Democrats push to remove US-Israel tech measure from defense bill

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., is leading a push to remove provisions from the Senate and House versions of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act that would promote closer ties between the U.S. industrial base and Israel’s. A letter sent Tuesday to House and Senate leadership signed by Van Hollen and 11 other Senate colleagues, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., specifically addresses Section 1217 of the Senate version and Section 219 of the House version of the bill. Those sections, called the United States-Israel Defense Cooperation Initiative in the House and the United States-Israel Framework for Upgraded Technologies, Unified Research, and Enhanced Security (FUTURES) Act in the Senate, each call for enhanced cooperation between the two countries on weapons technology development, including in artificial intelligence, quantum technology and chemical and biological weapons.

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