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- October 30, 202615°
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- October 30, 202615°
Netanyahu accuses Arab parties of fraud without evidence; Arab leaders allege incitement
Benjamin Netanyahu accused Arab parties, without providing evidence, of gaining record results in the Knesset elections partly through fraud, while Arab leaders accused him of conducting an incitement campaign to prevent the formation of an alternative government.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Arab parties on Thursday, without providing evidence, of achieving record gains in this week's Knesset elections partly through fraud. Arab leaders rejected the accusation and accused him of incitement, Reuters reported.
The accusation came as Netanyahu and his far-right partners escalated their rhetoric against Arab parties after high turnout among Arab voters blocked an easy path to power for both him and his rivals.
With about 99% of the votes counted, Netanyahu's religious-nationalist bloc was leading with 53 seats, compared with 48 for Gadi Eisenkot's bloc. Arab parties were expected to win 19 seats in a historic first, while neither bloc had the 61 seats needed for a majority.
Ahmed Tibi, one of the leaders of the Joint List, said Netanyahu had launched a “poisonous campaign” to undermine the election results. He told Reuters: “This entire campaign is directed against Eisenkot, to stop and intimidate him from forming a government that relies on outside support from the Joint List or the United Arab List.”
Meanwhile, Mansour Abbas, head of the United Arab List, said: “We have one message in response to the campaign of incitement and delegitimization he is waging against Arab citizens: Nothing will come of it, because there is nothing there.”
Central Elections Committee Chairman Judge Noam Solberg announced that he had asked the Shin Bet to investigate suspicions that unidentified foreign actors had attempted to interfere in the election. Likud accused Qatar of being behind the alleged interference, a claim Doha denied. The committee said there was “no basis for claims of systematic harm to the integrity of the election.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog said: “Even at a moment like this, we must not vilify an entire community that sought to exercise its right to vote and participate actively in democracy.”
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