Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) on May 31 said that he would introduce an amendment to kill Section 224 of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, the provision that would deepen ties between the American and Israeli militaries, Common Dreams reported on June 1. Khanna wrote on social media that he would work to ensure that the provision, Section 224 of the NDAA, is removed from the bill in the House Armed Services Committee, which is set to mark up the $1.15 trillion legislation on May 28.
Khanna’s pledge to spearhead committee efforts to remove the provision came after Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)—who has partnered with the California Democrat in pushing for the full release of the Epstein files—condemned Section 224 on social media and vowed to “offer an amendment to strip it from the bill on the floor” if it survives the House Armed Services Committee. “We are a sovereign country,” Massie wrote. “While Americans oppose more military aid to Israel, Congress is inserting something even deeper and more insidious into the U.S. military budget (NDAA): U.S. integration with the Israeli military!” Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the peace group CODEPINK, said last week, “Tell Congress: Reject Section 224 of the NDAA. No military integration. No weapons and AI partnerships.”
By coincidence, Middle East Eye ran a detailed article on the history of the U.S. policy of maintaining Israel’s “qualitative military edge,” or QME, over its Arab neighbors. The policy dates back to 1968 or so and was codified into law by Congress in 2008. MEE notes that the Naval Vessel Transfer Act obliges the U.S. to ensure that arms exports to other states in the Middle East not adversely impact Israel’s QME, which it formally defines as:
“The ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors, while sustaining minimal damages and casualties, through the use of superior military means, possessed in sufficient quantity, including weapons, command, control, communication, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities that in their technical characteristics are superior in capability to those of such other individual or possible coalition of states or non-state actors.”
MEE also notes that the U.S. has donated more than $240 billion (adjusted for inflation) in military aid to Israel since the end of the Second World War, making it the largest recipient of U.S. financial support. Current aid donations are underpinned by a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by President Barack Obama in September 2016, which ringfenced a minimum of $3.8 billion of military aid to Israel every year until 2029—the largest single military aid pledge in U.S. history.
