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Netanyahu’s claims of foreign involvement were not new to Israelis. In recent months, his party, Likud, has made repeated accusations that “leftist” NGOs were illegally getting funds from foreign donors in order to influence the election outcome — claims that were repeatedly denied.

Gerald Steinberg, president of the NGO Monitor, an Israeli group that publicizes the funding of NGOs in Israel, said many of the groups mentioned by the campaign do not file reports with regulatory agencies, making it difficult to determine how much they may have spent in the election. “A reasonable estimate is that these groups injected at least two to three million dollars into the anti-Netanyahu campaign,” he said, referring to V15 and Million Hands.

But Steinberg also noted that “annual European government support for influential Israeli political NGOs such as the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, B’Tselem, Peace Now, Gisha, Yesh Din, etc. exceeds $20 million annually,” a figure documented in a report issued by NGO Monitor. “These groups and the officials that lead them were very active in the media campaigns opposing Netanyahu,” he said, causing anger in right-wing circles.

Finally, there is the question of U.S. government involvement. Some U.S. lawmakers have accused the Obama administration of interfering in the election, citing a State Department grant totaling $233,500 to OneVoice.