From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Chair of GOP Israel branch owns firm registered as lobbyist for pro-Kremlin Bosnian entity — report
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleSam Sokol is a former political correspondent at The Times of Israel. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
A firm run by the chairman of the US Republicans Overseas Israel, Marc Zell, is registered in January as a lobbyist for Republika Srpska, one of two semiautonomous entities comprising the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Haaretz reports.
Bosnia’s Serbs took up arms after the breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s to create a state to join with neighboring Serbia. Since the end of the 1992-1995 war, Bosnia has been split into two semi-autonomous halves — the Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Both have their own governments and parliaments and share weak central institutions.
According to Haaretz, Zell was hired, in part, to work toward lifting US sanctions against Republika Srpska’s president, Milorad Dodik. Dodik is a Kremlin ally who has threatened to secede the Serb entity from Bosnia, and barred central police and judicial officials from working there — an order that was suspended by the constitutional court.
He will reportedly be paid $840,000 for his lobbying efforts.
In response to the report, Zell tells Haaretz that the information is “incomplete, inaccurate and therefore misleading. Beyond that, I do not wish to comment.”
Last Thursday, Bosnia issued an international arrest warrant for Dodik while the Bosnian Serb leader was visiting Israel to attend an international conference on combating antisemitism. Dodik is currently in Moscow.
Agencies contributed to this report.
The Times of Israel Community.