Likud MK introduces bill meant to curb V15 political activity

Likud MK Yoav Kisch to present coalition faction leaders with the bill designed to make political activity by foreign-funded groups subject to existing campaign finance restrictions • Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to fast-track legislation.

By Shlomo Cesana, ISRAEL HAYOM

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is promoting a bill that would prohibit activity by the V15 organization in the next Knesset election. The bill is the brainchild of MK Yoav Kisch and is designed to address foreign-funded groups that attempt to influence the outcome of Israeli elections by treating them as organizations that are subject to the restrictions of the Campaign Finance Law. A loophole in the current law gives groups like V15 a free hand.

The legislation says that “according to the existing law, promotional activity in an election that is not tied to a [specific] party but contribute to one party or political bloc is not subject to the restrictions that apply to parties, even if its purpose is very similar or identical — to influence the election results. So there’s a ‘back door’ around the instructions laid out in law.”

Netanyahu decided to expedite the approval of the bill after the publication of a bilateral Senate committee report, which confirmed that a U.S. State Department grant, which had been earmarked to foster peace between Israel and the Palestinians, had been used by the V15 movement, which wanted to cause Likud party head Netanyahu to lose the 2015 election. Most Israeli media outlets, in contrast to Israel Hayom, chose to ignore the Senate committee’s findings, as they did reports on the matter during the election itself a year and a half ago.

Kisch was slated to attend the weekly meeting of coalition faction leaders on Sunday and present them with his bill. At the meeting, Netanyahu was expected to receive approval by the heads of Kulanu (Moshe Kahlon), Shas (Aryeh Deri), United Torah Judaism (Yakov Litzman), Habayit Hayehudi (Naftali Bennett), and Yisrael Beytenu (Avigdor Lieberman) to fast-track the bill through the Knesset reading process.

The explanatory section of the bill says that “In the [2015] Knesset election a number of movements were active with the clear goal of influencing the election result. Foremost among them was the V15 movement, which claimed that it was unidentified with any political bloc. The movement put out negative messages against political figures, primarily against the prime minister, but supposedly was not expressing public support for any party that was running for the Knesset.”

The bill also notes that “the proposed amendment fixes that problem through a definition [that stipulates that] a group that carries out activities that are generally conducted by political parties during an election campaign will be considered a ‘group active in the election’ and subject to [existing] restrictions on activity and fundraising, as political parties are. Similarly, the amendment details cases in which an organization would be considered a ‘group with ties to a party.'”

Darkenu, the organization formed when V15 and OneVoice merged, claims that “since the grant, which ended in November 2014, OneVoice has not received a dime from the U.S. government. All the group’s money comes from private Jewish and Israeli donors.”