US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) leads the U.S. House of Representatives in passing the “Bipartisan Safer Communities Act” gun safety legislation in the House Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 24, 2022. REUTERS/Jim Bourg

On July 22, the US House of Representatives passed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2027.

In Section 219 (formerly 224) of the FY2027 NDAA, the Pentagon was directed to appoint an “executive agent” who would be “responsible for synchronizing cooperative efforts” between the US and Israeli militaries. Such cooperation would include defense technology testing, evaluation, and industrial cooperation.

Leading up to and following the vote, massive amounts of deliberate misinformation began to circulate online, by both members of Congress and anti-Israel actors.

Nowhere in the bill was a “merger” of the US and Israel militaries mentioned. Yet that is the exact language that spread across social media. The misinformation is a direct result of misreading the bill, and when it is pumped out to millions of people online across different platforms, the consequences are dangerous.

HonestReporting.ai Labs found that while the language surrounding the vote initially referred to an “integration,” by July 22, the day of the vote, it had shifted to a “merger,” or to phrasing that suggested the US military was “tied” to the Israeli military. The timing here further displays how an anti-Israel narrative can latch on to a single word and spread as a way to influence perceptions of policy.

On the day following the vote, the narrative was fully constructed as the language solidified across the political spectrum on social media. This was reinforced by members of Congress, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Thomas Massie, who previously offered an amendment to strip aid to Israel from a foreign aid bill.

Tucker Carlson was also quick to jump on the “merger” phrasing, but furthered his own anti-Israel agenda while doing so, claiming that the bill is “treason” and enough to warrant “Nuremberg trials.”

Recasting the bill as a “merger” did more than misstate a section. It handed critics of Israel an opportunity to rehash the claim that Washington answers to Jerusalem, especially as it pertains to the military. This accusation predates the bill, yet the claim itself collapses with the understanding of how foreign military aid actually functions. The roughly $3.3 billion the US sends Israel each year is largely restricted to purchasing American-made equipment, meaning the money flows to American companies and American workers, not out of American communities.

A defense cooperation clause became a conspiracy within a few days online as a direct result of the change in language describing the bill itself. “Integration” hardened into “merger” within a matter of days and once the word took hold on social media, the foundation for a new narrative was set.

When language gets twisted to further a political point, it diverges from the truth. And in doing so, it stops describing a bill and starts describing the false belief that Israel does not cooperate with the US military, but controls it.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.