Netanyahu's Party Says Israeli Election Was ‘Stolen by Arab Parties’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party complained on Wednesday that this week’s tumultuous election was “stolen by Arab parties that support terrorism and the elimination of the Jewish state.”

Netanyahu posted a statement formally attributed to his Likud party that said the election was distorted by “serious criminal offenses of bribery, threats, violence, forgeries, and the use of prohibited software to mobilize voters.”

Likud said it was referring the case to the police and the Shin Bet security service, as well as Israel’s Central Elections Committee, backed up by “hundreds of testimonies and pieces of evidence regarding election theft in many Arab polling stations.”

The party said its evidence included “thousands of envelopes with cash and Ra’am slips, threats and violence against polling station members, multiple voting behind the curtain, voting with double identities, discrepancies between the number of envelopes and the number of voters, the use of prohibited mobilization software, and more.”

“This is a serious blow to Israeli democracy and the voting rights of Israeli citizens. The law enforcement agencies must act with an iron fist and in an immediate manner,” the statement said.

Likud issued another statement on Thursday referring to its election theft charges as the “Ra’amgate Affair,” a play on the name of the Arab-led Ra’am Party.

“This is an attack on democracy whose purpose is to lead to a foreign takeover of the Knesset, the Islamization of Israel, and the overthrow of right-wing rule in order to lead to retreat and defeat of the IDF in all arenas — and primarily Iran,” the second statement said.

Likud said a political “earthquake” was touched off on Thursday when the chair of the Central Elections Committee, Justice Noam Sohlberg, asked Shin Bet to investigate allegations of “foreign entities acting against Israeli interests” in the election.

“While I cannot attest to the substance of these suspicions, it is my view that — given they involve foreign entities — there is an obligation to investigate them thoroughly,” Sohlberg said.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir went further and insisted on the “arrest of the heads of the Arab parties suspected of involvement in Qatari money, and of all other suspects in the affair, including figures in the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots.”

Netanyahu outperformed pre-election polling and came away as the leader in an election he was supposed to lose, but his governing coalition lost some of its strength in the Israeli parliament and does not currently have a ready path to the 61 seats it needs to form a government.

This was due in part to a huge surge in voting by Israel’s Arab population, which previously tended to boycott elections. It appears difficult for either Netanyahu or his chief rival, former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief Gadi Eisenkot, to put together enough seats to form a government without including Arab parties hostile to the Israeli state in their coalition.

According to Israeli media reports, Likud officials are pointing to Qatar as the foreign actor that interfered in the election.

“We categorically deny allegations that Qatar has interfered in Israeli elections or funded any activities intended to influence their outcome,” Qatari Foreign Minister Majed al-Ansari responded Thursday.

“These accusations are ridiculous and dangerous in equal measure,” he said.

Eisenkot dismissed Likud’s accusations and accused the party of “doing this because they lost.”

“I welcome the fact that Netanyahu is finally condemning Qatari involvement in the State of Israel,” he said, sarcastically referencing allegations that some officials in Netanyahu’s administration accepted money from Qatar.

Eisenkot previously suggested he might be willing to team up with the less anti-Israel Arab parties to form a coalition, which could help him take the prime minister’s seat even though Netanyahu did better in the election. Critics of Likud accused the party of fabricating stolen election charges to prevent Eisenkot from making such a deal.

Another opposition leader, Yair Golan of The Democrats party, charged Netanyahu with “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.”

The head of the Ra’am party, Mansour Abbas, also accused Netanyahu of inciting strife with his allegations, but said he would welcome a fair investigation to clear the air.