Rep. Thomas Massie advised his 1.7 million followers on X on the evening of July 10 that the House Rules Committee would be meeting next Monday night “and will decide if our Amendment to strip section 219 (merging US military tech & supply chains with Israel’s) from the NDAA [National Defense Authorization Act—ed.] will get a vote. If they don’t let our amendment get a vote, I will vote against their rule.”
Not long after, he posted an update to his advisory, reporting that “the Rules committee is NOT scheduled to include NDAA in the Rule next week.” Heading off any slowdown in the mobilization to get Congress to block the measure, Massie added that he would not delete that tweet, “because at some point House Leaders will bring the NDAA to the floor, and will likely bring it through the Rules committee. We just don’t know when.”
On July 9, independent presidential candidate Diane Sare issued her second national leaflet, “No Merger with Israel or Any Other Nation,” urging American citizens to order their U.S. Congressional representatives to remove the relevant NDAA Sections, 219 in the House version and 1217 in the Senate. “It is treason” to propose to merge all aspects of the U.S. defense department with the State of Israel, Sare warned. “Committing to such cooperation with ANY foreign country would be a threat to the national security of the United States and the safety of the American people…. But it is not just any country; it is Israel: a state that is currently run by war criminals who are committing genocide and ethnic cleansing against Palestine and Lebanon…. Call your congressmen today and every day until their office confirms that they will not pass the NDAA if it includes any provision to merge our military with Israel or any other nation.”
The latest sign that Congress is feeling the heat from their constituents on this one, is the July 9 report by Reuters news agency that six Democratic Senators have issued a joint “Dear Colleague” letter urging their fellow Senators to block passage of the NDAA military spending legislation until the Senate debates the Israeli merger section. “As Senate Democrats, we should not be providing votes compelling him (President Donald Trump) to deepen the U.S. relationship with Netanyahu’s extremist government,” Reuters reports from the letter, which was organized by Maryland’s Senator Chris Van Hollen. Oregon’s Jeff Merkley, Massachusetts’s Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, and Vermont’s Peter Welch, and Vermont’s Bernie Sanders are reported to have signed also.
