Netanyahu lost his majority in parliament. Now he claims elections were stolen

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On election day in March 2015, Benjamin Netanyahu filmed a controversial 28-second video, warning right-wing voters that Arab citizens were heading to the polls “in droves.” A week later, after he had won against prevailing expectations, he apologized, saying he did not intend to offend the Arab sector as a whole.

Eleven years and six elections later, Netanyahu is playing the same game, only on a much grander scale.

Since losing his majority in the October 27 vote, Netanyahu and his allies have been pressing a serious accusation: the election was “stolen” by Arab parties through bribery, foreign funding and fraud. They are demanding investigations, arrests and, in the most extreme version, even canceling the vote and going to another round of elections.

They have yet to present any evidence, but the political goal is clear: to cast a veil of illegitimacy on the Joint List and Raam, the two Arab parties that saw record turnout and are likely to be a crucial part of any effort to oust Israel’s longest-serving leader.

“They are doing this because they lost”, Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu’s main challenger, said in a Thursday video statement.

Netanyahu did not lose the election outright, nor did he win it. The same is true for Eisenkot. Both fell short of the required 61-seat majority in the 120-seat parliament needed for a clear victory. Israel now faces weeks – perhaps months – of political uncertainty.

Netanyahu knows the math. His coalition dropped to 53 seats and has no clear way of securing a majority. The Eisenkot-led bloc has 48 seats on its own. But with the support of 19 seats from the Arab parties, it has a clear majority of 67 seats.

Ronen Zvulun/Reuters

The final Israeli election results are in. Netanyahu hasn’t won – but he hasn’t lost either

The only government to have ousted Netanyahu – the Bennett-Lapid government in 2021 – included Raam, and it collapsed after roughly a year. Now, Netanyahu’s primary goal after the elections, according to a source close to him, is to delegitimize and prevent any Jewish-Arab political cooperation that could weaken his grip on power.

The effort started weeks before election day.

In mid-October, Netanyahu and Religious Zionist party chair Bezalel Smotrich announced plans to deploy about 2,000 observers at polling stations in Arab communities, framing the Arab voting stations as sites of potential fraud.

Early on election morning, police arrested three Raam activists over an alleged cash-for-votes scheme, in a widely publicized incident. The original tip about the arrests, Israel’s Channel 12 News later reported, came from Netanyahu’s chief of staff, who bypassed standard channels to personally reach the police commissioner. Courts rejected most of the police requests for tough restrictions, and some of the suspects have been released. But Netanyahu’s campaign machine seized on the story, amplifying the arrests and claiming it was an effort to “steal the elections.”

As the ballots were counted, the campaign continued and intensified. On Wednesday, Netanyahu’s Likud party said it had submitted hundreds of testimonies alleging bribery, threats, violence and forgery from Raam and the Joint List, while the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14 reported suspicions of millions of shekels from a foreign source.

Then, a letter leaked.

The Central Elections Committee chair, Supreme Court Deputy Chief Justice Noam Solberg, had written to David Zini, the director of the Shin Bet security service, requesting an inquiry into “serious suspicions” of foreign funding. Israeli media later reported that Zini himself had asked for the letter, after reportedly meeting with Netanyahu earlier. Solberg wrote that he could not verify the seriousness of the evidence. But for Likud and other right-wing politicians it hardly mattered: the letter was treated as confirmation and proof.

Netanyahu’s far-right allies Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir called to arrest the Arab party leaders, with Ben Gvir alleging a Qatari-funded effort to boost Arab voter turnout, which Qatar categorically denied as “ridiculous and dangerous.”

On Channel 14, the story was dubbed “The Ballot Terror.” Likud lawmaker Boaz Bismuth wrote on X that the results of the “terrorist parties” should not be recognized until “every stone” was turned. On Sunday, Netanyahu himself shared a video of a right-wing activist claiming of massive forgeries and calling to “simply invalidate the elections.”

The episodes elicited sharp criticism of Israel’s police commissioner and Shin Bet chief – both Netanyahu appointees.

“There is a common denominator between the two affairs,” Amos Harel, Haaretz’s senior defense analyst, wrote. “In both cases the Prime Minister’s Office is stirring things behind the scenes with the Shin Bet and the police, and Likud immediately leverages the reports into a massive propaganda campaign” designed to delegitimize the Arab parties and reduce the opposition’s freedom of actions.

Election authorities, however, rejected Netanyahu’s narrative. The Central Elections Committee officially dismissed claims of widespread fraud as baseless and said there is no evidentiary basis for alleging a systematic compromise of the vote.

On Sunday, the committee chairman appeared alongside the head of the Shin Bet and the attorney-general in a special statement in which they said the elections were conducted properly. Even if the foreign funding suspicions are substantiated, they said it won’t overturn the result or undermine the integrity of the process. “Your decision at the ballot box will be honored,” Solberg said.

