Who really 'colluded' to swing 2016 election?

"Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee."

-- Genesis 27:29 (KJV)

With all the media chatter about "Russian collusion" in the 2016 election, there are two things lacking – evidence for any such claim and any mention of U.S. efforts to influence the outcome of another sovereign nation's election during the Barack Obama administration.

Wouldn't it be disingenuous, hypocritical and immoral – if not illegal – to complain about foreign intervention in a U.S. election if it were proven that the U.S. directly intervened in a national election of another state?

There's no doubt in my mind.

But that is precisely what the U.S. administration did in the 2015 Israeli election. The Obama administration sent money to a non-profit U.S. group to get directly involved in trying to prevent Benjamin Netanyahu from forming a coalition government to remain as prime minister.

According to the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, the Obama 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.

In the committee's report about the State Department's action, Chairman Bob Portman, R-Ohio, said, "It is completely unacceptable that U.S. taxpayer dollars were used to build a political campaign infrastructure that was deployed – immediately after the grant ended – against the leader [Netanyahu] of our closest ally in the Middle East. American resources should be used to help our allies in the region, not undermine them."

"The State Department ignored warning signs and funded a politically active group in a politically sensitive environment with inadequate safeguards," said Portman in a July 12, 2016, press release.

The State Department had funded a series of grants in 2013-2014, totaling $349,276, which went to the OneVoice Movement, which has Israeli and Palestinian branches: OneVoice Israel and OneVoice Palestine. (The grant period ended in November 2014.) These groups support peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine, and a two-state solution based on the borders of 1967.

The subcommittee's report says, "On Dec. 2, 2014, at the urging of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Knesset voted to schedule new national parliamentary elections for March 2015. Within weeks, an international organization known as the OneVoice Movement absorbed and funded an Israeli group named Victory15 or 'V15' and launched a multimillion-dollar grass-roots campaign in Israel. The campaign's goal was to elect 'anybody but Bibi [Netanyahu]' by mobilizing center-left voters. …

"The Subcommittee found no evidence that OneVoice spent grant funds to influence the 2015 Israeli elections. Soon after the grant period ended [November 2014], however, OneVoice used the campaign infrastructure and resources built, in part, with State Department grants funds to support V15. In service of V15, OneVoice deployed its social media platform, which more than doubled during the State Department grant period; used its database of voter contact information, including email addresses, which OVI expanded during the grant period; and enlisted its network of trained activists, many of whom were recruited or trained under the grant, to support and recruit for V15."

OneVoice even informed the State Department about its anti-Netanyahu campaign "during the federal grant period," said Marc Thiessen, a resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. "But the State Department did nothing."

As the subcommittee reported, "This pivot to electoral politics was consistent with a strategic plan developed by OneVoice leadership and emailed to State Department officials during the grant period."

One of the State Department diplomats "who received the plan told the subcommittee that he never reviewed it," reads the report. The proposal was entitled "A Strategic Plan to Mobilize Centrist Israeli & Palestinian."

Part of the plan's objective was to "strengthen the [center-left] bloc, rather than any one party, [and] in tandem weaken Netanyahu and his right-wing parties," quotes the subcommittee report.

Additionally, the proposal listed seven "Specific Israeli Tactical Objectives." The second objective was clear: "Shift support within the Knesset from a Likud-centric coalition to a center left coalition through public education and grass-roots mobilization initiatives."

However, "OneVoice's use of government-funded resources for political purposes was not prohibited by the grant agreement because the State Department placed no limitations on the post-grant use of those resources," according to the subcommittee.

These were U.S. taxpayer dollars sent to a U.S. organization opposing the return of Netanyahu as prime minister.

That the effort failed is meaningless.

It's clear what was happening in this case: The U.S. government, in the hands of Barack Obama, intervened in a foreign election with the express purpose of impacting the results.

Yet, since the day the 2016 U.S. election results were tallied, Obama, Hillary Clinton, their supporters and most of the U.S. media have been carrying on endlessly about a phantom effort by Russia to do the same thing in America.

Of course, we're still awaiting any evidence of this claim.

But I have no doubts that someone actually colluded with the Trump campaign to bring it victory in 2016. That someone was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel who repeatedly promised in the Bible to bless those who bless Israel and curse those who curse it.

And Obama certainly cursed Israel – more than any previous president in American history.

Get Joseph Farah's latest book, "The Restitution of All Things: Israel, Christians and the End of the Age."