An impending vote on the House floor Wednesday has seen Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) join forces to oppose a bill, one that they both characterized as an existential threat to American sovereignty.
The bill in question is the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the annual spending package that funds the Department of Defense. Buried within this year’s NDAA is a provision that some analysts warn would integrate the United States and Israeli militaries in an “unprecedented” fashion, and in a potentially irreversible manner that would “bring extraordinary Israeli influence to the U.S. beyond what it already has.”
“The House will vote on the NDAA [Wednesday], which includes a provision to merge parts of our military with the [Israel Defense Forces],” Ocasio-Cortez said Tuesday night in a statement published on social media. “This amendment is an existential threat to American sovereignty and democracy. Every member of Congress must vote NO.”
Massie, who was defeated in May in a Republican primary election by an opponent backed by President Donald Trump, also sounded the alarm over the impending vote, vowing to vote against the measure that he warned would “compromise our sovereignty.”
“While Americans are focused on other things, like how to make ends meet in the face of a rapidly rising cost of living, the House will vote [Wednesday] to merge our military technology and supply chains with Israel’s,” Massie said in a statement Tuesday night published on social media. “Our founders would be appalled at what Congress is doing now.”
Known as the “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” the provision in the NDAA would establish a “higher level of military-industrial integration [with Israel] than the U.S. has with any other country in the world,” according to foreign policy analyst Ben Freeman with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and would also, Freeman argued, “greatly expand” Israeli influence on American politics.
“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,” Freeman wrote.
