Anti-Netanyahu Group Vows To Fight On
The anti-Benjamin Netanyahu V15 political action group declared it is “here to stay” and will continue the “long march” toward victory and change.
V15 has drawn international attention for partnering with One Voice, a U.S.-U.K. nonprofit that has received funding from the State Department.
OneVoice’s offices in Tel Aviv were being used as the campaign headquarters for V15′s anti-Netanyahu effort, as this journalist was first to report.
It was OneVoice that hired 270 Strategies, a consulting firm whose senior leadership is comprised mostly of former top staffers for President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
270 Strategies consulted in V15′s get-out-the-vote-organizing drive aimed at defeating Netanyahu in the elections here earlier this week with the goal of replacing his government with a center-left coalition.
Last Sunday, Fox News quoted a source revealing a bipartisan U.S. Senate committee with subpoena powers is investigating the possibility the Obama administration may have aided OneVoice’s efforts to defeat Netanyahu via grants from the State Department.
On Wednesday, V15 released a Hebrew statement on its Facebook page vowing, “We are here to stay, against the will of many. … We are not going anywhere.”
The statement claimed the left-wing parties failed to gain a larger electoral margin due to what the group alleged was Netanyahu’s “unprecedented intimidation, defamation and incitement campaign against entire groups of the Israeli population.”
The group claimed Netanyahu’s purported machinations targeted “civilian like us, journalists, media organizations, center and left parties, Israel’s Arab citizens, and more.”
Continued the V15 statement: “Unfortunately, these methods were able to affect too many people in the country. People are afraid of something different, something new.”
So what is next for the V15 campaign following Netanyahu’s decisive victory?
The group said it would take a few days to “digest and think about our next steps.”
“Soon we will come back with updates on how to proceed,” the statement added.
Progressive Groups Advocate Compulsory Voting
Major progressive groups known for influencing White House policy have now come out in support of the possibility of mandatory voting in the U.S.
One of those organizations even conceded compulsory voting laws would work to ensure a future “progressive” government.
The organizations were reacting to President Obama’s controversial comments this past week in which he praised foreign compulsory voting laws and appeared to have floated the concept as a possible future domestic policy.
“Other countries have mandatory voting,” Obama said Wednesday during a speech on the economy and middle class before the City Club of Cleveland.
“It would be transformative if everybody voted – that would counteract money more than anything,” he said, adding it was the first time he had shared the idea publicly.
While his comments sparked outrage from conservative and Republican groups, thinkers from two key progressive organizations have already expressed support for bringing mandatory voting to the U.S.
Michele Jawando, vice president for legal progress at the Center for American Progress, claimed to Slate.com that compulsory voting laws would not violate the Constitution’s First Amendment if citizens required to vote were provided with a “none of the above” option; in other words, if they could decide against voting for any specific candidate.
“I think it would be constitutional, without question,” Jawando said.
The Center for American Progress is known for its singular influence over the Obama White House. The group’s founder, John Podesta, served as Obama’s White House “counselor” and co-directed Obama’s transition into the White House.
Another heavily influential progressive group, Demos, has now outright endorsed compulsory voting laws for the U.S., even allowing that such rules could virtually guarantee a “progressive” government.
“Obama Is Right: America Needs Universal Voting,” reads a post on the Demos website.
“Obama is right to point to voting as a mechanism to fight elite domination of politics,” writes Demos’ research associate Sean McElwee.
McElwee notes that “nonvoters are more liberal than voters.”
“So Obama is correct: compulsory voting would indeed dramatically change the country. It would push policy in a progressive direction and force both parties to put more emphasis on policies that benefit the working and middle classes,” McElwee writes.
According to Demos’s own website, while Obama was a state senator in 1999, he served on the working group that founded Demos.
The group previously partnered with Project Vote, a voter registration drive run by Obama in 1992.
Demos was actively involved in lobbying for Obama’s stimulus legislation.
Obama’s former green jobs czar, Van Jones, is a long-time Demos fellow.
Frustrated With U.S., Saudia Arabia Turns To Russia
Saudi Arabia has quietly reached out to arch foe Russia in an attempt to temper Iran’s regional influence and reach a compromise on Tehran’s nuclear program, Middle Eastern defense officials told KleinOnline.
The Saudi move already has resulted in the opening of back-door dialogue between the two countries aimed at possibly forging a new alliance, the officials said.
The talks may showcase Saudi desperation in light of the Obama administration’s rapprochement toward Iran, perhaps the House of Saud’s biggest competitor for influence in the Middle East and Persian Gulf.
Already, the shifting U.S. regional alliances have seen Russia’s military relationship with longtime U.S. ally Egypt grow ever closer.
The Obama administration has been cool to the secular, moderate government of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, which ousted the Muslim Brotherhood and its Islamist allies led my Mohamed Morsi in 2013.
Ever since the U.S. abandonment of Sisi’s regime, Egypt has grown increasingly closer to Russia, as evidenced by the $3.5 billion arms deal between Cairo and Moscow signed last year.
Earlier this month, Egyptian Defense Minister Sidqi Sobqi and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu announced in Moscow the expansion of Russian military cooperation, which will reportedly include a historic joint naval drill in the Mediterranean Sea.
Additionally, Egyptian soldiers and officers will reportedly train in Russian military academies, reported the Moscow Times.
Now the purported opening of a new dialogue between Moscow and Riyadh seems to continue the trend of former U.S. allies reaching out to the Russian axis.
There is much bad blood between Saudi Arabia and Russia. The Saudis have been backing the insurgency targeting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, known to closely cooperate with Moscow.
Moscow has also long accused the Saudis of supporting Islamists operating in the Caucuses, primarily Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia, as part of an alleged destabilization campaign.
The Russians have claimed further that the Saudis, working in conjunction with the West, have been attempting to lower oil prices in a scheme to damage the Russian economy.
The sour relations go back to the Cold War era, when the Saudis sided with the U.S. by supporting the American-aided mujahedeen in Afghanistan against the Russian invasion there.