The Israeli government is not the Jewish people. This piece is about one, not the other.
The 2027 National Defense Authorization Act is another iteration of the Israeli capture of American politics. The relationship has grown deeper, broader, and more institutionalized over time, to the point that the United States is now committing genocide in service of Israeli objectives.
Contents
Decades of Capture
The United States has funded Israel’s military for more than fifty years. Israel occupies a uniquely privileged position in American foreign policy, receiving billions of dollars in military assistance and diplomatic protection that persist across administrations and political eras.[1, 2] The diplomatic arrangement runs just as long. The United States has used its veto on the UN Security Council to shield Israel from resolutions since 1972. [3]
This is the signature of capture. In a democratic republic, elections are supposed to matter. The relationship with Israel survives every election, every change in government, and every shift in political power. Money, weapons, and diplomatic protection continue regardless.
The capture worked on the public as well. The public absorbed the framing that the relationship was permanent, natural, and beyond debate. Criticism carried professional, political, and social costs.
For decades, Americans were presented with a largely one-sided account of the relationship through politicians, advocacy organizations, major media outlets, think tanks, donors, and public institutions. Support for Israel became the default, reinforced by a political environment that punished dissent and rewarded conformity. The system held for a long time.
The Public Breaks Free
The public consensus is cracking. For the first time in decades, support for Israel has become a live political question rather than a settled one.
Public support for Israel has fallen sharply, particularly among younger Americans. AIPAC has become a liability in some races, forcing the organization to route money through less recognizable entities. Politicians, media organizations, and public institutions are discovering that positions which once carried little political risk now attract scrutiny and opposition. The public is pulling away from the one-sided story that justified Israel’s extraordinary influence over American policy. The political machine is not.[4]
The public is pulling away from the one-sided story that justified Israel’s extraordinary influence over American policy. The political machine is not.
Politicians who once took the money are walking away from it. In October 2025, Seth Moulton announced he would return AIPAC donations and stop accepting them, citing the group’s alignment with the Netanyahu government. [5] Candidates who built careers on pro-Israel funding now distance themselves from it. The well-funded primary challenge that keeps lawmakers in line for forty years has started to lose its threat.
The public moved first, and some politicians followed. Polling shifts, particularly among Democrats and younger voters, as the images coming out of Gaza collide with the official framing of the relationship. The manufactured consensus that held for half a century is breaking under the weight of what people can see for themselves.
Total Capture Since January 2025
While the public pulls away, the government increases its commitment of American resources and power to Israeli objectives.
The previous administration had attached human rights vetting to American weapons, requiring Israel to certify that aid was used in accordance with international law, and had paused certain heavy bomb shipments because of the civilian death toll in Gaza. Within the first five weeks of the new administration, both were gone. The 2,000-pound bombs were released on January 25, 2025, five days after inauguration. [6] National Security Memorandum 20, the vetting requirement, was revoked on February 24.[7] Those bombs fell on Gaza. Between January 2025 and May 2026, nearly 26,000 people have been killed and more than 61,000 wounded. [8, 9] Independent studies put the real numbers higher, since the official count records only the dead who can be identified.
Then the volume jumped. By early March 2025, six weeks into the new administration, Secretary of State Rubio confirmed nearly $12 billion in major foreign military sales to Israel, including 35,500 heavy bombs and thousands of precision-guided munitions. [10] Rubio invoked emergency authorities to expedite $4 billion in arms, waiving the mandatory thirty-day congressional review so weapons would ship at once. [10] The Pentagon was directed to prioritize Israeli shipments over other commitments, including Ukraine, so that the munitions would arrive in days.
The administration turned to the stockpile next. The War Reserve Stock for Allies-Israel is a cache of American weapons stored inside Israel. Previous legislative changes removed limits on its size and value and allowed Israel to withdraw from it immediately, payment deferred, with the United States replenishing the stock afterward through emergency funds. It functions as an unlimited credit line for munitions, and the requirement to report withdrawals to Congress in real time was eliminated. [11] The transfers move faster now, and they move in the dark.
The integration went operational. Israel struck Iranian nuclear facilities on June 13, 2025. Nine days later, American forces joined in with their own strikes, committing American military power directly to a genocidal offensive Israel initiated. [12] In February 2026, the United States launched Operation Epic Fury, a campaign coordinated with Israel that targeted Iranian infrastructure. The State Department states that the United States entered the conflict “at the request of and in the collective self-defense of its Israeli ally.”[16][17] In addition, the administration sanctioned the International Criminal Court two days after Netanyahu’s White House visit, in retaliation for its arrest warrants against Israeli leaders, turning American economic power against this highly regarded international court.[13] Executive Order 14169 suspended all American development aid worldwide for ninety days. Four days later, Secretary Rubio’s implementing memo carved out a single exception: military aid to Israel. [14]
This is what total capture looks like in practice. The speed, the volume, the secrecy, the legal cover, the willingness to commit American forces and American sovereignty — all of it reaches into the exercise of American power itself.
