Likud likens V15 activity to past corruption allegations against Herzog

Herzog exercised his right to remain silent during the investigation, which was closed because there was not enough evidence to press charges.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Isaac Herzog (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Isaac Herzog
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
A public campaign to change the political leadership is the Left’s corrupt attempt to buy an election victory, a Likud campaign said Saturday.
The comments referred to V15, an organization dedicated to bringing political change that is partnered with OneVoice Israel, which works with Israelis and Palestinians to lobby their political leadership to bring about a two-state solution.
The Likud said V15’s activities break campaign finance laws, comparing them to the “Barak nonprofits affair,” in which former prime minister Ehud Barak was accused of violating Election Finance Law in 1999, when he toppled Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Barak’s campaign allegedly formed and used NGOs for campaign activities and acted as a conduit for international donations – illegal for Israeli political parties to accept.
Zionist Union co-chairman Isaac Herzog exercised his right to remain silent during the investigation, which was closed because there was not enough evidence to press charges.
Deputy Minister for Liaison to the Knesset Ofir Akunis, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yariv Levin, Knesset Interior Committee chairwoman Miri Regev, all from the Likud, and Netanyahu’s attorney David Shimron, plan to expose testimony proving Labor’s involvement in Israeli-Palestinian organizations funded by the radical Left in Israel and abroad at a press conference on Sunday.
The Likud campaign said: “It’s worrying to see the Left use similar tactics to trample election laws and buy the leadership of the country. This second nonprofits affair is worse than the first.”
“The left-wing nonprofits affair of 2015 is taking place with the aid of leftwing extremist organizations like OneVoice and [think tank] Molad, which are supported through millions of dollars funneled from Europe, the US and the New Israel Fund – and international factors interested in bringing down prime minister Netanyahu are involved, who think that all means are appropriate,” the Likud campaign said.
A Likud spokesman said a red light should signal a warning for anyone who believes in respecting the law and questions should be raised as to Herzog and Zionist Union co-chairwoman Tzipi Livni’s allegiances.
The Likud also called for Central Elections Committee chairman Justice Salim Joubran to ban V15’s activities to “ensure the integrity of the election.”
Bayit Yehudi faction chairwoman Ayelet Shaked, speaking to Channel 2’s Meet the Press, called V15 a part of the Zionist Union campaign and accused it and OneVoice of facilitating American involvement in the election, demanding that the Central Elections Committee get involved.
Zionist Union responded to the accusation by saying that “Bibi [Netanyahu] and the extreme Right are panicking.
Their fear of sitting in the opposition after the election drove them crazy.”
“It is unnecessary to note that the extreme Right’s claims are baseless lies whose only goal is to shift the discourse from Netanyahu’s failures in the last six years in housing, the cost of living and security,” the Zionist Union spokesman said.