The advertising that the "Israeli Alliance" operates behind is disguised and sponsored by leftist organizations - aroused • Among donors, a billionaire who contributed to BDS-supported organizations • Founders: Leftists • The claim that the "non-political" organization avoids reporting

"Israel Today" inquiry into alleged illegal financing of "Israeli alliance": Likud official said Tuesday to "Israel Today": "We will consider petitioning the election committee following the publication" for fear of illegal funding by the "Israeli Alliance".

Minister Yariv Levin responded to the announcement: "Again, we hear of blatant, and allegedly illegal, intervention by BDS-supported global leftist organizations, in the Israeli election campaign. And to crown him with a leftist government based on the joint list. We will not give them and this time we will vote in droves. "

"B'Tselemo - A Civil Rights Organization in a Jewish Spirit" sent a letter to the State Comptroller, which reads, among other things: "In recent months, the association has spent many millions voting under various Facebook pages and not all marked to encourage voting of leftists. The association receives most of its money from abroad. Overseas entities, including George Soros, who was a donor to the association in the past, may not have an impact on the election campaign. "

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This morning, Israel Today announced that an Israeli organization has recently launched a network campaign calling on Israelis to come out and vote in the March elections. Is it an innocent and objective campaign that encourages participation in the democratic game or perhaps its operators have the goal of winning one of the contestants or voters in the election? If you look at who the people behind him are, it may well be that the second option is the right one.

The "Third and Enough" Facebook page began operating at the end of January 2020, with all the ads it posts calling on Israelis to come out and vote to prevent further elections. The person behind the page is the Israeli Alliance, founded by several leftist activists. This is a page that has been invested in hundreds of thousands of shekels in no time.

Six pages in Hebrew, one page in Russian

"The Israeli Alliance" was founded in 2017 and the organization's CEO is Shai Cohen, a well-known activist in the Labor Party. Behind the organization are Uri Kol - a longtime activist in Meretz, Lior Sethon, who was the adviser to Ehud Barak, part of V15 - Ayala Brilliant and Itai Zimmer, and Linda Sasson - Meretz spokeswoman for the current election campaign.

According to Facebook data, in the September 2019 election campaign, "The Israeli Alliance" operated six pages in Hebrew under the following names: "The Israeli Alliance", "Freedom of Israel", "Enough for Living Expectations", "Whoever Costs No Way to Here", "And" My First Time, "as well as one page in Russian. Examination of these pages gives a clear picture of activity for the change of government in Israel.

Even in the 2019 election, the organization did not conceal its purpose and a brief review of its Facebook page raises a variety of posts against the Netanyahu government and a clear call back to the formation of a submarine investigative committee, which starred in the Blue and White Party campaign in this election.

One donor: A billionaire-linked fund supports BDS

Until recently, the Israeli Alliance website said that one of the donors to the organization is the American TIDES Foundation. This is a fund raising donations to leftist organizations, some of them extremely radical, including the American branch of the Israeli Adalah organization that supports the boycott of the State of Israel.

According to publications on one of the TIDES Foundation's network, Jewish-American billionaire George Soros, who is known to donate to many leftist organizations in the United States as well as to BDS-sponsored organizations. Extreme leftists in Israel including B'Tselem, Checkpoint Watch, Breaking the Silence and the New Israel Fund, and Soros has also contributed to the campaigns of Democratic presidential candidates, including former President Barack Obama.

In recent days, TIDES has been deleted from the "Israeli Alliance" site in Hebrew, but it still appears in English. The "Israeli Alliance" explained that about a year ago, the relationship with the TIDES Foundation was cut off and its name was removed from the site.

According to the Ministry of Justice's website, in 2018 the Israeli Alliance received donations totaling NIS 3,357,164, of which 2,937,845 of them came from abroad.

From August 2019 until the September 17 elections - a month and a half in total - the organization spent NIS 2,708,825 on Facebook advertising. In this election, the organization operates the "Third and Enough" page, which spent about NIS 300,000 on Facebook advertising in less than a month, of which more than NIS 130,000 in just the past week.

For the sake of understanding the large sums of financial investment, we note that it is one of the most financially funded political pillars in the Israeli elections, competing with the spending of Prime Minister Netanyahu and Blue and White Chairman Benny Gantz.

The organization was not registered with the state comptroller

According to the amendment to the party financing law approved in March 2017 and better known as "V15 Law", an active party in elections - even if it is not a party, must report to the state comptroller his activity if it exceeds NIS 102,000. According to the "Israel Today" test, the organization was not registered with the state comptroller as an active body in the elections, and therefore did not disclose its financial data and who is behind it.

