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Congress quietly moves to integrate US and Israeli militaries

By Ben Freeman | Responsible Statecraft | May 29, 2026

At a time when the American public is expressing unprecedented levels of distrust in the Israeli government, Congress just proposed tying the U.S. to the Israeli military more than ever before.

Buried in the House’s version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) released on Tuesday, is section 224, entitled “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative.” The provision would arguably do more to intertwine the U.S. military with the Israeli military than the more than $200 billion (inflation adjusted) in military assistance Israel has received from the U.S. since its founding in 1948.

Section 224 lays the groundwork for bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and seemingly every manner of U.S.-Israeli military-industrial complex cooperation. The U.S. and Israel already work together heavily on missile defense, but this provision would greatly expand coordination to seemingly every area of defense tech, including AI, quantum, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyber, biotech, and many more. It also proposes “network integration” and “data fusion.” In other words, the U.S. military’s data could soon be the Israeli military’s data.

If fully enacted, this proposal would provide a higher level of military-industrial integration than the U.S. has with any other country in the world. To be sure, the U.S. has worked closely with its NATO partners on co-production and shared supply chains, most notably via the Defence Production Action Plan. And, as the number one arms dealer in the world, the U.S. provides weapons to militaries across the globe. But that is mostly a one-way street, with the U.S. providing weapons to foreign buyers who only occasionally make parts for those weapons themselves, as in the case of the F-35’s global supply chain.

Section 224 would be a different beast entirely. It would fuse the U.S. and Israeli defense sectors in multiple areas vital to the battlefields of the future, like autonomous systems and cyber. It would also bring extraordinary Israeli influence to the U.S. beyond what it already has through the Israel lobby and its robust network of social media influencers. It would give the Israeli government the opportunity to greatly expand one of the most powerful levers of influence in U.S. politics: jobs in the U.S. By expanding or starting new co-production facilities like it already has in Mississippi and Arkansas, the Israeli government could boast of providing jobs on U.S. soil, thereby securing allies among members of Congress who represent the districts where those jobs lie.

The result could well be a U.S. political system even more susceptible to the whims of an Israeli government that seemingly has no qualms about drawing the U.S. into military conflicts in the Middle East.

This unprecedented level of U.S.-Israeli military integration stands in stark contrast to the traditional aid model of defense cooperation, in which Israel already stood out as the top recipient of U.S. military assistance. As laid out in a recent Quincy Institute brief, authored by Steven Simon, this shift from an aid model to a military integration model has troubling implications, namely:

The shift will strip away the political and diplomatic oversight mechanisms that make the relationship publicly accountable, moving it from a visible annual aid vote into the opaque machinery of defense acquisition, where oversight is limited and political accountability is minimal. The result would be a defense relationship that is simultaneously deeper and less transparent.

This all comes at a time when the Israeli military has repeatedly used U.S. weapons in strikes that have violated international humanitarian laws in Gaza, and as Israel has repeatedly violated ceasefires (as has the U.S. itself) in the Trump administration’s unnecessary war with Iran.

The enormous gulf between what most Americans want and what the president is doing when it comes to Israel and what Congress is proposing here should not be ignored. Just 30% of respondents to a New York Times/Sienna poll from mid-May believe Trump made “the right decision” to go to war with Iran, with 64% saying it was wrong. An Institute for Global Affairs poll released earlier this week dove even deeper into the American psyche when it comes to arming Israel, finding that “Just 16 percent say the United States should keep supplying Israel with weapons without new restrictions. Thirty-eight percent want to stop supplying weapons entirely, and another 24 percent want weapons conditioned on how they’re used.”

Yet, mainstream leadership in both parties remains largely pro-Israel and continues to shape the base legislative text before amendments and broader congressional debate open it to the full body, as is the case with this NDAA provision.

Though slowly, tides within both parties are shifting as more and more members speak out against the growing divide between Israel’s actions and America’s interests. For example, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) wrote in The New York Times on Tuesday that, “The Democratic Party has provided reflexive and unconditional support to Israeli governments, even as their actions have increasingly undermined American interests and values.” On the Republican side of the aisle, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R-Ga.) have openly decried the Israel lobby’s corrosive influence — a stance that may have, at least partially, cost both of them their seats in Congress.

What can other members of Congress who are concerned about Israel’s destabilizing actions do right now? Stop the Israeli-U.S. military-industrial merger in its tracks. Lawmakers should reject Section 224 from the NDAA to avoid deep integration with Israel’s military at a time when a growing number of Americans oppose Israel’s actions in the region.

Ben Freeman is Director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute and the author of “The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home” (2025).

