Did Congress just approve a merger of the U.S. and Israeli militaries?\u00a0<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what U.S. politicians from both political parties are saying.<\/p>\n
\u201cYesterday, the United States Congress voted to merge our military with Israel\u2019s military,\u201d Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate James Fishback said in a\u00a0July 23 X video<\/a>. \u201cThis may be the last straw for American sovereignty.\u201d<\/p>\n On July 21, a day before the House was scheduled to vote on the National Defense Authorization Act, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.,\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0the bill \u201cincludes a provision to merge parts of our military with the (Israel Defense Force). This amendment is an existential threat to American sovereignty and democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n U.S. Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif.,\u00a0also<\/a>\u00a0criticized<\/a>\u00a0Section 219 of the bill, which outlines U.S. and Israeli military cooperation, and co-introduced an amendment to strip it from the legislation. House leadership didn\u2019t allow a vote on the amendment, and the House\u00a0passed the legislation<\/a>\u00a0July 22. The Senate has yet to take it up.<\/p>\n But Fishback\u2019s and other politicians\u2019 comments mischaracterize the legislation.\u00a0<\/p>\n The fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act \u2014 a sweeping annual package that sets funding and policy for the U.S. Defense Department \u2014 doesn\u2019t create any joint military command, integrate troops or operational authority or yield command of U.S. forces to Israel \u2014 all of which would be required for merging militaries.\u00a0<\/p>\n Instead, it formalizes joint production for certain technologies, expands research sharing between the countries and integrates portions of the defense supply chain.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t see how anyone could read this provision and believe that the two militaries were merging in any way,\u201d said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and military specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a national security-focused think tank.\u00a0\u201cThe section outlines a process for coordinating technologies between the two countries. We do that with many countries.\u201d<\/p>\n Rhetoric about\u00a0merging militaries \u201cdoesn\u2019t make sense and wouldn\u2019t hold up legally in any sustainable way that I could imagine,\u201d said Michael O\u2019Hanlon, a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution\u2019s foreign policy program.<\/p>\n PolitiFact contacted Fishback for comment but did not receive a response.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tWhat does Section 219 do?<\/p>\n The provision makes it easier for the U.S. and Israel to acquire technology from each other, something the countries have been doing for a long time.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe have cooperated with the Israelis on military technological development before \u2014 most notably on the development of air defenses,\u201d said Raphael Cohen, a defense policy expert at the Rand Corp., a nonpartisan research organization. \u201cSo, while this increases defense cooperation between the U.S. and Israel, this is not altogether unprecedented.\u201d<\/p>\n Titled \u201cUnited States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,\u201d\u00a0Section 219<\/a>\u00a0directs the U.S. defense secretary to designate an executive agent to coordinate and oversee U.S. and Israel cooperation.<\/p>\n The section says<\/a>\u00a0the U.S.-appointed agent\u2019s responsibilities include promoting joint training exercises, overseeing the integration of technologies and managing research projects between the two countries.\u00a0<\/p>\n Focus areas include drones, missile and air defense technologies, AI systems, supply chains, cyber defense, network integration and data fusion.<\/p>\n Currently, several federal offices with equal authority oversee the U.S.-Israel technology cooperation, said Kelly Grieco, a defense policy expert at the Stimson Center think tank.\u00a0 Section 219 changes that by giving the newly-created \u201cexecutive agent\u201d the ability to outrank other offices, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Although Grieco described the agent\u2019s role as unusual, with other U.S. allies having no equivalent, she agreed that the bill doesn\u2019t merge the two countries\u2019 militaries.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tU.S. defense agreements with allies vary<\/p>\n The U.S. cooperates with allies and partners around the world to varying degrees, experts said. Because the agreements depend on multiple factors, no two look the same.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe\u00a0U.S. agreement<\/a>\u00a0on nuclear submarines with Australia and the United Kingdom involves more sensitive data sharing than the Israeli agreement, experts said.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tA\u00a0U.S.-Japan agreement<\/a>\u00a0coordinates joint research and development on technology, such as missile defense systems and works to integrate Japanese and American defense supply chains and maintenance capabilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n The U.S. also shares production responsibilities with several countries for various weapons and equipment. The F-35 fighter jet, for example, is\u00a0primarily assembled<\/a>\u00a0at Lockheed Martin\u2019s plant in Fort Worth, Texas, but its components are sourced from multiple countries.\u00a0Created by the Joint Program Office<\/a>, the F-35 program binds the U.S. and participating allies through shared financial risk, technology transfer agreements and manufacturing.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tPolitiFact ruling<\/p>\n Fishback said Congress voted to \u201cmerge\u00a0our military with Israel\u2019s military.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Section 219 of the fiscal year 2027 National Defense Authorization Act establishes a framework for the U.S. and Israel to share technology. It doesn\u2019t create a joint military command, integrate troops or yield command of U.S. forces to Israel \u2014 all of which would be required for merging militaries.\u00a0<\/p>\n The House passed the bill, but the Senate has not taken it up.<\/p>\n Defense experts said the provision is similar to agreements the U.S. has with other allies across the world.<\/p>\n We rate the statement False.<\/p>\n PolitiFact Staff Writer Gracey Abernethy contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Did Congress just approve a merger of the U.S. and Israeli militaries?\u00a0 That\u2019s what U.S. politicians from both…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":256731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[467,37,179,8911],"class_list":["post-256730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-congress","tag-israel","tag-military","tag-politifact"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117124316710802660","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}