Israelis await final election results as claim of foreign interference emerges

Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu and his par­ty on Thurs­day am­pli­fied al­le­ga­tions that the coun­try’s Arab-led par­ties had “stolen” the elec­tion, as fi­nal re­sults are set to con­firm that Ne­tanyahu’s bloc has lost its ma­jor­i­ty in par­lia­ment.

The op­po­si­tion ac­cused Ne­tanyahu of de­mo­niz­ing the Arab pop­u­la­tion af­ter a his­toric show­ing by Arab-led par­ties. If the rest of the op­po­si­tion teams up with them in a rare and po­lit­i­cal­ly risky move, they would form the next gov­ern­ment. Fi­nal vote re­sults are ex­pect­ed Thurs­day evening.

Ne­tanyahu seized on a new re­quest by the coun­try’s elec­tions com­mit­tee to the Shin Bet in­tel­li­gence ser­vice to in­ves­ti­gate al­leged elec­tion in­ter­fer­ence by un­spec­i­fied “for­eign en­ti­ties against the Is­raeli in­ter­est.” While the re­quest had no ref­er­ence to Arab-led par­ties, the prime min­is­ter and his Likud par­ty said no par­ty should co­op­er­ate with Arab-led ones.

“The elec­tions in Is­rael have been stolen!” Likud said, claim­ing with­out ev­i­dence that the al­leged in­ter­fer­ence was “aimed at fa­cil­i­tat­ing a for­eign takeover of the Knes­set, the Is­lamiza­tion of Is­rael.”

It was not clear who made the lat­est al­le­ga­tions. But Qatar is­sued a sharp state­ment: “We cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly de­ny al­le­ga­tions that Qatar has in­ter­fered in Is­raeli elec­tions or fund­ed any ac­tiv­i­ties in­tend­ed to in­flu­ence their out­come,” it said, adding it is ac­cused of buy­ing off the Arab vote.

The elec­tions com­mit­tee did not give fur­ther de­tails, and the Shin Bet did not re­spond to ques­tions. The com­mit­tee wants find­ings with­in the week. Is­raeli law re­quires elec­tion re­sults to be cer­ti­fied by Nov. 4.

Ne­tanyahu cam­paigned on an al­leged Arab threat

Even ahead of the vote, Ne­tanyahu and Likud paint­ed the Arab-led par­ties as a dan­ger to Is­rael, which crit­ics called an at­tempt to fur­ther mar­gin­al­ize Arab cit­i­zens who make up 20% of the pop­u­la­tion but are of­ten seen with sus­pi­cion be­cause of their sym­pa­thies with oth­er Pales­tini­ans.

Those cam­paign at­tacks, along with anger over the di­vi­sive Ne­tanyahu and his far-right gov­ern­ment, brought out­raged Arabs to the polls like nev­er be­fore.

On Thurs­day, Yair Golan, head of the De­moc­rats par­ty, ac­cused Ne­tanyahu of “at­tempt­ing to un­der­mine the elec­tion re­sults through an ug­ly dele­git­imiza­tion cam­paign di­rect­ed against the will of the pub­lic — and against the Arab pub­lic in par­tic­u­lar.”

Sa­mi Abu She­hadeh, chair of one of the par­ties in the Arab-led Joint List, called the claims a new phase of “in­cite­ment” against Arab-led groups. The head of the Arab-led Ra’am par­ty, Man­sour Ab­bas, wel­comed the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to elec­tion in­ter­fer­ence and said his par­ty had noth­ing to do with the case, while ac­cus­ing Ne­tanyahu of a cam­paign of in­cite­ment.

Ne­tanyahu’s chief ri­val, for­mer mil­i­tary chief Ga­di Eisenkot, warned that po­lit­i­cal ac­tors should not “ex­ploit the sit­u­a­tion” to in­flu­ence the tim­ing of the next par­lia­ment’s swear­ing-in, set for Nov. 10. Eisenkot’s Yashar par­ty said he had been briefed by the Shin Bet chief.

Even the elec­tions com­mit­tee seemed to sound a note of cau­tion. “To the best of our knowl­edge, there is no ba­sis for claims of sys­tem­at­ic vi­o­la­tions of elec­tion in­tegri­ty,” its act­ing di­rec­tor gen­er­al said in a let­ter dat­ed Thurs­day to one mem­ber of par­lia­ment.

Pres­i­dent Isaac Her­zog, who soon must task Ne­tanyahu or one of his op­po­nents with form­ing the next gov­ern­ment, called it a “sen­si­tive mo­ment” and called for a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion. He warned that “we must not tar­nish an en­tire com­mu­ni­ty that sought to ex­er­cise its right to vote and take an ac­tive part in democ­ra­cy.”

Dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions are ahead as par­ties seek coali­tions

The de­vel­op­ments am­pli­fied the dif­fi­cult de­ci­sions for the weeks ahead. Those in­clude whether some Jew­ish and Arab par­ties would team up in a his­toric al­liance, or whether some par­ties that cam­paigned on oust­ing Ne­tanyahu would toss that aside and join forces with him.