May 29, 2026 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , | Comments Off on Congress quietly moves to integrate US and Israeli militaries

Israel Relaunches, Rebrands Online Propaganda Campaign

By Harrison Berger | The American Conservative | May 21, 2026

Israel has relaunched and rebranded Act.IL, an online campaign originally designed by Israeli intelligence officials at the Ministry of Strategic Affairs to harass and intimidate American critics of Israel. Such operations are generally referred to as “troll farming,” though the forces behind Act.IL use softer, more highfalutin language.

Rebranded as RiseApp, the program is operated by Israel’s Reichman University (IDC Herzliya) and, according to the project’s website, aims to mobilize Act.IL’s existing database of more than 40,000 pro-Israel online operatives to counter what it describes as “antisemitism” and “misinformation.”

The Reichman University website describes RiseApp as delivering “fact-checked, expert-led responses” for users to deploy in “social media debates and public forums,” in order to engage in “proactive advocacy” on behalf of Israel. A “dual purpose,” of the app, Reichman says, is that it allows users to flag and “identify emerging adversarial narratives” while “alerting partner organizations” to “develop tailored responses.”

A presentation for the forthcoming app’s interface, posted to the Reichman website, pitches the platform as “empowering and uniting the Jewish community” and includes tabs for “The Useful Idiots” and “Genocide Claims.” The latter would seem to provide users with arguments to combat the consensus of human rights organizations that Israel committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

RiseApp’s predecessor Act.IL was launched in 2017 as a joint project of Reichman Institute and the Israeli-American Council (IAC)—the U.S.-based Israel lobby group founded by casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson and run by Adam Milstein (Tuvia Milsztein), who was convicted in 2008 for his involvement in the Spinka tax fraud ring involving Orthodox Jewish charity fronts—and was operated by Yarden Ben-Yosef alongside other current and former Israeli intelligence officials.

“We work with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, consult with them and manage joint projects.” Act.IL director Ben-Yosef said in a 2018 interview with Forbes Israel. In an interview with The Forward a year earlier, he said of Act.IL’s relationship with Israeli spy agencies: “We talk with each other. We work together.”

As The Forward described the app in 2017, Act.IL would gather “high school students and adult mentors” who complete “social media ‘missions’ assigned out of a headquarters in Herzliya, Israel,” including pressuring social media platforms to censor content supportive of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and critical of Israel, with users getting “points” for each mission they complete.

That propaganda and troll campaign was part of a broader Israeli government operation orchestrated by Gilad Erdan’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs called Concert, whose purpose was to create third party-operated surveillance, censorship, and propaganda firms that could hide all Israeli government links to their operations, which at the time were directed against the BDS movement in North America.

“Ambiguity is part of our guidelines,” the Israeli intelligence officer and director-general of the Ministry of Strategic Affairs Sima Vaknin-Gil explained in a leaked 2016 video recording featured in the suppressed Al Jazeera documentary The Lobby, telling a private audience of Adelson’s IAC activists that Israel has established “a civil intelligence unit that collects, analyzes, and acts upon” Israel’s enemies, using data from “campuses… and labor unions, and churches,” calling the program “Israel Cyber Shield.”

Israel Cyber Shield was eventually expanded into a much larger Israeli propaganda program which cycled through the names Kela Shlomo (Solomon’s Sling), Concert, and finally Voices of Israel. It is now housed under Amichai Chikli’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.

The rebranding of controversial hasbara operations is a documented pattern of the Israeli government and its intelligence services. Before Act.IL launched, Israeli company Psy-Group , also staffed by former Israeli spies and affiliates of Reichman University, ran “Project Butterfly” to infiltrate and destabilize BDS chapters on college campuses using fake identities, later pitching their social media manipulation services to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Psy-Group founder Joel Zamel met Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower in August 2016, along with the businessman Erik Prince and a man named George Nader who presented himself as an emissary of the UAE and Saudi Arabia, while a senior campaign aide, Rick Gates, had separately solicited proposals from the Israeli spy-staffed firm for a covert influence campaign targeting Republican convention delegates and Hillary Clinton. When special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russiagate investigators closed in on those meetings, Psy-Group simply shut down and relaunched as Percepto International, while the Israel Lobby insinuated that Mueller was antisemitic for looking into Psy-Group’s Israeli interference efforts.

The relaunch of Act.IL as RiseApp follows the Israeli Knesset’s approval of the country’s largest ever budget for foreign propaganda operations, or hasbara, quintupling funding from 2025 to a total of $730 million. That scaled-up expenditure comes amid surveys showing declining support for Israel across party lines in the United States, a trend Israel correctly perceives as an existential threat to the unconditional funding and diplomatic protection their country depends on.

