Publications
Partners
It’s no secret that the relationship between Barrack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is terse at best and volatile at worst.
The recent fracas concerns the Israeli elections on the 17th of March, amidst allegations of interference in the country’s electioneering process, levelled at the Obama Administration by Netanyahu and his Likud party.
Central to this is the allegation that a US State Department-funded group is financing an Israeli campaign to oust the Prime Minister.
One Voice, is a US-based activist group funded by the State Department, which is also listed as the group’s partner on their website.
One Voice has paired up with V15- an independent grassroots movement in Israel – reportedly actively opposing The Likud party in the coming elections.
Likud has filed a motion with the elections committee maintaining that V15 is carrying out an ‘illegal indirect campaign with a connection to Labour and Meretz.
V15 is making criminal use of foreign sources of funding’ which involves very high funds in which the sources are unknown’.
Ha'aretz- the leading English-language news website for Israel and the Middle East announced that that the foreign-funded organisation ‘One Voice’ is bankrolling the V-2015 campaign.
It alleges that Jeremy Bird, the Obama campaign’s national field director, flew to Israel with a team of consultants and is running a grassroots, Obama-style campaign from an office in Tel Aviv which takes up the entire ground floor of the building. They claim that V-2015 is not supporting a specific party, they’re for anyone- just not Bibi- therefor the foreign funding pouring into the campaign will not be subjected to Israel’s finance laws.
When asked whether their goal was- “Anyone but Bibi” the response was –“We say replace the government- it’s not directed at specific individuals. There have been many years of right-wing government during which little happened. It’s time to change course and give people hope”.
One Voice is expected to merge with V15 before the March 17 election the newspaper revealed, and they intend to emulate the methods employed in Obama’s successful first presidential election campaign.
The Likud party has alleged that the New Israel Fund was among the bodies involved in the campaign, and that millions were also flowing in from Europe- in “a serious breach of campaign laws that define foreign donations to political parties in Israel as a criminal offence”.
The V15 campaign reacted to the motion by saying “Netanyahu is in a state of panic”
He added “Obama’s enlistment to the campaign exists only in the fevered minds of the right wingers and Likudniks.”
A letter has been sent to John Kerry by a Congressman and Senator requesting information regarding V15.
In its annual 2013 report the CEO of One Voice touted the organisation’s work ‘together in partnership with the US Embassy in Tel Aviv and The US Consulate General in Jerusalem…….made possible by two parallel US Government grants’
In 2014, One Voice received two grants from the State Department.
Another V15’s spokesman, Uri Wollman, said his organisation ‘will not stop its campaign to ensure a centre-left coalition forms the next government in Israel.’ He denied there was any link to any US political party, The White House or the State Department.
However, Wollman conceded that the V15 effort against Netanyahu is funded primarily by three private philanthropists, two of whom are American.
They are;
. S Daniel Abraham, the billionaire founder of the Slim Fast food line who is also a major donor to the Democratic Party and the Clinton Foundation.
.Daniel Lubetzky, a social entrepreneur whose One Voice movement is partnered with V15.
.Alon Kastiel, a Tel-Aviv based businessman and owner of multiple local venues, including bars, clubs and hotels.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/190736#.VO8UXZsfrcc
http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/netanyahu-fires-back-at-ex-obama-team-plotting-his-defeat/
http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-election-2015/.premium-1.640171
http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-election-2015/.premium-1.639158
http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-election-2015/.premium-1.640692
