TEL AVIV, Israel: Israel's two Arab parties are in a position to have a say in who the country's next prime minister and government will be — but not if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has anything to do with it, after he alleged serious criminal activities took place during voting in the Arab areas of the nation. The two parties were projected to win a combined 19 Knesset seats, according to preliminary results. With both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud-led right-wing bloc and the opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot’s centrist bloc falling short of the 61 seats needed for a parliamentary majority.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Netanyahu wrote on X that Israel’s election had been "stolen by Arab parties that support terrorism and the elimination of the Jewish state," alleging serious criminal offenses, including bribery, threats, violence, forgery and the use of prohibited software to mobilize voters. NETANYAHU GAINS OVERNIGHT AS ISRAEL ELECTION HEADS TOWARD POLITICAL DEADLOCK "The Likud party is transferring to the police, the Shin Bet, and the Central Elections Committee hundreds of testimonies and pieces of evidence regarding election theft in many Arab polling stations," he wrote. He cited allegations of thousands of envelopes containing cash and Ra’am ballot slips, threats and violence against polling station staff, multiple votes cast behind the voting curtain, voting under multiple identities, discrepancies between the number of ballot envelopes and the number of voters, the use of prohibited voter-mobilization software and other offenses.
"We demand from the police and the Shin Bet a thorough investigation into the election theft by the Arab parties and the full prosecution of the criminals. We demand from the Central Elections Committee an immediate response to investigate these criminal offenses that have severely damaged the integrity of the elections in Israel and the election results," he added. One Arab political alliance, the Joint List, brings together three parties: Hadash, a predominantly Arab-Jewish left-wing party rooted in Israel’s communist movement, and the Arab nationalist parties Ta’al and Balad.
With over 90% of ballots counted, the alliance was projected to win 12 seats. The other Arab party, the United Arab List (Ra’am), led by Mansour Abbas and affiliated with the Southern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, was projected to win seven seats. Arab citizens make up approximately 21% of Israel’s population.
Turnout in this election reached a near record high between 75% to 80%. "They are a political force to be reckoned with," Dahlia Scheindlin, a former policy fellow at the Mitvim Institute and a senior analyst at Haaretz, told Fox News Digital. NETANYAHU DEFIES EXIT POLLS AS VOTE SHIFTS IN HIS FAVOR, BUT MAJORITY REMAINS ELUSIVE Scheindlin said that Netanyahu framed his campaign around the claim that the opposition is prepared to form a government dependent on Arab parties’ support, which he argues would lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state that would become a terror state and ultimately bring about Israel’s destruction.
"This is the most consistent message, and he never stopped saying it, including on election day," she said. Scheindlin said that the issue had become politically sensitive, prompting leading Zionist opposition parties to pledge not to cooperate with the Arab parties. "They have sworn they would not build a coalition that depends on Arab votes, either from within the coalition or from outside it.
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