Section 224: Locking It In
The 2027 National Defense Authorization Act contains a section that makes the arrangement permanent. Section 224 of H.R. 8800 establishes a United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative and directs the Secretary of Defense to designate an executive agent responsible for synchronizing the two countries’ military efforts. [15]
The scope is total. The initiative covers counter-drone systems, anti-tunneling, missile defense, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, directed energy, cyber warfare, biotechnology, and defense manufacturing. It reaches across every warfighting domain, land, sea, air, space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum. It directs the integration of American and Israeli industry through joint ventures, licensing, and co-production, and it folds in the full apparatus of American defense research, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Missile Defense Agency, the Defense Innovation Unit, and Space Command.
The emergency waivers, the stockpile access, the operational coordination, all of it operates through executive discretion, which means a future administration could reverse it. Section 224 removes that possibility. It creates a permanent office, a standing mandate, and an institutional structure designed to run regardless of who holds power.
The timing is the point. The public is pulling free of the capture for the first time in fifty years. The money has turned toxic, the politicians are backing away, the consensus is cracking. And at exactly this moment, the institutions reach past the voters and write the relationship into permanent statute, beyond the reach of the shift that is finally underway.
American Sovereignty, Transferred
America’s servitude to Israel is growing deeper, more expensive, and more institutionalized, running full-throttle while the criticism mounts. The aid keeps accelerating even as the money turns toxic, and the integration keeps widening even as the public turns against it. This bill writes all of it into permanent law.
And we are killing entire peoples.
Sources and Further Reading
Decades of Capture
[1] U.S.-Israel Military Aid: $174 Billion in Federal Spending, Fully Mapped. Fed-Spend; February 2026.
https://fed-spend.com/blog/us-israel-military-aid-federal-contracts-exposed
[2] Statement on the Memorandum of Understanding Between the United States and Israel. White House/GovInfo; September 14, 2016.
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/DCPD-201600591/html/DCPD-201600591.htm
[3] A History of the US Blocking UN Resolutions Against Israel. Al Jazeera; May 2021.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/19/a-history-of-the-us-blocking-un-resolutions-against-israel
The Public Breaks Free
[4] As AIPAC Becomes Toxic, It Is Trying to Conceal Spending in US Elections. Al Jazeera; May 2026.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/20/as-aipac-becomes-toxic-it-is-trying-to-conceal-spending-in-us-elections
AIPAC Super PAC Funded Illinois Groups. NBC News; March 2026.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/aipac-super-pac-funded-illinois-groups-democratic-primaries-israel-rcna264379
[5] Moulton Returning AIPAC Donations Over Close Ties to Netanyahu’s Government. The Hill; October 16, 2025.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5559354-seth-moulton-aipac-contributions/
Total Capture Since January 2025
[6] Trump Makes 2,000-Pound Bombs Available to Israel, Undoing Biden Pause. CBS News; January 25, 2025.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-approves-3-billion-arms-sale-israel/
[7] Van Hollen Blasts Trump Decision to Revoke NSM-20. Senator Chris Van Hollen; February 24, 2025.
https://www.vanhollen.senate.gov/news/press-releases/van-hollen-blasts-trump-decision-to-revoke-nsm-20
[8] Israel Accepts Gaza’s 70,000 Death Toll: A Record of Denialism, Lies. Al Jazeera; January 30, 2026.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/30/israel-accepts-gazas-70000-death-toll-a-record-of-denialism-lies
[9] Health Ministry Issues Latest Gaza Death Toll. IMEMC News; May 31, 2026.
https://imemc.org/article/health-ministry-issues-latest-gaza-death-toll/
[10] Trump Administration Approves Nearly $3 Billion Arms Sale to Israel. CBS News; March 2, 2025.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-approves-3-billion-arms-sale-israel/
Trump Administration Approves Major Nearly $3 Billion Arms Sale to Israel. AP via US News; February 28, 2025.
https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2025-02-28/trump-administration-approves-major-nearly-3-billion-arms-sale-to-israel
[11] Who’s Minding the Stockpile of US Weapons Going to Israel? Responsible Statecraft; August 2024.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/arms-transfers-to-israel/
[12] Israel and US Strike Iran’s Nuclear Program. Arms Control Association; July 2025.
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2025-07/news/israel-and-us-strike-irans-nuclear-program
Israel-Iran Conflict, US Strikes, and Ceasefire. Congressional Research Service; June 2025.
https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF13032
[13] ICC Condemns Trump Sanctions. CBS News; February 7, 2025.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/icc-trump-sanctions-international-criminal-court-israel-netanyahu/
Trump Administration Sanctions on the ICC. Amnesty International; March 2025.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2025/03/what-do-the-trump-administrations-sanctions-on-the-icc-mean-for-justice-and-human-rights/
[14] EO 14169 Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid. Immigration Policy Tracking Project; 2025.
https://immpolicytracking.org/policies/eo-reevaluating-and-realigning-united-states-foreign-aid/
Section 224: Locking It In
[15] National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027, Chairman’s Mark. House Armed Services Committee; May 2026.
https://armedservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/fy27_ndaa_chairmans_mark_-_final.pdf
[16] Operation Epic Fury and International Law. United States Department of State; April 21, 2026.
https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-legal-adviser/2026/04/operation-epic-fury-and-international-law
[17] Fact Check: US Entered Iran War at the Request of Israel. Snopes; April 30, 2026.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-iran-war-request-israel/