Mediaboss Marketing

Israelis are increasingly convinced President Obama is meddling in their upcoming election, and some observers predict the White House's alleged effort to undermine Benjamin Netanyahu could indeed wind up tipping the scales in favor of the prime minister.

Former Obama campaign workers have launched campaign teams throughout Israel that experts say are indirectly funded with U.S. State Department grants and which are solely focused on ousting the prime minister, who has a well-chronicled adversarial relationship with Obama. While there is no concrete evidence Obama is personally pulling strings to undermine Netanyahu in the March 17 vote, polls show a strong majority of Israelis believe he is.

"You cannot prove a direct link, said Danny Ayalon, Israels ambassador to the U.S. from 2002-2006. But there is a dotted line. So a lot of Israelis...connect the dots.

Ayalon said Secretary of State John Kerry signaled the start of the Obama administrations election push against Netanyahu when he reportedly warned EU envoys at a private late December luncheon that theyd be helping the Israeli leader and the political right if they voted on a Palestinian statehood resolution at the UN at that time.

Then came news that the U.S.-based nonprofit OneVoice Movement until recently headed by a member of U.S. Democratic administrations and recipient of some $350,000 in recent State Department grants had entered into a partnership with the Israel-based Victory 15 campaign itself guided by top operatives of Obamas own successful White House runs as it pushes its replace the government mantra.

- Danny Ayalon, former Israeli ambassador to the U.S.

Things came to a head, said Ayalon, when the White House said Obama would not meet with Netanyahu when the Israeli leader at the invitation of House Speaker John Boehner came to Washington to address a joint session of Congress Tuesday on problems his government sees with administration-backed efforts to reach a nuclear weapons inspection deal with Iran.

If anyone thinks they can influence the Israeli electorate from overseas, they are sorely mistaken, Ayalon told FoxNews.com. Israelis, like any people, (will) be defiant and oppose any hint or visibility of foreign interference in their domestic affairs.

That is why this may actually produce a backlash.

A poll this week has already shown Netanyahus center-right Likud Party holding sway as its main rival a center-left alliance called Zionist Union faltered. This comes a little more than a week after a Jerusalem Post/Maariv Sof Hashavua poll showed that 62 percent of 589 Israeli respondents believed the Obama administration was interfering in the election.

View original post here:
OBAMA MEDDLING? Charges ex-campaign aides trying to oust Netanyahu