The State Department said that it has not received official word that the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations is looking into allegations that it interfered with Israeli elections.
Spokesperson Jen Psaki said Monday afternoon that she asked in the morning, only to receive no confirmation about the existence of a probe.
“I don’t think we’ve had any official notification of this investigation,” she said.
The possibility of a inquiry was first reported on Saturday by Fox News. A reporter for the right-wing news organization said “a source familiar with the matter confirmed…that the probe–undisclosed until now–was both underway and bipartisan in nature.”
At the heart of the matter is the State Department’s support for an Israeli NGO, OneVoice Movement. The organization has received $350,000 in State Department grants and is led by a diplomat with ties to the Democratic Party. It also has a subsidiary, Victory 15, that is running a campaign aimed at replacing current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a coalition led by more moderate centrists and center-left factions. That arm has hired leading strategists from President Obama’s victorious Presidential campaigns. Israel’s parliamentary elections are set to take place on Tuesday.
“No direct link has been confirmed between Obama and the anti-Netanyahu campaign in Israel, but polls have shown that a large majority of Israelis believe the administration has been interfering in the election, set for March 17,” Fox News noted.
Psaki said Monday that the State Department would, if called upon, work the with the Senate panel–a subcommittee of the Department of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. She also brushed aside the notion that the State Department, under President Obama, has had a bad track record of cooperating with Congressional investigations, after a reporter mentioned the House Select Committee on Benghazi.
“We would disagree that we haven’t cooperated. So would 40,000 pages and dozens of hearings worth of evidence,” she said.
Caitlin Conant, a spokesperson for Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), the chair of the investigations subcommittee, told Fox News that it “does not comment on ongoing investigations.”
OneVoice, which could lose its tax-exempt status if it was found to have directly targeted Netanyahu, has denied accusations that it is working with the White House to unseat the incumbent leader of Israel. A spokesperson told Fox News that “OneVoice is eager to cooperate with any inquiry” and that the group is “confident no wrong doing will be found.”
The State Department supports OneVoice to promote “both Palestinian grass-roots civic activism and Palestinian-Israel peace talks,” Fox News noted.
The initiative seems to be part of window-dressing public relations campaign more than anything, considering US support for an Israeli military regime that denies Palestinians the opportunity to participate in “grass-roots civic activism.”
As The Sentinel noted in December, the State Department made a point of declining to comment about Israel’s imprisonment of Murad Shteiwi, a leader of demonstrations in Kufr Qaddum against Israel’s separation wall. The European Union had said the jailing was an Israeli move “intended to prevent [Shteiwi] and other Palestinians from exercising their legitimate right to protest,” and described the leader as “deeply committed to non-violence” in calling for his release.
Under the Israeli occupation—a regime that subjects Palestinians in the West Bank to military law and Israeli settlers to civilian law—Palestinians are forbidden from “assembly, vigil, procession, or publication relating to a political matter or one liable to be interpreted as political.”
Before bringing up the story about the investigation, Associated Press reporter Matt Lee asked Psaki about a campaign speech Netanyahu made Monday, in which he said he would never allow the existence of a Palestinian state. She declined to comment directly, and repeated the State Department’s official line, which is that a two-state solution is a prerequisite to lasting peace in Israel and Palestine.
“As with many countries, we will work with whomever is the winner of the election,” she also stated.
After detailing the State Department’s assessment of the OneVoice report, Psaki was again, asked–by Al-Quds reporter Said Arikat–about Netanyahu’s history of refusing to consider recognizing a Palestinian state.
“I’m just not gonna weigh in on this issue a day before the Israeli elections,” she responded.
