On Thursday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) refused to say whether or not he supports efforts to strip the Pentagon budget bill of a highly controversial provision to integrate the U.S. and Israeli militaries, even as other Democrats unite on the issue. This week, a group of 12 members of the Senate led by Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) urged congressional leaders to remove…
Source
Progressive lawmakers are mounting a campaign to end the Trump administration’s war on Iran by cutting off funding for the effort and potentially forcing a government shutdown, after Democrats won a historic majority running against the unpopular conflict. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) are two figures leading the effort, which is akin to Congress’s…
Source
On Sunday, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna (California) pushed back against calls from other Democrats to focus on economic issues ahead of the midterm elections rather than on holding President Donald Trump accountable, saying that lawmakers should do both. In an interview with NBC News’s Kristen Welker on the network’s “Meet the Press” program, Khanna was asked to respond to Sen. Tammy Duckworth’…
Source
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) issued a stark warning this week about a congressional measure that would merge the U.S. and Israel’s military technology industrial complexes, saying that it represents an “existential threat” to U.S. democracy. The provision — called the “U.S.-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” or Section 219 — is included in the 2027 National…
Source
Israeli settlers armed with clubs, rocks and a knife attacked a convoy of journalists in the West Bank on Saturday, the latest targeting of foreign journalists documenting the Israeli occupation. Four settlers have reportedly been detained over the attack. The convoy, which included CNN’s Jeremy Diamond, were accompanying the father of Palestinian American Saif Musallet to the site where he was…
Source
Last month, Responsible Statecraft’s Ben Freeman reported on a provision buried in the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that seeks to deepen connections between the United States and Israeli militaries. Section 224, the “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative”, would synchronize efforts between the the two countries “to expand and accelerate bilateral…
Source