence Agency, has raised serious concerns about Section 224 and a related measure that would effectively force the U.S. to share intelligence with Israel. “In intelligence, Israel is more of an adversary than an ally. Being an adversary in intelligence means indulging in the hostile act of espionage. Israel has a long record of conducting that type of hostile act against the United States,” Pillar wrote in Responsible Statecraft. To Pillar’s point, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) officials recently revealed that Israeli espionage efforts in the U.S. have been deemed “critical,” the highest threat level in the DIA system. By rejecting the Khanna and Massie amendment, the Rules Committee on Monday ensured the American public would not even get to see how their representatives would vote on this pivotal issue. This is despite unprecedented levels of public distrust in the Israeli government and widespread public outrage directed at these proposals. Constituents from across the country have let their representatives know, in every way possible, that they do not support any further military industrial integration with Israel. The story went viral on social media, with commenters flagging the issue for their representatives. Letters to the editor opposing Section 224 have appeared in papers all over the nation, and, critically, Republican and Democratic staffers who have spoken to Quincy Institute colleagues have reported being inundated with calls from constituents about this issue. While the Rules Committees decision is undoubtedly a setback for those worried about this unprecedented U.S.-Israel military industrial integration, the Senate is considering its own version of the Section 224 proposal, and ultimately the two versions of the NDAA will have to be negotiated in a Conference Committee. All of these points are opportunities to strip this dangerous provision from the defense policy bill. If they fail and this provision is enacted, the U.S. will find itself inexorably tied to the Israeli military. As my Quincy Institute colleague Steve Simon has written, “The measure risks tethering the US military to its Israeli counterpart technologically and making it difficult to uproot should conditions change.” In short, there may be no turning back if this provision becomes law, so the next few months may very well decide the U.S.-Israel relationship for decades to come.