Aaron Kaplowitz is the president of the United States-Israel Business Alliance.
In October 2025, Spain enshrined into law an embargo on Israeli defense and dual-use technology. The measure was sold as moral leadership.
But by December, Madrid had carved out an exemption for Airbus. Israeli-made components are indispensable to aircraft and drone systems built in Spain. The boycott bent because the supply chain refused to.
The conclusion was clear: You can shun Israeli technology in a press release, but you cannot remove it from a modern defense platform. Spain’s embarrassment is a warning, and Congress is about to decide whether the United States heeds it.
Last week, the House Armed Services Committee approved the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act. Section 224 of the act would create a formal framework for joint U.S.-Israel “defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration, and industrial cooperation” across artificial intelligence, quantum technology, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyberdefense and biotechnology, among other emerging domains. The section is the strategic answer to nearly everything Europe is getting wrong.
The provision is already under fire by several congressmen who oppose deeper U.S.-Israel defense integration. Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California), who sits on the committee, introduced an amendment stripping Section 224 from the act, but it was voted down. With the legislation now advancing, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) has pledged to offer an amendment on the House floor.
Europe’s experience explains why the vote matters.
Across the continent, governments are testing procurement restrictions designed to distance public institutions from Israeli defense and dual-use suppliers. France recently barred Israeli officials from the Eurosatory defense exhibition in Paris and limited Israeli firms to air defense and antiaircraft displays. It banned Israeli companies from the same event in 2024 and from the Paris Air Show last year.
The symbolism is obvious, but the strategy is incoherent. On Tuesday, Israel’s Defense Ministry said that weapons exports hit an all-time high at more than $19 billion in 2025, a 30 percent jump from 2024 and more than double the sales of five years ago. According to defense officials, governments that have announced boycotts on Israeli weapons makers are placing orders anyway.
That is what governing by perception looks like: Speeches for the activist base. Procurement contracts in the back office.
European defense ministries understand what they cannot say in public. Israeli systems are battle-tested in real time against adaptive enemies, and there are not many alternatives that perform as well. The defense systems a nation procures depends on what has the best capabilities. Poor capability decisions cost lives.
The threat environment makes the contradiction sharper. Cheap drones have turned the airspace above airports, transit hubs and schools into a new vulnerability. Defending open societies now requires video intelligence, AI-driven anomaly detection, counter-drone systems and cyberdefense for critical infrastructure. Much of the field-tested technology in these domains comes from Israel.
While part of Europe eschews Israeli technology in public, Arab and Muslim states are dispassionately taking advantage of the nation’s advances. Israel reportedly sent the United Arab Emirates a version of its antimissile laser defense system, along with advanced drone detection technology, to help the Gulf nation defend against Iranian attacks. According to reports, the Iron Dome system, a product of Israeli ingenuity and American funding, was also deployed to the UAE. Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, has imported Israeli intelligence technology, despite no formal diplomatic ties. These governments face greater political sensitivity about Israel than Madrid or Paris. They buy anyway, because they need tools that work.
But the danger of rejecting lifesaving Israeli technology is already crossing the Atlantic.
In February, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, a city-controlled industrial campus in New York, declined to renew the lease of Easy Aerial, an Israeli-founded drone manufacturer whose perimeter security solutions are used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Air Force. The decision followed months of activist campaigns against the firm and came six weeks into the term of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who publicly supports a boycott of Israel.
In other words, a drone manufacturer was pushed out of the United States’ most populous city at the moment when drone technology has become the defining instrument of modern public safety.
New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch made the city’s exposure plain in recent weeks. She described an unprecedented threat environment this summer spanning the World Cup, the Knicks’ NBA Finals run and America 250 celebrations. Weaponized drones are the threat she said keeps her up at night. “Tactics that once belonged to militaries are now increasingly accessible to smaller groups and individuals,” Tisch said.
What New York has done at the local level, Reps. Khanna and Massie would do at the federal level. Section 224 represents the alternative. The vote will signal whether U.S. defense policy is set by capability or by activist pressure.
If U.S. law follows the example of Europe’s moral performance, policymakers will have abdicated their responsibilities. A serious security strategy cannot shut out the world’s most field-tested sources of defensive innovation or punish the capital that funds the technology keeping free societies safe.
Public opinion matters — but public safety comes first.
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