The U.S. State Department paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayers' grants to an Israeli group that used the money to build a campaign to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in last year's Israeli parliamentary elections, a congressional investigation revealed yesterday (July 12, 2016), according to the Washington Times website.
Some $350,000 was sent to OneVoice to support the group's efforts to back Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement negotiations.
But OneVoice used the money to build a voter database, train activists, and hire a political consulting firm with ties to President Obama's campaign -- all of which set the stage for an anti-Netanyahu campaign -- the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said in a bipartisan report.
Netanyahu won the election, and the U.S. spending was not deemed illegal because the State Department never put any conditions on the money. Investigators also said OneVoice did not turn explicitly political until days after the grant period ended.
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