Eisenkot warns of coordinated effort to undermine election legitimacy

With Israel’s vote count still inching toward the finish line, opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot has sounded the alarm: he says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party are already laying the groundwork to discredit the outcome by targeting Arab parties that surged at the polls.

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

Arab parties, facing accusations of foreign funding, pushed back sharply and accused Mr Netanyahu of using the claims to frighten Jewish opposition figures away from any cooperation with Israeli-Arab lawmakers.

One of the leaders of the Arab Joint List party, Ahmad Tibi, said Mr Netanyahu was on an orchestrated, toxic campaign meant to undermine the election results.

Ahmad Tibi, head of the Arab Movement for Change (Ta’al) party, is one of the Joint List leaders

“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,” Mr Tibi told Reuters, referring to the two Arab parties.

Leader of the Arab Ra’am party, Mansour Abbas, said his party was not involved in the reported suspicious conduct and urged a full investigation.

He said that Mr Netanyahu was on an incitement campaign against Israel’s Arab citizens.

“We have one message in response to the campaign of incitement and delegitimisation he is waging against Arab citizens: Nothing will come of it because there is nothing there,” Mr Abbas said in a statement.

Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson rejected accusations “made by certain Israeli politicians and their contacts in the media” that his country had interfered in the Israeli elections.

“We categorically deny allegations that Qatar has interfered in Israeli elections or funded any activities intended to influence their outcome,” said Majed Al Ansari.

“They accuse Qatar of buying off Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli political left and now, in this latest campaign, the Arab vote … These accusations are ridiculous and dangerous in equal measure,” he added.

Ben Gvir called for the arrest of Arab party leaders ‘suspected of involvement in Qatari money’

Mr Netanyahu’s bloc on has piled pressure on Israeli Arab leaders over unproven accusations of foreign funding, in a push to neuter parties that could hold the key to forming a government after an inconclusive election.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog called for an investigation into allegations of fraud but cautioned against stigmatising the entire Arab Israeli community, who voted at unprecedented rates.

Israel was nearing the completion of ballot counting from Tuesday’s election, in which neither Mr Netanyahu nor the opposition bloc led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot looked able to secure a majority in the Knesset.

The Netanyahu camp’s accusations, which a key Arab party has rejected, could bring uncertainty to the electoral process at a time when the threat of a return to war with Iran looms over the region.

Israel’s election saw soaring participation by Israeli Arabs, descendants of Palestinians who stayed after the country’s creation in 1948.

Israel’s far right national security minister has called for the arrest of Israeli Arab leaders whose parties made strong gains in this week’s election, citing unproven accusations of foreign funding.

Israel’s security agency Shin Bet “must order, already this morning, the arrests of the heads of Arab parties suspected of involvement in Qatari money”, Itamar Ben Gvir said.

He was pointing to unproven claims made by several ministers that the parties, who could be kingmakers after neither Mr Netanyahu nor the opposition bloc secured a majority, took money from Qatar – the energy-rich Gulf powerbroker that has channels to Hamas.

Local media projected 53 parliament seats for Mr Netanyahu’s bloc

Israelis remained in limbo awaiting the official tally, as projections pointed to the same reality: neither Mr Netanyahu’s allies nor the disparate parties seeking to unseat him appeared to have reached a governing majority.

The days ahead could force political moves that once seemed unthinkable — from a potentially historic Jewish-Arab partnership, to the possibility that some factions that campaigned on replacing Mr Netanyahu decide instead to enter a coalition with the prime minister, one of the country’s most divisive figures.

For now, however, Mr Netanyahu remains in charge.

Final results could come as early as this evening after about 500,000 absentee ballots are counted from military personnel, diplomats, people in prisons and hospitals and others.

They are not expected to sway the results dramatically.

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

Mr Eisenkot, in his first public statement since an address to supporters yesterday spoke of a government in service to all and reflecting the will of the people.

He did not mention the prospect of joining forces with the Arab-led parties that had a strong showing, as some Arab citizens broke longstanding vows never to vote in a country where they have long faced discrimination.

But he has said he is open to working with them to reach the 61-seat majority needed to control the 120-seat Knesset.

One of those Arab parties, the Joint List, noted the “unprecedented show of strength” and the Jewish voters “willing to swim against the tide of racism”.

It said it was open to political cooperation.

Left-wing Israelis gather to demand a joint government of Arabs and Jews, and block roads in Tel Aviv

Overnight, small demonstrations were held in Tel Aviv — and even in more conservative Jerusalem — backing the idea of a coalition that includes Arab-led parties.

Until 2021, no Arab party had joined a coalition government and that was brief.

Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party, despite receiving the most votes, has accused Arab-led parties of stealing the election and asked the election committee to investigate.

It did not provide specific evidence to support its claims and the election committee has said the number of reported irregularities in the relatively calm election was low.

Israel’s president next week will task someone to form the next government.

It has traditionally been the leader of the party with the most votes, but that is not required.

If a new government cannot be formed after multiple attempts, Israel would face a new election early next year.

Yesterday, President Herzog signalled he wanted to avoid that step – something Mr Eisenkot has said as well.

Another trip back to the ballot box would reopen uncertainties that hovered over this vote, including whether Arab citizens would again turn out in large numbers and whether the tens of thousands of Israelis who flew home to cast ballots would repeat the effort.

Many had said they took that step to save the country from Mr Netanyahu.

Israel, already 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.

Read more:
Israeli elections: What happens next?
Netanyahu’s Likud accuses Arab parties of stealing Israeli election
Netanyahu loses his majority, but no one has won it yet

Mr Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, has been especially polarising, with corruption allegations hanging over him along with accusations that he delayed making deals over the war in Gaza, including to free hostages, for political gain.

For many voters, security remained paramount, but Israel’s global standing also hung in the balance after intense criticism of the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and rising violence by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank.

Among Arab citizens, who comprise 20% of Israel’s population, the strong turnout carried a guarded sense that political leverage might translate into long-sought change.

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

Meanwhile, the threat of further strikes against Iran adds to the election uncertainty as US officials told several Middle East countries and regional allies to be prepared for potential renewed military action against Iran after next week’s US midterm elections on 3 November.

Experts have said Mr Netanyahu could seize on the renewed all out war to press for a unity government with him in charge.

That could delay what Mr Netanyahu has long resisted – a public inquiry into the security failures that led to the deadliest extremist attack on Israel in the country’s history, the Hamas-led assault on 7 October 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza.