ELECTION INTEGRITY NOT SYSTEMATICALLY COMPROMISED, OFFICIALS SAY
Ahmad Tibi, one of the leaders of the Arab Joint List party, said Netanyahu has launched a “toxic campaign” meant to undermine the election results.
“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 Reuters.
During and after Tuesday’s election, Netanyahu and his allies warned against rising Arab turnout and his right-wing Likud party issued statements accusing the Arab parties of “stealing the vote.”
It demanded police and the Shin Bet domestic intelligence service investigate incidents of suspected election bribery and intimidation at ballot stations in Arab towns. It said it possessed evidence of such activity but has not presented it to the public.
The police say they have arrested at least seven people since Tuesday in Israel’s south, where many Arabs live, on suspicion of voter fraud.
On Thursday, the head of Israel’s Central Election Committee, Supreme Court jurist Noam Sohlberg, said he had asked the Shin Bet to investigate suspicions that unidentified foreign players had tried to intervene in the election.
Likud seized on Sohlberg’s request, alleging an attack on Israel’s democracy, “an Islamisation of Israel and the toppling of the right-wing in order to bring about IDF withdrawal and defeat on all fronts, foremost Iran”.
Likud said Qatar was behind the alleged election intervention, which Qatar denied.
Ra’am head Mansour Abbas said his party was not involved and urged a full investigation.
“We have one message in response to the campaign of incitement and delegitimisation he (Netanyahu) is waging against Arab citizens: Nothing will come of it, because there is nothing there,” Abbas said in a statement.
In a letter sent to a parliamentarian and published by the Central Election Committee, the committee said that there was “no base for claims that there was systematic harm to the election’s integrity.”
Shin Bet said that its investigation was focused only on those involved and should not cast aspersions on “an entire sector that went out to vote democratically and legally.”
