Massie Revives Effort to Strip NDAA’s Section 219 Combining US-Israeli Defense

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) plans to reintroduce an amendment removing a provision from the Fiscal Year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would substantially expand military technology cooperation between the United States and Israel.

The provision, which was renumbered from Section 224, would establish a United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative. It would require the defense secretary to appoint an official responsible for coordinating joint research, testing, weapons development, technology integration and industrial cooperation between the two countries.

The initiative would cover areas including missile defense, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, cybersecurity, quantum technology, electronic warfare and weapons co-production.

Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) introduced a bipartisan amendment in June that would have removed Section 219 from the bill. Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Ill.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) later joined the proposal.

Why the Amendment Was Blocked

The House Rules Committee declined to permit a vote on the amendment during its June 29 meeting.

The committee controls which proposed amendments may reach the House floor, and the Massie-Khanna proposal was not included among those approved for debate.

That decision blocked the amendment without requiring the full House to take a public position on Section 219. Khanna criticized the move, writing, “Congress has blocked the amendment [Thomas Massie] and I introduced to stop the integration of our military with Israel’s. It is unconscionable to not even have a vote. We will be continuing on and will not be intimidated by the pro-Israel lobby.”

The committee’s decision did not settle the issue, however. The House needed to approve a separate resolution establishing the terms for debating the NDAA before lawmakers could consider the bill. On June 30, that resolution failed by a vote of 198-224, preventing the House from proceeding.

Since the House rejected the debate rules, the NDAA never reached the stage of which any amendments could receive votes. House leaders must now bring forward another procedural resolution before the bill can move ahead, giving Massie another opportunity to submit his amendment.

“My amendment to strip section 219 from the NDAA was rejected last week by the Rules Committee without even a debate, but their rule for the NDAA didn’t pass the House,” Massie wrote July 6. “When we reconvene, I will offer my amdt again to strip the merger of our military supply chain with Israel’s.”

Concerns About Sovereignty and Technology

Massie argues that Section 219 goes beyond ordinary cooperation with an ally because it would place Israeli technology and companies more deeply inside the American military’s research, acquisition and supply systems.

“This goes well beyond our pre-existing military relationships, such as with Five Eyes nations, or our more conventional defense partnerships with foreign militaries that are typically limited to information sharing, joint exercises, or bilateral development of specific weapons contracts,” Massie said.

He called the provision an “unprecedented escalation of foreign involvement” and said its enactment would amount to Congress “fully capitulating our nation’s autonomy to foreign influence.”

Massie had previously pledged to challenge the provision when it was numbered Section 224.

“If the provision in the NDAA to integrate/synchronize the U.S. and Israeli militaries … makes it out of committee, I’ll offer an amendment to strip it from the bill on the floor,” he wrote. “We are a sovereign country.”

Supporters of the provision describe it differently.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has characterized the broader proposal as an effort to shift U.S.-Israel defense cooperation “from aid to partnership.” Before Congress introduced Section 219, Netanyahu said he wanted to eventually phase out direct U.S. military aid to Israel and instead deepen the countries’ defense partnership through expanded joint development and industrial cooperation.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, shifted his position after initially defending the U.S.-Israel cooperation language during committee markup.

Weeks later, Smith reversed course, telling constituents that although he still believed the provision could benefit U.S. anti-drone and anti-missile technology, he had changed his position after “several conversations with constituents” and now agreed the provision carried meaning beyond its technical language because of Israel’s actions in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Iran.

The reversal also came after Smith had called for an independent U.S. investigation into the killing of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a Washington constituent and Turkish American activist killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank.

Smith’s office did not respond to questions about why he initially backed integrating U.S. defense technology and intelligence-sensitive systems with the same government whose conduct he had already urged the U.S. to independently investigate.

Massie can resubmit the amendment when House leaders restart consideration of the NDAA. The House Rules Committee would then decide again whether the full House may debate and vote on it.

Unless the committee changes its earlier decision, Section 219 could remain in the bill without members ever casting a separate recorded vote on the proposed expansion of U.S.-Israel military integration.