US funds aided 2015 campaign to oust Netanyahu

A US Senate inquiry published Tuesday says the US government supported a group that tried to unseat Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last year to the tune of nearly $350,000, though it cleared the State Department of any wrongdoing.

The probe found no illegal activity in funding the OneVoice group, which became the V15 campaign to oust Netanyahu, though its report chided the State Department for having failed to prevent state funds being used, albeit legally and indirectly, to influence an ally’s internal political process.

According to the report, authored by the permanent subcommittee on investigations of the Senate’s Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, the State Department gave grants totaling $349,276 to One Voice’s Israeli and Palestinian branches “to support peace negotiations” over a 14-month grant period that ended in November 2014.

After that period, the organizational infrastructure created with these funds was used by V15, a group that actively called on Israel’s to vote for “anyone but Bibi [Netanyahu]” during last year’s general election.