Does the organization break the law when it does not call in its publications to vote for a particular party or bloc, nor does it intend not to vote for a particular party or bloc? It is certainly not possible that the organization's activists have identified a breach in the law that allows them to act for the left bloc without being required to report to the state comptroller.

The average citizen who sees the neutral and seemingly innocent advertising is wondering what the problem is if political positions are not mixed up in advertising? But there is a way to direct advertising and voting to a very specific audience. Facebook tools can target ("target") advertising to individuals with specific characteristics only and prevent advertising from appearing to people with other characteristics. When what you do is designed to encourage voting, you can only encourage those who are more likely to vote for the bloc you are interested in.

The people of the Israeli alliance are familiar with this method. Two years ago, in February 2018, Uri Cole, the founders of the organization, published an extensive nine-paragraph article explaining how to work on social networks in general and Facebook in particular. And so, a voice in section 8 titled "Sponsored Promotion": "Anyone who posts content on Facebook, and has not yet experienced or undergone training on Facebook sponsored promotion, must do so now. I'm not talking about a small $ 200 booster on a once-a-week post, But about tyrgott training, of effective awareness-raising. "

Cole understood the method. If a person wants to advertise baby food but he does not target advertising to young couples he wastes free resources. Targeting the right advertising is far more effective and allows you to focus on a target audience that you want to persuade to purchase a product or to vote in elections.

Neutral propaganda to a non-neutral destination

How do I target neutral election propaganda to a non-neutral target audience? Some examples before you: Advertising can be directed to Givatayim (identified as a left-wing supporting city), for example, where localities such as Ariel and Kiryat Arba (characterized by voting for right-wing parties) are blocked from advertising, and this targeted appeal will result in potential left-wing voters being exposed to advertising.

Similarly, another tool that can be used is "interests", areas that Facebook categorizes according to all the activities a user performs on the social network from likes to certain pages to consuming and uploading certain types of content. For example, "Yair Lapid" is a term that can be chosen as an area of ​​interest, as is "Benjamin Netanyahu." For example, the advertising manager may decide to direct the advertising to people whose "Yair Lapid" is their area of ​​interest on the one hand, and on the other hand to block users whose "Benjamin Netanyahu" constitutes an area of ​​interest for them, and thus reach the result where his target audience is potential voters.

In addition, advertising can be directed to those who have expressed an interest in "civil marriage" or "public transportation on Saturday" and thus reach mainly to secular voters who are usually less associated with the right-wing bloc considered more religious and traditional.

Although the exact segmentation is not transparent to the general public, in contrast to the budgets themselves spent on advertising, it can be seen that most of the advertising of the "Israeli alliance" appeals to audiences living in the central parts of the country, especially the Dan and Tel Aviv area. And according to their previous activity, it can be concluded that this round is also intended to appeal to left-wing voters and to invest all the large and generous money that came from most of their funding abroad - precisely from left-wing voters and their removal from the houses to the polls. In an election campaign that can be decided by the mandate, Any pointer leaving the house may change the image.

Israeli alliance: "Calling all citizens of Israel to vote"

Facebook said: "The Facebook Ad Library has all the active ads for every page running on our applications and services. For ads related to elections or political issues, the ad library offers information on who saw the ad as well as the spend and exposure ranges of each ad, And maintains awareness for seven years.

The directory also includes information such as the name of the page that runs each ad, a Paid for by statement, advertiser information such as the phone number, email address, website and address, and a link to other advertisers' ads in the ad library. Updated daily and accessible to anyone whether or not they have a Facebook account. We are committed to transparency but also to the privacy of people on the platform. Viewing precise target audience targeting categories may reveal private information about people. We are open to improving our transparency tools but it is important to do so in a safe and responsible way. "

The Israeli alliance says: "We love Israel. It hurts us to see the country stuck in an endless election round. So that we are not dragged into a fourth election round, we call on all Israeli citizens, from all parts of the country, and from all views and opinions - to come out and vote. Only us.

"Those who engage in this kind of civic activity and who fear that the citizens of Israel will exercise their democratic right - have their motives wondered.

"It is a shame that Israel today does not fulfill its responsibilities as a major media tool to encourage everyone's vote and ignore our calls to cooperate on the issue, and instead deals with suppressing such civic initiatives."

Linda Sasson said: "I completed my (voluntarily) role in the Israeli Alliance, about a year ago (and I have permission to do so).
I have nothing to do with the organization's decisions, campaigns, fundraisers, or Facebook pages to which the article refers.
I am not one of the founders of the organization as it was reported, and I am sorry that my name has been scribbled for the purpose of making political capital on Meretz's back. "