Harrison Berger is a correspondent at The American Conservative. He has contributed to Drop Site News, The Nation, and Responsible Statecraft. Previously, he was a researcher and producer for System Update with Glenn Greenwald. His work focuses on civil liberties and U.S. foreign policy. He studied Political Science and Russian Studies at Union College (NY).

May 29, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Comments Off on Israel Relaunches, Rebrands Online Propaganda Campaign

German politician blasts ‘totalitarian madness’ of sanctions on pro-Palestinian journalist

RT | May 29, 2026

Germany’s implementation of EU sanctions against a pro-Palestinian journalist whom Brussels has accused of fueling discord on Russia’s behalf has descended into “totalitarian madness,” German opposition politician Sahra Wagenknecht has said.

Wagenknecht has called for financial restrictions imposed on Huseyin Dogru and his Berlin-based family to be lifted. On Tuesday, Dogru said Comdirect bank had frozen the assets of his elderly mother, citing what it described as a “control relationship over the funds by [her] son.” His wife’s bank account was targeted in March, while his father is reportedly under investigation by the authorities.

“This is how dictatorships treat opposition figures,” the left-wing BSW party founder told Berliner Zeitung on Thursday.

“The EU’s scandalous overreach against a German journalist and the German government’s complicity in breaking the law and collective punishment must finally stop,” she added. “If the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution were doing its job, this totalitarian government extremism would actually be a case for them.”

EU portrays pro-Palestinian advocacy as serving Russia

Dogru is a Turkish-German journalist who previously worked with the media outlet Redfish, which received funding from Ruptly, a video agency Western governments have labeled as being part of Russia’s “propaganda” infrastructure.

The EU imposed personal sanctions on Dogru in May 2025, accusing him of “systematically spreading false information about politically controversial topics, with the intention of sowing ethnic, political and religious discord” in Germany and claiming that his work aligned with Russian objectives.

Dogru says Brussels and Berlin are targeting him over his pro-Palestinian activism. Even Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner Michael O’Flaherty criticized Germany over the issue, warning in April that “freedom of expression has been restricted disproportionately, regarding debates on Palestinian rights or legitimate criticism of the Israeli government.”

‘Civil death’ without charges

The German financial restrictions severely limit what Dogru, a father of three young children, can legally do to support his family. He is barred from carrying out donation-funded journalism or accepting solidarity aid, as the government considers such payments an attempt to circumvent sanctions. His assets have been frozen, with only around €500 ($590) per month permitted for expenses. His travel has also been restricted.

Dogru’s supporters say he has effectively been subjected to a “civil death” despite no formal charges being filed against him. A campaign urging the EU to lift the sanctions was launched last week on the anniversary of their introduction.

Wagenknecht is among the signatories of the petition, which argues that Dogru is facing state censorship in violation of the German constitution and EU laws.

After Western governments made combating what they call “Russian disinformation” a major policy priority, Moscow argued that the campaign reflected an attempt to preserve narrative control amid the rise of alternative online media.

May 29, 2026 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , | Comments Off on German politician blasts ‘totalitarian madness’ of sanctions on pro-Palestinian journalist

Avoiding Catastrophic Failure in Cuba

SONAR21 | May 28, 2026

ALERT MEMORANDUM FOR: The President

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)

SUBJECT: Avoiding Catastrophic Failure in Cuba

Dear President Trump:

We are deeply concerned that the current U.S. approach to Cuba makes an ugly humanitarian disaster – for which the U.S. will be responsible – increasingly likely. We also believe that any military option will draw us into a losing war.

Cuba is not Venezuela. U.S. relations with Cuba have never been good, even before Fidel Castro’s rise in 1959. Washington has never grasped Cubans’ deep national pride and yearning for sovereignty, nor their culture of respect for institutions. Whether we like it or not, the government has residual legitimacy, and even Cubans wanting significant change will rally behind the flag if there is an attack from outside.

The Cuban people are indeed suffering, but reports alleging broad popular support for U.S. sanctions and even military intervention are heavily colored by people who are in the pay of the USG. Given the false choice between living under the current government with U.S. “maximum pressure” sanctions and living under a new system, some Cubans would indeed opt for change. But their protests aren’t about blaming the government, and even those who want major change in Cuba do not trust the U.S. The 65-year embargo and the ongoing oil blockade are sources of deep, if latent, suspicions toward us.

The language in Executive Orders dated 29 January and 1 May, alleging that “the policies, practices, and actions of the Government of Cuba constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security, suggests confusion between reality and politically motivated allegations. These narratives are mostly fake.

