U.S. President Barack Obama may be done with American elections, but some of his former advisers are running a campaign against Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu through certain partnerships.
OneVoice includes a “five-man Obama team,” with Obama’s former field director Jeremy Bird. The OneVoice campaign is using American money and names to support Victory 2015, which supports Palestinian statehood, according to Haaretz.
“We believe that it’s critical that the majority of Israelis who are concerned about the numerous security and socioeconomic challenges we face have their voices heard in the next election,” says Polly Bronstein, OneVoice Israel’s executive director.
That’s where Bird comes in. Haaretz calls Bird—a founding partner of 270 Strategies, which focuses on grass-roots campaigns and played a role in Obama’s 2012 re-election—the secret weapon to this campaign.
“It’s not right to do in Israel exactly what we did in the United States, the context is completely different,” Bird tells Haaretz, yet the goal of a grass-roots movement to stimulate change remains the same.
“In Israel, OneVoice is spearheading nationwide initiatives to build a broad coalition of those who share our vision—across civil society, the private sector, the Knesset and the governing coalition. As the co-founder of the largest cross-party caucus in the Knesset, OneVoice Israel is linking civil society directly to their elected officials to hold them to account,” according to their website.
The revelation comes as Obama and Netanyahu’s strained relationship makes international headlines.
According to an editorial in the Times of Israel, their fractured relationship is now an open conflict.
An Obama administration official spoke to CNN, confirming the president is sore after Netanyahu announced he was coming to Washington in advance of Israel’s March elections.
“The last thing we want to do is hurt Israel, but if he is able to stiff the U.S. President like that and we still offer him a meeting—that invites him and anyone else to do that over and over,” the official told CNN.
