Democratic senators seek to remove US-Israel defence cooperation from spending bill

JTA – A group of 12 senators who are Democratic or caucus with the Democrats are lobbying against expanded defence cooperation between the United States and Israel, saying the Netanyahu government’s policies, particularly in Gaza and the West Bank, run counter to US interests. 

In a letter to congressional leadership and ranking committee members led by Senato Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the lawmakers argued that the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, as currently written, would “further entrench concerning aspects of the US-Israel defence and intelligence relationship at a time when the Israeli government’s actions are increasingly undermining US interests and values”. 

A section of the defence bill would require the secretary of defence to designate an “executive agent responsible for synchronising cooperative efforts between the United States and Israel, including bilateral defence technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration, and industrial cooperation”. 

Such provisions “would constrain the administration’s ability” to act independently and “threaten US national security interests by handing Israel leverage over American weapons systems and military technology,” the Democratic lawmakers warned, adding that the bill would also “create long-term dependencies by embedding Israeli technology into the US defence industrial base that could make future policy changes costly or difficult to implement”. 

The letter – which was signed by Democratic Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Independent Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, among others – is the initiative of Van Hollen, who has emerged as one of Israel’s fiercest critics in Congress and recently called to “end the American taxpayer blank cheque to the government of Israel”. 

His name has also been mentioned as a possible challenger to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as Senate Majority Leader when the new Congress starts in early January. 

The letter comes just over a week after President Donald Trump announced that the US would halt billions of dollars in annual aid to Israel by the end of 2026, potentially ending decades of military funding for one of America’s closest allies in the Middle East. 

The annual $3.8 billion (R62.9 billion) sum is mostly spent in the US to purchase weapon components or weapons systems manufactured in US factories. US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee noted the spending has created jobs in the United States. A memorandum of understanding between the two countries calls for that level of aid to continue until 2028. 

However, some US critics have dismissed Trump’s statement as a dodge, noting that while there is growing support for cutting defence aid to Israel, there has also been a push among some lawmakers to more tightly integrate the two countries’ defence establishments. 

To do this “would be unwise, especially as the government of Israel continues to pursue policies in Gaza, the West Bank, and other parts of the region that are inconsistent with US interests and values”, the Democratic senators warned on Tuesday, arguing that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “openly stated that such an initiative was his idea”. 

“The intention behind this is clear: to move US security assistance governed through more traditional pathways, like Foreign Military Financing and arm sales, to more opaque, less discernible avenues through defence acquisitions and programmes of record that reduce transparency, as well as increase Israel’s leverage over the United States and our dependency on Israeli technology,” according to the letter. 

J Street, the liberal Jewish Middle East advocacy group, thanked Van Hollen for his letter in a post on X, writing that there should be “no deepening of our military relationship with Israel unless they comply with the Gaza peace agreement, end settler violence, and reverse their de facto annexation of the West Bank”. 

J Street earlier this week declared that the US “needs a fundamental reset of its approach to the Middle East”, which would end offensive arms sales “until it is confirmed that Israel is no longer violating US laws and values”.