Frontpage Mag
written by Daniel Greenfield
January 26, 2015
When the media whines about how Netanyahu is undermining Obama, remember that Obama’s people are running a direct anti-Netanyahu election campaign in Israel. Exactly the way that Clinton’s people did.
Haaretz reporter Roy (Chicky) Arad revealed in an article in the Hebrew edition today that the foreign funded organization, “One Voice”, is bankrolling the V-2015 campaign to defeat Binyamin Netanyahu’s national camp in the March 2015 Knesset Elections.One indication of the generous financing is that it has now flown in a team of five American campaign experts (including Jeremy Bird, the Obama campaign’s national field director) who will run the campaign out of offices taking up the ground floor of a Tel Aviv office building.V-2015 is careful not to support a specific party – rather “just not Bibi”. As such, the foreign funds pouring into the campaign are not subject to Israel’s campaign finance laws.
Jeremy Bird is as Obama as it gets.
He’s a Harvard trained community organizer who was Obama’s Deputy National Field Director in ’08 and his National Field Director in ’12. He was the Deputy Director of Organizing for America and is now working for Ready for Hillary.
One Voice’s partners include the State Department and the European Commission.
UPDATE: A version of the Haaretz piece by Roy (Chicky) Arad has come out in English.
With the help of American money and a former campaign adviser to President Barack Obama, V15 is trying to replace Israel’s government. The money and organization comes from V15’s partnership with OneVoice…OneVoice is expected to merge with V15 before the March 17 election. The groups have a common goal: To recruit tens of thousands of volunteers for house-to-house canvassing, knocking on anywhere between 150,000 and 1 million doors — a method that was effective in Obama’s first presidential campaign, in particular.Their secret campaign weapon is Jeremy Bird, a 36-year-old American political strategist who worked for Obama. Bird has come with a team of four consultants that will try to channel the energies of V15 into an organized methodology…Israel is an ideal country for a door-knocking campaign because of its relatively small size, Bird says.
UPDATE 2: More from Cmd Dyer at Liberty Unyielding
Interestingly, when OneVoice was formed in 2003, its inaugural board of advisors included Gary Gladstein, long-time Chief Operations Officer of Soros Fund Management. Gladstein is still listed as a member of the honorary board.OneVoice’s current management team includes two veterans of the Obama and Hillary Clinton campaign organizations (along with other Democratic campaigns).It would be downright silly to assume that the c.v.’s of these OneVoice staffers have nothing to do with OneVoice’s hiring of one of Obama’s highest-profile political operatives to campaign against Netanyahu in Israel.
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Washington Free Beacon
OneVoice International aiding anti-Netanyahu
written by Alana Goodman
January 27, 2015
A U.S. State Department-funded group is financing an Israeli campaign to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and has hired former Obama aides to help with its grassroots organizing efforts.
U.S.-based activist group OneVoice International has partnered with V15, an “independent grassroots movement” in Israel that is actively opposing Netanyahu’s party in the upcoming elections, Ha’aretz reported on Monday. Former national field director for President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign Jeremy Bird is also reportedly involved in the effort.
OneVoice development and grants officer Christina Taler said the group would be working with V15 on voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts but would not engage in overtly partisan activities. She said OneVoice and V15 are still formalizing the partnership.
While V15 has not endorsed any particular candidates, it is working to oppose Netanyahu in the March elections.
“We’ve formed a partnership with [V15], but it’s important to know we’re absolutely nonpartisan,” Taler told the Washington Free Beacon. “Our biggest emphasis and focus right now is just getting people out to vote.”
OneVoice said in a press release on Tuesday that it is teaming up with V15 because Israel “need[s] a prime minister and a government who will be responsive to the people.”
OneVoice International received two grants from the U.S. State Department over the past year, and lists the agency as a “partner” on its website. Taler said the group is not using this money for its Israeli election-related efforts.
“No government funding has gone toward any of the activities we’re doing right now whatsoever,” she said.
Taler said the group used the State Department grants to “build public campaign support for the [Israeli-Palestinian] negotiations” spearheaded by Secretary of State John Kerry last spring.
OneVoice also recently hired Bird’s consulting firm 270 Strategies to “inform us better as a grassroots-organizing model.”
Ha’aretz reported that Bird will work with the V15 campaign from an office in Tel Aviv.
OneVoice says it works to represent moderate Palestinian and Israeli viewpoints. Last August it sponsored an “Abbas not Hamas” campaign in support of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, whose government has encouraged attacks against Israelis. Abbas’ son Yasser Mahmoud Abbas sits on the group’s advisory board.
Democrats have blasted the House GOP for inviting Netanyahu to speak to Congress in March, claiming that Republicans are trying to give him a boost in the Israeli elections.
Bird suggested this week that the invitation to Netanyahu was related to Jewish Republican donors.
“What do you think Adelson promised GOP in exchange for this insane BiBi House visit?” Bird wrote on Twitter. “Blatant attempt to bolster Israeli PM before elections.”
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