A push to tightly fuse the US and Israeli militaries and economies is advancing in Congress, which is bad news for Americans who want fewer foreign entanglements.

• A pro-Israel think tank in Washington is urging Israel to bind its defense, tech, intelligence, and finance so deeply to the US that any future American president could not use sanctions against it.
• Section 219, already passed in the House version of the defense bill, moves that integration forward; it has not cleared the Senate.
• The worry is that this copies China's playbook — tangle the money and trade so much that the US has to tread carefully or lose control of its own leverage.
• Older evangelical Republicans back the alliance partly on religious grounds, while younger conservatives who grew up watching Iraq and Afghanistan are turning against it.
• The cost lands at home: more debt, billions in weapons packages, bond markets under strain, and young people who cannot afford a house.

Outlook: The fight now shifts to the Senate, where an unusual left-right coalition may try to strip the provision before it becomes nearly impossible to undo.