Democrats in the US Senate have blocked debate on an annual defence policy bill, objecting not only to President Donald Trump’s war on Iran but also to provisions that would more closely integrate the United States and Israeli militaries.

The Senate voted 50-46 on Tuesday, almost entirely along party lines, against opening debate on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), in a rare setback for one of the legislature’s few must-pass pieces of legislation.

The annual defence policy bill sought to authorise much of a $1.15 trillion military budget proposed by Trump. The motion needed 60 votes to advance in the 100-member Senate.

Democrats argued that Congress should not move ahead with the legislation while Trump escalates the war on Iran. Some members of the party also objected to provisions that would deepen US military and intelligence cooperation with Israel, as well as the record size of the Pentagon budget.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer urged Democrats to oppose the bill, calling it “a permission slip” for the Trump administration to continue military operations against Iran without congressional oversight.

“Republicans want the Senate to take up the NDAA … as though Congress can debate the nation’s central national security bill while ignoring the nation’s most urgent national security crisis,” Schumer said before the vote. “We cannot.”

Outside Congress, a coalition of 14 civil liberty, foreign policy and antiwar organisations also urged lawmakers to oppose advancing the NDAA unless senators were guaranteed a vote on an amendment barring funding for what they described as Trump’s unauthorised war against Iran.

The coalition, which includes the American Civil Liberties Union, J Street, CODEPINK and Win Without War, argued Congress should use its constitutional “power of the purse” to enforce its authority over decisions about war.

But the war on Iran was only one of multiple reasons the bill has run into opposition.

The version before the Senate has also triggered backlash over measures that would deepen US military and intelligence ties with Israel.

One key provision would require the Pentagon to appoint an official to coordinate between the US and Israel on defence technology. That would include joint weapons research, production and the integration of each country’s technologies into the other’s military systems.

The provision also controversially calls for “data fusion”, which Human Rights Watch defined in June as combining feeds from multiple sensors and intelligence sources into a single targeting picture.

The group said the arrangement could see the US absorb Israeli intelligence that may have been collected through what it described as problematic mass surveillance programmes.

A separate measure in the 2027 Intelligence Authorization Act, which is usually considered alongside the NDAA, would expand intelligence sharing with Israel.

Democratic opposition

Several Democratic senators, including Chris Van Hollen, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley and Peter Welch, urged other senators in a letter last week not to advance the NDAA before the measures could be debated.

“As Senate Democrats, we should not be providing votes compelling [Trump] to deepen the US relationship with Netanyahu’s extremist government,” the senators wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter urging colleagues to oppose advancing the bill.

In a video posted to X ahead of the vote, Van Hollen argued the bill would pave the way for a “bloated budget” for the Pentagon and place “no restraints on Trump’s illegal war against Iran”. He also alluded to the provisions on Israel “that have gotten very little attention that are kind of crawling through quietly”.

“Why would the United States Congress order the executive branch to share more intelligence, regardless of what the government of Israel is doing?” he asked.

Senate Democrats’ efforts reflect a broader shift within the Democratic Party, where support for Israel has cratered ahead of the November midterm elections.

Israel’s favourability rating among Democrats dropped from 59 percent in 2018 to 22 percent in May, according to a June Reuters/Ipsos poll. (Al Jazeera)

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