FLASHBACK: Israeli Lawmakers Fume Over Obama ‘Intervention’ to Defeat Netanyahu

Members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party reacted harshly to the involvement of a State Department-financed nonprofit in efforts to defeat Netanyahu during last year’s elections.

The Senate on Wednesday found that the State Department provided more than $300,000 in funds to the nonprofit OneVoice “to support peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine over a 14-month grant period ending in November 2014.”

OneVoice in turn supported and financed V15, short for Victory 2015, an activist movement that worked to defeat Netanyahu during last year’s election.

V15’s strategy room was based out of OneVoice’s Tel Aviv office space, a headquarters visited by this reporter during the height of last year’s controversy surrounding the initial disclose of the State financing to One Voice.

The Senate’s investigation did not find evidence that any U.S. government monies were directly utilized by OneVoice to influence the elections. However, as JTA pointed out, OneVoice utilized “campaign infrastructure and resources built, in part, with State Department grants funds to support V15” during the election season.

The Times of Israel reports on Likud lawmakers’ reactions:

The inquiry findings “prove conclusively that there was a crude, clear intervention from the US State Department in the internal affairs of Israel,” MK Yoav Kisch (Likud) said in a statement. “This is scandalous, a callous attempt to replace the government of Israel through funding from the US government.”

OneVoice allegedly previously deleted the State Department’s logo from the list of “partners” on its website.

More here