Section 219: the future of US-Israeli defence partnership

Is the U.S. really going to stop sending billions to Israel? Well, that's what Donald Trump said he agreed to with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. And since then, there's been lots of speculation about what this actually means. Can Trump make that decision instead of Congress? How do American taxpayers fit into all of this? And what is this new U.S.-Israeli defense partnership that's meant to be mutually beneficial to both countries? In some ways, it has been an effort to sidestep the concerns that have become very prevalent in the United States about U.S. complicity for Israeli actions in Gaza and the West Bank and in the region more broadly. Those sorts of changes and the ones that are being described do very little to sidestep U.S. support or complicity in those harms. U.S.-Israel defense partnerships have officially been around since the 80s, and they've been the basis for the long-term military agreements signed between the two countries. The latest by Obama in 2016, committing the U.S. to another 10 years of military assistance until 2028. Well, now Trump wants to cut that short. While Congress is still debating the National Defense Authorization Act of 2027, which sets the annual objectives for the Department of Defense, including Section 219, a A provision that deals with U.S.-Israel military cooperation. Critics say it's meant to merge the two militaries, while supporters say it's about putting America first. It would look a lot like an expanded set of projects that we've already worked on, whether that's related to air defense, whether that's related to cyber or what have you, that would still be really oriented to the Israeli threat landscape. And it leaves me to wonder how relevant those cooperative projects would be for U.S. interests or for U.S. defense requirements. But there's one detail in Section 219 that stands out. It requires the U.S. Secretary of Defense to appoint an executive agent at the Pentagon who can bypass paperwork to advance U.S.-Israel military projects. An executive agent certainly has a powerful bureaucratic role to play. But in many ways, these powers that were so controversial in that debate already exist. Even if this is stripped out of the final NDAA that passes both the House and Senate, it doesn't really address the bigger problem of efforts to reorient the partnership towards cooperative defense projects and the risks that can be associated with that kind of approach. So what are the actual risks here? The executive branch has long used a very convenient interpretation to not apply those restrictions to arms sales. And you can imagine that there would be similar convenient interpretations about what aspect of the cooperative defense project is assistance versus sale that are made in ways to avoid, let's say, human rights violations. And now for the multi-billion dollar question, does this mean American taxpayers will no longer be paying for Israel's military assistance? for investments in the Israeli defense sector. And there's a catch. Israeli sources are telling Israeli media something quite different. U.S. military financing isn't going to end by the end of this year. It isn't even expected to end in 2028 when the current agreement expires. Instead, the proposal is to continue direct military funding for an additional five years. And the allocated budget for joint missile defense programs, including Iron Dome, Could actually increase. Is there really a shift in the US-Israel partnership? Or is it more of the same, just under a different name?