  • Cuba does seek ways to evade U.S. sanctions – as any country would to survive – and several countries help it, albeit at steadily declining levels. Such efforts can hardly be called a “threat” to the United States. While ideally the Cuban military business conglomerate, GAESA, would operate more transparently, it’s cynical of us not to see their need for its secrecy in the face of aggressive U.S. intelligence operations and sanctions.
  • Since at least 1992, the USG has had no evidence of Cuba providing any operational, logistical, or training support to any terrorist organization. Stretching the definition of “terrorist” to include a couple of fugitives from U.S. law appears disingenuous.
  • A careful review of the intelligence surrounding the tragic, unnecessary shootdown of the two Cuban-American aircraft as they departed Cuban airspace on 24 February 1996 shows clearly that the indictment of former President Raúl Castro last week is not fact-based.
  • Neither does the USG have evidence that China and Russia are operating signals intelligence “spy bases” in Cuba directed against the U.S. As the Intelligence Community knows well, Russia abandoned its main facilities after the collapse of the USSR, and there has never been any indication of a Chinese facility pointed at the U.S.
  • While debate over the alleged “sonic attacks” or “microwave attacks” against U.S. personnel continues to rage in some quarters, no evidence has been uncovered in the past nine-plus years to support the accusation of a Cuban role in such attacks on the island and in China, Europe, and the U.S.
  • The covert operations under U.S. “democracy promotion” or regime-change programs generate information that supports the views of the U.S. constituency that controls them, so the resulting picture is deceptive. We recommend that you review these covert activities closely. If you decide to approve them, sign onto them in a Presidential Finding and official Congressional Notification. The record shows that covert action planners misled President Kennedy about the prospects for the Bay of Pigs operation, and CIA analysts were kept in the dark.

Administration statements, aggressive airborne intelligence collection, and ship movements around Cuba suggest preparations for military action. The Cuban military is weak and lacks even basic supplies, and Cuba’s doctrine of “War of All the People” may seem naïve to us. Cuba will react with what conventional hardware it has and can attain, perhaps even drones, in defense of its leadership and sensitive facilities.

But U.S.-driven “regime collapse” and occupation or imposition of a government of our choosing will fail badly. The same people who keep ’57 Chevrolets on the road with a coat hanger will wreak havoc against a foreign-imposed regime. Administration declarations show a wise tendency to keep U.S. boots off the ground, but it’s also important to know that swarms of Cuban nationalists will silently undermine any system that we impose. The implications of any of these scenarios for migration pressures would be catastrophic.

Press reports indicate that the U.S. is in some kind of “negotiation” with a grandson of former president Raul Castro, who holds no official position in Cuba. In any case, our experience with conflicts worldwide leads us to point out that talks with a gun at one’s temple are not a true negotiation. U.S. coercion against Cuba hasn’t worked for more than six decades. A negotiation without blockades, guns pointed at leaders’ heads, and political indictments can work much better.

FOR THE STEERING GROUP, VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY (VIPS)

  • Fulton Armstrong, former National Intelligence Officer for Latin America (ret.)
  • Marshall Carter-Tripp, Foreign Service Officer (ret.); Division Director, State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research
  • Philip Giraldi, former C.I.A., Operations Officer (ret.)
  • Matthew Hoh, former Capt., USMC, Iraq & Foreign Service Officer, Afghanistan (associate VIPS)
  • Larry Johnson, former C.I.A. Intelligence Officer & State Department Counter-Terrorism Official (ret.)
  • John Kiriakou, former C.I.A. Counterterrorism Officer and former senior investigator, Senate Foreign Relations Committee
  • Karen Kwiatkowski, former Lt. Col., U.S. AF (ret.); at Office of Sec. of Defense watching the manufacture of lies on Iraq, 2001-03
  • Ray McGovern, former U.S. Army infantry/intelligence officer & C.I.A. analyst; C.I.A. Presidential briefer (ret.)
  • Elizabeth Murray, former Deputy National Intelligence Officer for Near East, National Intelligence Council; C.I.A. political analyst (ret.)
  • Scott Ritter, former MAJ., USMC, former chief UN Weapon Inspector, Iraq
  • Coleen Rowley, F.B.I. Special Agent and former Minneapolis Division Legal Counsel (ret.)
  • Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel (USA, ret.), Distinguished Visiting Professor, College of William and Mary (associate VIPS)
  • Sarah G. Wilton, CDR, USNR, (ret.)/D.I.A., (ret.)
  • Robert Wing, former Foreign Service Officer (associate VIPS)
  • Ann Wright, Col., U.S. Army (ret.); Foreign Service Officer (resigned in opposition to the war on Iraq)

May 29, 2026 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Comments Off on Avoiding Catastrophic Failure in Cuba