NDAA Section 219
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Section 219 of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2027, renumbered from Section 224 in an earlier attempt, would co-locate Israeli personnel with the Pentagon and allow closer, Five Eyes-style liaison with the CIA. John Kiriakou notes that an earlier version was moved without a vote, and that opposition has been led by Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna.

The argument against

Kiriakou's objection turns on who the United States normally merges militaries with: "the closest allies that we have in the world. Very specifically the British, the Canadians, the Australians, and the New Zealanders." Israel is not in NATO and is not a member of the European Union.

He adds a structural warning. The Israeli defence minister said publicly that Israel's next war would be against Turkey, a NATO member. Were Turkey to invoke Article 5, the United States would be obliged to go to war with Israel to defend it, which Kiriakou says will not happen; the effect would be to destroy NATO.

The deeper objection is the counterintelligence record: Israeli espionage in the United States is ongoing, the Defense Intelligence Agency warned its own employees about intensified Israeli recruitment weeks before the debate, and the F-35 avionics episode demonstrated what happens when Israel is refused a technology it wants.

Congress's response, as he puts it

Kiriakou uses the provision as the punchline to his account of the counterintelligence ranking. Having laid out that Israel is classified a critical threat and that the agencies are not permitted to act on it, he asks what Congress did about it and answers himself: "Congress's response is to give them an office at the Pentagon and at the CIA, with the National Defense Authorization Act." He notes the renumbering in passing, the section that was 224 has since become 209 or thereabouts, and treats the change of number as the only thing about it that has changed.

He describes the effect in the same breath as the White House invitations that follow a critical-threat finding, as "the merging of the US and Israeli militaries."

See also

- Israeli espionage in the United States
- F-35 avionics dispute with Israel
- Five Eyes
