by Shlomo Cesana, Eli Leon and Israel Hayom Staff
In damning report, senators say State Department grant for peace advocacy was used to set up infrastructure that was later transferred to group running anti-Netanyahu campaign in 2015 election • Subcommittee chairman: "It is completely unacceptable."
A bipartisan subcommittee in the U.S. Senate
has confirmed what Israel Hayom reported more than a year ago: The Obama
administration meddled in the Israeli general election in 2015 with the
help of a group called Victory 15 ("V15") in an effort to defeat Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Committee on Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs' Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said in a
report on Tuesday that V15 tried to topple Netanyahu using the
grass-roots network that had been built using U.S. State Department
grant money. The grant was originally given to nongovernmental
organization OneVoice Israel.
According to a Politico piece from Tuesday,
the State Department grant to OneVoice was "intended to rally support
for peace," but was also used to "set up political infrastructure that
was later used for a campaign opposing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu in 2015," in the months leading up to the March 17 general
election.
Politico noted that although the "report found
no legal wrongdoing by the State Department, since the $349,000 in
grants for OneVoice were used to further the Middle East process as
intended," V15 did get access to the "voter databases constructed with
the grant money."
The subcommittee's chairman, Republican
Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, criticized the State Department on Tuesday,
saying it failed to apply proper oversight on how the database was
used, and he accused it [of] sabotaging the democratic process of a U.S.
ally.
"The State Department ignored warning signs
and funded a politically active group in a politically sensitive
environment with inadequate safeguards," Portman said. "It is completely
unacceptable that U.S. taxpayer dollars were used to build a political
campaign infrastructure that was deployed -- immediately after the grant
ended -- against the leader of our closest ally in the Middle East."
Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill,
the ranking member on the subcommittee, echoed his comments, saying the
report "certainly highlights deficiencies in the department's policies
that should be addressed in order to best protect taxpayer dollars."
Because V15 did not explicitly back a specific
party or candidate, it did not have to comply with Israel's strict
campaign finance and propaganda laws. But the report noted that
OneVoice's parent organization, the PeaceWorks Network Foundation, is a
U.S. 501(c)(3) not-for-profit based in New York. According to the U.S.
Internal Revenue Service, which enforces the U.S. tax code, such
organizations "may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not
attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities
and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against
political candidates."
According to the subcommittee's report, the
State Department knew full well that some of the funds it gave OneVoice
would ultimately be used by a consulting firm called 270 Strategies. The
firm was co-founded by Jeremy Bird, who held a key position in
President Barack Obama's 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns and who
visited Israel to advise V15.
"The State Department provided $40,000 to
OneVoice to retain a U.S. consulting firm called 270 Strategies to help
design grass roots operations for both OVI and OVP [OneVoice
Palestine]," the report said. "OVI explained in its final proposal that
'270 Strategies will be hired to train OneVoice Israel staff using their
best-in-class metrics-based micro-targeting method of grass-roots
organizing, and tailored to the needs on the ground as dictated and
overseen by our Israeli staff.'"
According to the Politico report, V15 was
legally allowed to use "voter contacts and activists funded by the State
Department grant for One Voice to oppose Netanyahu ... because there
was no restriction on how the peace process infrastructure could be used
after the grant expired in 2014," but the State Department had every
reason to believe that the funds would ultimately benefit V15's
political operation and hence depart from the intended purpose of the
grant.
This lack of proper oversight was clearly
noted in the report: "Despite OneVoice's previous political activism in
the 2013 Israeli election, the department failed to take any steps to
guard against the risk that OneVoice could engage in political
activities using state-funded grass-roots campaign infrastructure after
the grant period."
McCaskill and Portman provided extensive details on the rationale behind the V15 campaign and how it came about.
"The campaign ... was designed to weaken the
Likud-centered governing coalition and (in the words of OVI's executive
director) 'to take [Netanyahu] down' in the 2015 elections," the report
said. It said OneVoice Israel informed the State Department of its
political strategy during the grant period, and this strategy included
the recruitment and training of activists later used by V15.
It also transpired that the U.S. consul
general in Jerusalem at the time, Michael Ratney, who corresponded with
OVI on multiple occasions, was sent an email detailing the
organization's political plans ahead of the 2015 election. The email,
according to the report, noted that OVI planned to "launch a major
strategic campaign that could shift a key portion of the Israeli and
Palestinian electorates in a direction that would marginalize the
extremists on either side." According to the report, "Mr. Ratney told
the subcommittee that he remembered the email but is 'quite sure' he did
not read the attachment, nor did he respond to [the sender]." Ratney is
quoted as saying, "At times I deleted emails with attachments I didn't
need in order to maintain my inbox under the storage limit."
Israeli politicians were quick to slam the
State Department in the wake of the report. Kulanu MK Michael Oren, a
former Israeli ambassador to the U.S., said, "It is completely
unacceptable for democratic allies to meddle in each other's domestic
politics. While the State Department appears to have steered clear of
violating the law, it should have known that its contribution to
OneVoice might be used to replace the government in Israel. U.S.
senators, both Republicans and Democrats, did the right thing by
criticizing this."
Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister Zeev
Elkin (Likud) said the State Department "interfered in the most brazen
possible way with the Israeli democratic process, which only proves how
correct Israel was in legislating transparency laws dealing with NGO
funding from abroad. The people in Israel elect governments based on the
political and security needs, not because they want to implement the
dangerous plans other countries have tried to promote here."
Habayit Hayehudi MK Bezalel Smotrich said,
"This form of U.S. meddling in Israeli elections by means of funding
political NGOs is nothing short of a diplomatic earthquake. This is both
just mind-boggling and surreal."
Likud MK Yoav Kisch said he was outraged by the report's findings.
"This is a very damning report; it is plainly
obvious that the State Department brazenly pried into Israel's domestic
affairs," Kisch said. "This is a scandalous and flagrant attempt to
replace the government in Israel using American taxpayers' money. The
report's findings underscore the importance of passing the 'V15 bill' I
introduced as quickly as possible. I will lobby the party leaders to
have this bill pass its first reading in the current session."
The Prime Minister's Office and the Likud party each said they had no comment on the report.
Shlomo Cesana, Eli Leon and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=34953&hp=1
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