As Israel loses popular support, the Israeli-intelligence sharing provision in the now-stalled Pentagon 2027 authorization bill ensures a seamless flow of support for an increasingly unpopular proxy, writes Nuvpreet Kalra.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signing the Pentagon guest book in July 2025. (DoD /Alexander Kubitza)
By Nuvpreet Kalra
Common Dreams
In June, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote to Republican Rep. Marlin Stutzman of California, saying that “the time has now arrived [for Israel] to move from aid recipient to partner” with the United States.
On Sunday, on Fox News, Netanyahu again repeated the proposal to move “from aid to partnership.”
FOX NEWS: “The proposal is to have some sort of merger between our Pentagon and your military.”
NETANYAHU: “Yes, I’m calling it from aid to partnership.” pic.twitter.com/fkt9f9qkBu
— The General (@GeneralMCNews) July 12, 2026
What Netanyahu proclaims is at the core of the proposed “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” which has been included in a section of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that seeks to push the Pentagon budget to $1.5 trillion in 2027.
The proposal to the annual policy and military spending bill aims to essentially merge the Israeli and the U.S. militaries.
[On Tuesday, Democratic senators blocked debate on the NDAA, citing the Trump administration’s illegal war on Iran as well as the Israeli intelligence-sharing provision. According to The New York Times, it’s currently uncertain “when, or under what conditions Senate leaders would be able to begin consideration of the defense policy bill.”]
While the initial bill, the “United States-Israel FUTURES Act,” failed as a standalone measure, core provisions have been included in the NDAA. It aims to “expand and accelerate bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration, and industrial cooperation” between the U.S. and Israel, led by an “executive agent” decided by the U.S. defense secretary.
The merger would integrate the United States and Israeli occupation militarily, including “data fusion;” “network integration;” research and development; weapons and bio-manufacturing; and collaboration with AI, cyber and quantum machine learning technologies.
While the Israeli occupation forces and U.S. military are already deeply connected and share many of their genocidal tactics, this represents a significant entanglement of the two most belligerent and murderous militaries in the world.
If the Israeli-integration provision does eventually go through, this would be the most integrated the United States is with any country on Earth.
It is perhaps unsurprising for Israel to be that partner, given it is a proxy for the United States used to entrench its hegemony in the region and provide a base for attacks, particularly against Iran.
US-Dependent Occupation
Displaced people in April 2024 try to return to northern Gaza Strip by crossing the bridge over the estuary of the Wadi Gaza. (Ashraf Amra /United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East/ CC BY-SA 3.0 igo)
The Israeli occupation is totally reliant on the United States. The U.S. has given Israel at least $300 billion in military money since 1948. It uses U.S.-made weapons and relies on training and intelligence from the U.S.
As the Trump administration re-named the “Department of Defense” the “Department of War,” this is yet another overt action that reveals a reality that’s always been there.
In 2008, the U.S. passed a law requiring it to protect Israel’s “military edge” against other countries in the region. The U.S. is required to give Israel at least $3.8 billion a year in military funding until 2028. Israel has always been a major priority of the United States — this only makes that clearer.
The new integration differs from the way the U.S. engages with its other allies.
While NATO countries and partners share a degree of military integration with global weapons supply chains, intelligence sharing, military bases and more, this removes the limitations in existence for military cooperation.
Already, the U.S. drive for war through NATO impacts society beyond what might be recognized as purely military related, given the military-industrial complex and integration of the U.S. military in all aspects of life.
In this case, the merger with Israel will deepen ruptures across the political, social, and economic system as the United States moves closer to its proxy. The main beneficiaries will be weapons companies that profited immensely from making Israel’s genocide in Gaza possible with as new, seamless contracts.
How the Military Industrial Complex benefits from funding Israel’s war machine. (Davidsvine / Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY 4.0)
Israel is increasingly viewed across the world, and within the United States, as a pariah state. In the U.S., 60 percent of adults have an unfavorable view of Israel, according to an April report by the Pew Research Center.
The push to further integrate with Israel puts the U.S. on the line in an attempt to ensure the continuation and longevity of the settler colonial project. Entrenching the U.S. military with Israel’s own provides a layer of protection that goes even further than the impunity that has given Israel full rein to commit a holocaust in Gaza and further colonize the occupied West Bank.
Response to Political Protest
Demonstration in Washington, D.C., against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House, Feb. 11, 2026. (Diane Krauthamer, Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The integration will mean Israel is given unfettered support to carry out its genocide for the total colonization of Palestine and inhibiting future presidents from changing the relationship, if that were to ever occur.
As the Zionist state becomes isolated, this is the U.S. empire defending itself by trying to make its proxy appear more robust and independent while maintaining the unbreakable connection.
This is a clear response to the massive movements that have erupted across the world for nearly three years opposing Israel’s genocide and the role of countries facilitating it.
The U.S, is, in a way, absorbing Israel to provide the legitimacy that is being chipped away internationally and domestically to stifle opposition to unlimited foreign aid to Israel.
Israel is occupying at least 60 percent of Gaza. Palestinians are being pushed into a shrinking concentration camp, where they are bombed every single day and refused aid during what is described as a ceasefire. For U.S. taxpayers, this merger would put even more of money into funding this horrific genocide.
This NDAA is dangerous. Through the U.S.-Israeli integration, it would facilitate more deadly technology, more weapons for genocide, and make it nearly impossible to sever support for Israel by the U.S.
Through the $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget, it would funnel money from welfare into more war and violence across the world to maintain the empire’s system of exploitation and plunder.
Nuvpreet Kalra is CODEPINK’s digital content producer. She completed a Bachelor’s in politics and sociology at the University of Cambridge, and an MA in Internet Equalities at the University of the Arts London. As a student, she was part of movements to divest and decolonize, as well as anti-racist and anti-imperialist groups. Nuvpreet joined CODEPINK as an intern in 2023, and now produces digital and social media content. In England, she organizes with groups for Palestinian liberation, abolition, and anti-imperialism.
This article is from Common Dreams.
Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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