Foreign entities which undermined Israel’s sovereignty during her election
period
Susie Dym 31 March 2015

The European Union recently undermined Israel’s sovereignty by allowing its
name to be used as a “partner” of the recent anti-Netanyahu campaign.
Several American and British liberal philanthropies also improperly allowed
their organizations’ names to be used as “partners” of the recent
anti-Netanyahu electoral campaign.

In particular:

BBC Watch pointed out (30 March weekly digest), that BBC Radio 4's Kevin
Connolly reported Israel’s election results on March 19th. Inter alia, BBC’s
Connolly stressed that "Foreign governments, of course, are far too
well-behaved to interfere in the internal politics of a democratic state."

In fact, however, the European Union actually did allow itself to be
presented as a “partner” of the anti-Netanyahu campaign; an EU logo is
prominently displayed, to this day, in the list of “partners” on the One
Voice website. To remind, One Voice’s logo appeared in the V15 campaign
Facebook posts; One Voice also hosted V15 updates on its website. Going to
the “News and Events” on the One Voice site, clicking on right-left arrows
reveals One Voice’s heavy promotion of the V15 in (Victory 2015)
anti-Netanyahu electoral campaign.

In written correspondence with Mattot Arim, an Israeli NGO, an EU official
agreed that interfering in foreign elections is inappropriate. Nonetheless
the EU delegation refused to remove the EU logo from the list of One Voice
partners where it still appears.

Several liberal American philanthropies can also be seen in the list of
“partners” on the One Voice website which heavily promoted the
anti-Netanyahu campaigning.

At least three of these liberal philanthropies (High Atlas Foundation, Skoll
Foundation and the Nathan Cummings Foundation) appear to be 501c3
organizations hence subject to the following IRS regulation: “Section
501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or
indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on
behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office.
[P]ublic statements of position made on behalf of the organization in favor
of or in opposition to any candidate for public office clearly violate the
prohibition against political campaign activity.”

Allowing one’s organization’s name to continue to feature on a website after
that website has started campaigning would certainly seem to constitute an
instance of “indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political
campaign ...in opposition to...any candidate for elective public office”
and/or “public statements of position (verbal or written) made on behalf of
the organization in ...opposition to any candidate for public office “. But
the 501c3 organizations seemed untroubled by this. Did these organizations
believe that in the Obama era it is OK for liberal groups to flaunt IRS
rules & regulations? It is conjectured that the so-called “IRS targeting
controversy”, in which political opponents of Obama were significantly
mistreated by the IRS -- compared to pro-Obama groups, might have caused an
untroubled attitude. Wikipedia reports that a 2013 NBC News/Wall Street
Journal poll found that 55% of respondents believed that the “IRS targeting
controversy” indeed raised questions about the Obama administration's
integrity (in connection with the IRS's handling of politically sensitive
tax exempt organizations); 33% blamed Obama directly for the IRS targeting
fiasco.

Various British philanthropies also allowed their name to be used as
“partners” of the anti-Netanyahu campaigners. There were however a few
philanthropies in Great Britain who did have enough integrity to remove
their logos from the One Voice website after having been advised that their
good names were being flaunted in connection with a political campaign.

Jeremy Ben-David, an Israeli intellectual property expert of British
extraction, told this author: “I am appalled at the involvement in internal
Israeli politics by an coalition of groups actively advocating radical
left-wing policies and linking directly to the V15 campaign which is playing
an active part in the Israeli elections – an opposition campaign to remove
Israel’s prime minister. What has happened is clearly the de facto transfer
of goodwill from a charitable organization to a political campaign. As such
it is grossly improper.”
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Susie Dym is spokesperson for Mattot Arim, an Israeli grassroots
organization working toward peace-for-peace since 1992
https://www.facebook.com/MattotArim