American advisers, money shape Israel's election

Michele Chabin | Special for USA TODAY

Corrections & Clarifications: The previous version of this story did not make clear that V15 and OneVoice are partners.

JERUSALEM — President Obama says he won't meet with Benjamin Netanyahu when the Israeli prime minister visits Washington next month because it's too close to Israel's election. That's not stopping former Obama campaign aides and donors from getting involved.

In fact, Israel's election has become a bipartisan, American affair. Campaign strategists for Senate Republicans work as consultants, and money is pouring in from wealthy Democratic and GOP contributors.

That's in addition to what has emerged as the major campaign issue: a long-testy relationship between Netanyahu and Obama that has been revived over Netanyahu's acceptance of a Republican invitation to address Congress two weeks before Israel's vote March 17.

Though U.S. consultants have advised Israeli politicians for nearly 20 years, "the level of partisan Israeli accusations of foreign meddling has reached an unprecedented level," said Steve Rabinowitz, a Democratic strategist in Washington not involved in the Israeli campaign. "This is reflective of the new level of partisanship that has overtaken Jerusalem the same way it has overtaken Washington."

Israeli law prohibits foreigners from donating money directly to the country's political parties once candidates are chosen in primaries, but they can donate to partisan, non-profit organizations that promote the political viewpoints associated with Israeli parties or candidates. The parties say they have no links to these groups.

There is no legal ban on foreign campaign consultants.

The Republican consultants and money supporting right-wing causes provide a boost to Netanyahu's Likud Party, while the Democrats back the more liberal Labor Party and the Zionist Camp, a center-left coalition that includes Labor.

In a statement to USA TODAY, Likud confirmed that Republican political strategists Vincent Harris and John McLaughlin have "advisory roles to complement" the party's professional team to "ensure the public is aware of the party's accomplishments and plans for the future."

Harris has worked for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, he denied claims by supporters of Netanyahu's rival for prime minister, Labor Party head Isaac Herzog, that he is a GOP emissary charged with keeping the hawkish Israeli leader in office.

Harris, who joined the Likud campaign in December, said his work in Israel is "completely separate from my work in the U.S., so what is being reported is not true. I have not spoken to Sen. Cruz or to Mitch McConnell about my job here."

The Labor Party's accusations that Republicans back Likud come amid GOP calls to investigate an Israeli non-profit political campaign organization whose motto is "Vote to change our leadership."

The group's young staffers and volunteers go door-to-door urging a vote for "change," code for supporting Likud's more liberal rivals.

The organization, Victory 2015 or V15 for short, has partnered with OneVoice, a liberal, non-profit group that has hired several U.S. political consultants. The most notable is Jeremy Bird, who served as national field director for Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. The White House has said Bird is working on his own.

The consultants "have a lot of experience in U.S. campaigns, and door-to-door campaigning is an American concept," said Anat Goihman, 29, a OneVoice staffer. "We meet people who want things to be different, and we urge them to vote."

Uri Wollman, V15's spokesman, told USA TODAY that its funding comes from four philanthropists, including two based in the USA: S. Daniel Abraham, founder of Slim Fast Foods and a major Democratic Party donor, and Daniel Lubetzky, founder of OneVoice, which has received grants from the U.S. and European governments.

Two grants totaling $350,000 came from the State Department, according to department and other documents. Last month, Cruz and Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-N.Y., sent Secretary of State John Kerry a letter demanding details on who approved U.S. government funds for OneVoice, how they are being spent and whether OneVoice's work with V15 violates its status as a tax-exempt organization.

"Has President Obama launched a political campaign against Prime Minister Netanyahu and his representatives?" Cruz asked.

In response, OneVoice said the State Department provided funding to bolster Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and didn't assist V15. The State Department said the funding ended in November 2014.

Likud receives non-financial backing from Yisrael Hayom, a pro-Netanyahu newspaper funded by American billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a leading Republican donor. More Israelis read Yisrael Hayom than any other newspaper.

"We don't know how much money Adelson invests in Yisrael Hayom, but we do know it's losing a lot of money," said Menachem Hofnung, a Hebrew University political scientist. "The Likud doesn't even try to pretend the paper is unbiased in its favor."

Running a daily newspaper of that size costs millions of dollars a year.

Shmuel Sandler, a political scientist at Bar Ilan University, said the fact that the vast majority of overseas funding appears to emanate from Jewish donors "is part of the whole Zionist philosophy that the Jewish people are one and that Israel is the home of all Jews." Funding coming from foreign governments "would be very problematic," said Sandler, an expert on Israeli elections and Israeli-U.S. relations

Rabinowitz, the Washington strategist who had worked for Clinton, said the Republican and Democratic consultants working for V15 and Likud do so "because it's a business, and they're flattered to be wanted in an influential country like Israel."

"Nobody in Washington is dispatching these guys to work for their favorite candidates, as much as a lot of folks in Washington would like one party or the other to win," Rabinowitz said. "Nobody is guiding money or staff. No politician is involved in the Israeli election, except maybe in church or synagogue, where they're praying for the 'good guys' to win."