While the race for a 61-seat ma­jor­i­ty need­ed to con­trol the 120-seat Knes­set plays out, Ne­tanyahu re­mains in charge.

Lo­cal me­dia have pro­ject­ed 53 par­lia­ment seats for Ne­tanyahu’s bloc, 48 seats for op­po­si­tion par­ties and 19 for Arab-led ones, which al­so want Ne­tanyahu out.

If Ne­tanyahu los­es of­fice, that would set off a cas­cade of events that crit­ics say he has des­per­ate­ly sought to avoid. He would be tak­en to ac­count over years­long cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions, and an in­quiry al­most cer­tain­ly would be­gin in­to the se­cu­ri­ty fail­ures that led to the dev­as­tat­ing Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, at­tack.

Ne­tanyahu’s Likud has tar­get­ed Arab-led par­ties

De­spite re­ceiv­ing the most votes, Ne­tanyahu’s Likud on Wednes­day ac­cused Arab-led par­ties of steal­ing the elec­tion and asked the elec­tions com­mit­tee to in­ves­ti­gate. It did not pro­vide spe­cif­ic ev­i­dence to sup­port its claims.

Even with­out a role in a coali­tion, Arab-led par­ties could as­sert their grow­ing pow­er by sup­port­ing oth­er Ne­tanyahu op­po­nents in the next par­lia­ment. That could in­clude elect­ing a new speak­er, giv­ing them con­trol of the agen­da and po­ten­tial­ly al­low­ing them to ad­vance and pass leg­is­la­tion be­fore a new gov­ern­ment is formed.

Eisenkot has in­di­cat­ed he is open, with con­di­tions, to join­ing forces with the Arab-led par­ties. Ah­mad Tibi, sec­ond on the Arab-led Joint List, told Army Ra­dio the op­po­si­tion bloc reached out to him to dis­cuss re­plac­ing the Knes­set speak­er, and he told them the par­ty would sup­port the bloc’s can­di­date.

There were small ral­lies overnight in Tel Aviv, and in far more con­ser­v­a­tive Jerusalem, in sup­port of a coali­tion that in­cludes Arab-led par­ties. Un­til 2021, no Arab par­ty had joined a coali­tion gov­ern­ment, and that was brief.

If a new gov­ern­ment can­not be formed af­ter mul­ti­ple at­tempts, Is­rael would face a new elec­tion ear­ly next year. On Wednes­day, Her­zog sig­naled he want­ed to avoid that step – some­thing Eisenkot has said as well.

New elec­tions bring new ques­tions, in­clud­ing whether Arab cit­i­zens would again go to the polls in large num­bers and whether the tens of thou­sands of Is­raelis who flew home to vote would do it again. Many had said they took that step to save the coun­try from Ne­tanyahu.

A deeply di­vid­ed Is­rael might see Ne­tanyahu stay on

Is­rael, di­vid­ed along mul­ti­ple fault lines – Jews and Arabs, sec­u­lar and re­li­gious – en­tered the elec­tion with huge and painful is­sues at stake.

Those in­clude whether the fast-grow­ing ul­tra-Or­tho­dox pop­u­la­tion should re­main ex­empt­ed from com­pul­so­ry mil­i­tary ser­vice in a coun­try where many fam­i­lies have seen their sons and daugh­ters killed in three years of in­con­clu­sive wars.

Ne­tanyahu has been es­pe­cial­ly po­lar­iz­ing. His op­po­nents have ac­cused him of de­lay­ing mak­ing deals over the war in Gaza, in­clud­ing to free hostages, for po­lit­i­cal gain.

While many Is­raelis vot­ed with se­cu­ri­ty is­sues first in mind, the coun­try’s in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ing is al­so at stake af­ter wide­spread crit­i­cism over the treat­ment of Pales­tini­ans in Gaza and grow­ing vi­o­lence by Jew­ish set­tlers in the oc­cu­pied West Bank.

For Arab cit­i­zens, there is cau­tious hope of change. “God will­ing, we will have some­thing for us in the gov­ern­ment, some­thing that will bring us our rights,” said Brosli Elias, a res­i­dent of Nazareth, one of Is­rael’s largest Arab cities.

Mean­while, the threat of fur­ther strikes against Iran adds to the elec­tion un­cer­tain­ty. The Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion has spo­ken of new at­tacks af­ter the midterm elec­tions on Nov. 3. Ex­perts have said Ne­tanyahu could seize on a re­newed all-out war to press for a uni­ty gov­ern­ment with him in charge. —JERUSALEM (AP)

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Sto­ry by CARA AN­NA and KO­RAL SAEED | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Ko­ral Saeed re­port­ed from Abu Snan. As­so­ci­at­ed Press writer Tia Gold­en­berg in Jerusalem con­tributed to this re­port.