NDAA: How Congress Is Quietly Advancing the U.S. - Israel Defense Partnership Act
By Robert McDonald, Senior Legislative Researcher, A New Policy
The United States – Israel Defense Partnership Act, introduced as H.R. 1229 in the House and S. 554 in the Senate, expands U.S. – Israel defense cooperation, particularly in emerging military technologies, counter-drone systems, and regional air-defense coordination.
The key provisions:
Establishes a joint U.S. – Israel program to counter unmanned aerial and maritime systems (drones).
Extends and expands U.S. – Israel cooperation on counter-tunnel and anti-drone programs.
Creates a joint emerging technology research program covering artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, robotics, quantum technology, and automation.
Extends Israel’s access to the U.S. War Reserve Stockpile by two years, through 2029.
Requires the Pentagon to establish a Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) office in Israel.
Directs the Department of Defense to conduct a regional air defense assessment for the Middle East.
Cost to the Taxpayer
The provisions authorize approximately $305 million in new spending, on top of about $50 million already allocated to existing cooperation programs, totaling $350 million in U.S. taxpayer funding.
What Do U.S. Taxpayers Get?
From a strategic standpoint, very little tangible return. The areas of collaboration, particularly in AI and quantum computing, represent the “crown jewels” of U.S. defense innovation and are normally shared only with the most trusted allies, such as the United Kingdom and Australia under AUKUS Pillar II. Granting Israel access to these technologies risks eroding the U.S. qualitative military edge while granting Israel a major technological boost.
Israel has a well-documented record of economic espionage and has previously transferred sensitive U.S. defense technologies to adversaries, including the People’s Republic of China. This raises serious concerns about technology security and the long-term implications for U.S. military competitiveness.
Legal and Ethical Risks
The partnership deepens U.S. entanglement in Israel’s conduct in the occupied Palestinian territories. Many of Israel’s defense technologies, including its use of AI-driven targeting systems, have been tested on Palestinians under occupation and used in operations that have resulted in mass civilian casualties in Gaza. Embedding U.S. defense cooperation in such systems could implicate U.S. officials and contractors in future war-crimes investigations or violations of international law.
Status of H.R. 1229 and S.554
H.R. 1229 has 171 cosponsors and S. 554 has 31, yet neither bill has advanced through formal committee markup, likely reflecting growing bipartisan voter opposition to unconditional military aid to Israel.
To circumvent this lack of popular support, The United States-Israel Defense Partnership act was inserted into the Chairman’s Mark into H.R. 3838 (Streamlining Procurement for Effective Execution and Delivery and National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026).
This 1700+ page bill appropriates $884.3 billion in spending for 2026 includes:
Personnel levels for active-duty and reserve forces
Pay, bonuses, and benefits for service members and families
Military health-care and insurance adjustments
Procurement and contracting reforms
Multiyear acquisition authorities and state-law preemptions under TRICARE reforms
Because the NDAA is a must-pass bipartisan bill, embedding controversial measures within it shields them from individual scrutiny. Opposing the NDAA can be politically costly, as such votes can be portrayed as opposing troop pay raises or defense modernization. That makes public awareness critical, the more people scrutinize these provisions and contact their representatives, the more space lawmakers have to amend or remove problematic sections from must-pass bills.
This blog is the first part of a larger series that seeks to explain how large foreign policy or defense bills are used to pass unpopular pieces of legislation that deepen our unconditional relationship to Israel with little public debate.
