Israeli leader Netanyahu accused of using ‘ugly’ smear tactics to cling to power

Prime minister claims Arab Israeli parties used foreign backing to steal elections, in which his coalition lost its majority

Benjamin Netanyahu has been accused of using smear tactics to cling to power, after he claimed that Arab Israeli parties had used foreign backing to “steal” Tuesday’s election, in which the prime minister’s coalition lost its parliamentary majority.

Netanyahu and his allies called on the internal security service, Shin Bet, to investigate alleged vote buying and other irregularities in Palestinian communities in Israel, supposedly funded by foreign money.

Gadi Eisenkot, the leader of the main opposition bloc, accused the prime minister and his Likud party of trying to derail the election results.

“It’s already clear that Likud and Netanyahu have embarked on a coordinated, organised campaign seeking to delegitimise the results of the election,” Eisenkot said in a video message.

The prime minister’s allegations were quickly disowned by a range of government officials, including police officers and members of the election committee. Netanyahu was also rebuked by the president for “tarnishing an entire community”.

On Wednesday night, the prime minister posted a statement by Likud online which described the claimed violations as “an attack on democracy whose purpose is to lead to a foreign takeover of the Knesset, the Islamisation of Israel, and the overthrow of rightwing rule”.

Tuesday’s elections led to Netanyahu’s far right coalition losing its majority after four years in power. The main Jewish opposition bloc also fell short, however, leaving two Arab Israeli parties, the Joint List and Ra’am, holding the balance of power.

The prime minister’s attack appeared aimed at stopping the Jewish and Arab opposition voting together in the new Knesset to oust the incumbent speaker, Amir Ohana, a Likud politician and former Shin Bet official, and advancing their own legislation.

The Likud statement posted by Netanyahu on X said: “It is clear that no Zionist party should cooperate with Ra’am and the Joint List, replace the Knesset speaker through votes bought for cash, and form a government that is dangerous to Israel.”

Opposition leaders lambasted the claims of Netanyahu, 77, who has run Israel for 19 of the past 30 years..

Yousef Jabareen, the Joint List leader, accused the prime minister of incitement. “Netanyahu was defeated at the ballot box,” Jabareen said, adding that he “refuses to come to terms with the fact that the Arab public voted and decided”.

Eisenkot said any investigation should be conducted “without fear or favour,” and with “the utmost caution”, but insisted it could not be used as a reason to delay the convening of the newly elected Knesset, due to be sworn in within 14 days of the election.

The acting director general of the central elections committee, Dean Livneh, said there appeared to be no basis for the claims. Police officials quoted across the Israeli press said the allegations were groundless, adding that voting had been relatively trouble-free.

The president, Isaac Herzog, called for political leaders to “avoid tarnishing an entire community that sought to exercise its right to vote and take an active part in democracy”.

It was not specified in Likud statements, but press reports said Qatar was the foreign power alleged to have funded vote-buying and voter mobilisation.

Majed al-Ansari, an adviser to Qatar’s prime minister, said its government “categorically” denied any involvement in the elections.

With almost all the votes counted, Netanyahu’s coalition has 53 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, Eisenkot’s bloc has 48, and the Joint List and Ra’am together have 19 seats, a historic high for the Arab Israeli community, which makes up about a fifth of Israel’s population.

The record turnout among Arab Israelis (Palestinians with Israeli citizenship) appeared to be driven by outrage at routine discrimination and fear that it could become far worse if extremist, openly racist, members of the government, such as the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, secured another term in office.

On Thursday, Ben-Gvir called for the arrest of Arab party leaders, and Smotrich demanded they be subjected to Shin Bet interrogation.

Voting in Nazareth, the biggest majority-Palestinian town in Israel, was brisk on Tuesday, with few signs of irregularities, other than apparent ploys by the government and coalition parties to suppress the Arab vote.

Some packets of ballots sent to Nazareth polling stations were in Hebrew alone, rather than in Hebrew and Arabic. Election workers said that monitors sent by far right parties had attempted procedural ploys to slow down voting but had been largely unsuccessful.

The leaders of the Joint List and the Zionist “Change” bloc have ruled out a formal coalition, but officials from both have discussed the possibility of tactical voting in the Knesset to unseat the Ohana, the speaker, and to pass some consensus legislation.

One proposed bill would establish a commission of inquiry into the security failures that helped lead to the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, something Netanyahu has blocked over the past two years.

Ahmad Tibi, a party leader on the Joint List, said Netanyahu was trying to subvert the election results by trying to sabotage a common front between the Eisenkot bloc and the Arab Israeli parties.

“This entire campaign is directed against Eisenkot, to prevent him, intimidate and scare him off forming a government that relies on external support from the Joint List or Ra’am,” Tibi told the Reuters news agency.

Naftali Bennett, a former prime minister who is a partner in the “Change” bloc pointed out the irony of Netanyahu denouncing Qatar for election meddling in the midst of a scandal in which the Israeli leader’s own political advisers are accused of taking Qatari money for promoting the Gulf monarchy’s image.

“This morning, suddenly, when it serves his interests, Netanyahu remembered Qatar and is using it to sow chaos and undermine public confidence in the democratic process,” Bennett wrote on X.