A provision tucked into the House Armed Services Committee’s draft version of the Fiscal Year 2027 defense policy bill could move the U.S.-Israel military relationship beyond traditional aid and into a far deeper form of defense-industrial integration. Section 224 of the drafted National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” would require the defense secretary to designate an executive agent to coordinate U.S.-Israel defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration and industrial cooperation. It specifically describes the provision as covering bilateral defense technology work, integration and industrial cooperation. Supporters view the proposal as a way to strengthen cooperation between two longtime security partners while critics argue it would move the relationship beyond traditional military aid and into a far deeper system of defense-industrial integration that would be harder for Congress, taxpayers, and even future administrations, to monitor or unwind. The U.S. and Israel jointly struck Iran on Feb. 28, leading to the ongoing war in the Middle East that has enveloped multiple nations. Ben Freeman, director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute, warned in Responsible Statecraft that “Congress quietly moves to integrate US and Israeli militaries," adding that the measure could intertwine the two countries’ military sectors at a level not previously seen in any U.S. allyship. Freeman told Military.com that the provision reaches across “seemingly every area of defense tech,” including artificial intelligence, quantum technology, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyber and biotechnology. He said the most alarming terms were “network integration” and “data fusion,” since the bill does not clearly define them.