With elections to be held in just one day, Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is in the fight of his political life.
That’s fair enough. Israel is a democracy in which its citizens – Jew, Arab, anyone at all – are able to cast votes for whomever they like.
And I ‘m sure you recall that President Barack Obama who opposed Mr. Netanyahu’s speech before a joint session of congress and would not meet with him, on the grounds that it was too close to the Israel election, and his policy was not to interfere.
Well, what if that same Barack Obama was indirectly funding the effort to remove Netanyahu from office?
Excerpted from Steven Edwards’ article at foxnews.com:
A powerful U.S. Senate investigatory committee has launched a bipartisan probe into an American nonprofit’s funding of efforts to oust Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after the Obama administration’s State Department gave the nonprofit taxpayer-funded grants, a source with knowledge of the panel’s activities told FoxNews.com.
The fact that both Democratic and Republican sides of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations have signed off on the probe could be seen as a rebuke to President Obama, who has had a well-documented adversarial relationship with the Israeli leader.
It also follows a FoxNews.com report on claims the Obama administration has been meddling in the Israeli election on behalf of groups hostile to Netanyahu.
The Senate subcommittee, which has subpoena power, is the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs’ chief investigative body with jurisdiction over all branches of government operations and compliance with laws.
According to the source, the probe is looking into “funding” by OneVoice Movement – a Washington-based group that has received $350,000 in recent State Department grants, and until last November was headed by a veteran diplomat from the Clinton administrations.
A subsidiary of OneVoice is the Israel-based Victory 15 campaign, itself guided by top operatives of Obama’s White House runs, which seeks to “replace the government” of Israel.
Let’s review: Prime Minister Netanyahu came to the US to speak about the dangers of cutting a “deal” with Iran – the most prolific supporter of terrorism in the world and a country specifically committed to Israel’s destruction. Despite the obvious importance – a threat to Israel’s survival – he was very clearly and very publicly rebuffed by President Obama and 50 – 60 of his fellow Democrats, who boycotted the speech.
But Mr. Obama, whose premise for rebuffing Netanyahu was that allowing him to speak before congress would affect Israel’s elections (as if Netanyahu, not Obama, timed the negotiations to when Israel’s elections were being held), then had no problem with his own campaign people traveling to Israel to remove Netanyahu from office – and now stands accused of having our government fund an organization committed to do so as well.
(FYI: in Israel’s system, losing the vote on election day does not necessarily mean being unseated – Israel has a number of political parties and the Prime Minister is selected based on who can put together a governing coalition)
The bottom line here is that if Benjamin Netanyahu manages to stay in office, it will be in spite of President Obama’s efforts to remove him. And if he should lose, it will, in part, be the result of President Obama’s efforts to do so.
Does that look like Obama has any problem interfering in Israel’s politics?
How can anyone trust a word this man says? And if Benjamin Netanyahu should withstand Barack Obama’s hit job and win any way, how can anyone believe their relationship – already ugly – will not be even worse?
Make a deal with an enemy, screw over an ally. The hallmark of the Obama era.
