CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman writes in a Dec. 12 article:
According to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI), the State Department gave $349,276 in U.S. taxpayer-funded grants to a political group in Israel to build a campaign operation, which subsequently was used to try to influence Israelis to vote against conservative Benjamin Netanyahu in the March 2015 election for prime minister.
If this story sounds familiar, that’s because it is: WorldNetDaily covered it back in July. In other words, the WND-ization of the Media Research Center is continuing apace.
And like WND, Chapman de-emphasizes the fact that the State Department’s funding of the Israeli group One Voice had nothing to do with the group’s anti-Netanyahu campaign and involved a separate project. Chapman unprofessionally puts in bold italic statements like “OneVoice used the campaign infrastructure and resources built, in part, with State Department grants funds to support V15” but not statements like “no evidence that OneVoice spent grant funds to influence the 2015 Israeli elections.”
Chapman also uncritically quotes Republican Sen. Rob Portman saying, “American resources should be used to help our allies in the region, not undermine them.” But Israel as a whole is the ally in question, not just Netanyahu. Is Portman saying that any Israeli politician who opposes Netanyahu is an enemy of the U.S.
If so, Chapman apparently agrees with the sentiment.