After the election of Barack Obama in 2009, the George Soros organization saw an opportunity to weaken the pro-Israel lobby’s influence in Washington. So his Open Society Foundations began an ambitious project in 2009 to persuade Europe and the U.S. to “hold Israel accountable” for violations of international law.

This plan was outlined in two internal papers from the Open Society Foundations that were published online this month. They disclose how a web of grants to Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups were part of a larger strategy to influence Congress, reporters and government officials.

It started with so much hope after Obama won the 2008 election. “The right-wing so called ‘pro-Israel’ lobby has lost some credibility by being closely associated with Bush Administration Middle East policies,” a 2013 summary of the foundation’s “Palestine/Israel International Advocacy Portfolio” said. “As the Obama Administration distances itself from these somehow discredited policies, space for reasonable, unbiased discussions in the policy deliberations, including criticism of Israeli policies, is opening.”

There was, however, a catch. Soros’s organization, then known as the Open Society Institute, did not want to be open about its advocacy. A 2009 paper on the project says the organization must “maintain a low public profile regarding OSI sponsorship of this initiative.”

The 2013 document describes the “toxic atmosphere” in 2000 and 2001 when the foundation began its work in the Middle East, and how this environment could lead to “politically motivated investigations” from either the Bush administration or what it calls “pro-Israel entities.” Soros himself was worried about George W. Bush. In 2006, he said the president’s communications strategy reminded him of Nazi and Communist propaganda. Hence his foundations took a “cautious approach.” (Read more from “A Soros Plan, a Marginalized Israel” HERE)

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