Likud was unmoved, insisting in a statement a “black cloud” hangs over the results.

The opposition has broadly backed the investigation but has framed Netanyahu’s allegations as an effort to undermine the outcome. Eisenkot called it a “despicable and malicious influence operation” meant to delay the publication of the results and delegitimize the 26th Knesset. Yair Golan, the leader of the left-wing Democrats party, said that is how “a dictator who refuses to accept defeat at the ballot box” behaves.

The Joint List, which is the target of the delegitimization campaign, fired back in its own statement.

“No smear campaign will erase the achievement of the Arab public, and no attempt to cast doubt on the legitimacy of our vote will change the will of the voters,” the party said in a statement last week. “You wanted us small and weak, and you got us big and strong.”

克里斯·麦克格拉斯/盖蒂图片社

2015年3月大选日，本杰明·内塔尼亚胡拍摄了一段引发争议的28秒视频，警告右翼选民，阿拉伯公民正“成群结队”地前往投票站。一周后，在他出人意料地赢得大选后，他道歉称，自己无意冒犯整个阿拉伯群体。

十一年过去了，经历了六次选举，内塔尼亚胡依然在玩弄同样的把戏，只是规模更大了。

自10月27日大选失去多数席位以来，内塔尼亚胡及其盟友一直坚持一项严重的指控：阿拉伯政党通过贿赂、外国资金和舞弊手段“窃取”了选举结果。他们要求展开调查、逮捕相关人员，甚至在最极端的情况下，要求取消选举结果并重新举行大选。

他们尚未拿出任何证据，但其政治目标很明确：抹黑联合名单和拉姆党，这两个阿拉伯政党获得了创纪录的投票率，很可能成为任何推翻以色列任期最长领导人的努力的关键组成部分。

“他们这样做是因为他们输了”，内塔尼亚胡的主要挑战者加迪·艾森科特在周四发布的一段视频声明中说道。

内塔尼亚胡既没有彻底输掉选举，也没有赢得选举。艾森科特的情况也一样。两人都未能获得议会120个席位中所需的61个多数席位，因此未能取得压倒性胜利。以色列现在面临着数周甚至数月的政治不确定性。

内塔尼亚胡很清楚形势。他的执政联盟席位已降至53席，没有明确的途径确保获得多数席位。艾森科特领导的联盟本身拥有48个席位。但如果加上阿拉伯政党的19个席位，该联盟将拥有67个席位的绝对多数。

罗南·祖伦/路透社

以色列大选最终结果出炉。内塔尼亚胡既没有获胜，也没有落败。

唯一推翻内塔尼亚胡的政府——2021年的贝内特-拉皮德政府——也包括拉姆，但该政府在大约一年后垮台。据一位接近内塔尼亚胡的消息人士透露，内塔尼亚胡在大选后的首要目标是消除并阻止任何可能削弱其权力的犹太-阿拉伯政治合作的合法性。

这项工作在选举日几周前就开始了。

10月中旬，内塔尼亚胡和宗教犹太复国主义党主席贝扎莱尔·斯莫特里奇宣布计划在阿拉伯社区的投票站部署约2000名观察员，并将阿拉伯投票站描述为潜在的舞弊场所。

选举日清晨，警方逮捕了三名拉姆组织（Raam）成员，指控他们涉嫌以现金换取选票，此事被广泛报道。以色列第12频道新闻后来报道称，最初获得逮捕消息的线人是内塔尼亚胡的幕僚长，他绕过常规渠道，直接联系了警察局长。法院驳回了警方的大部分严格限制请求，部分嫌疑人已被释放。但内塔尼亚胡的竞选团队抓住此事大做文章，夸大逮捕行动，并声称这是“窃取选举”的阴谋。

随着计票工作的进行，竞选活动仍在继续并愈演愈烈。周三，内塔尼亚胡领导的利库德集团表示，他们已提交数百份证词，指控拉姆和联合名单党存在贿赂、威胁、暴力和伪造等行为。与此同时，亲内塔尼亚胡的第14频道报道称，他们怀疑有数百万谢克尔的资金来自外国。

然后，一封信泄露了。

中央选举委员会主席、最高法院副首席大法官诺姆·索尔贝格致信以色列国家安全局局长戴维·齐尼，要求对涉嫌外国资金资助的“严重疑点”展开调查。以色列媒体随后报道称，齐尼本人在早些时候与内塔尼亚胡会面后，要求索尔贝格发出这封信。索尔贝格在信中表示，他无法核实证据的严重性。但对于利库德集团和其他右翼政客而言，这几乎无关紧要：这封信被视为确凿的证据。

内塔尼亚胡的极右翼盟友斯莫特里奇和伊塔马尔·本·格维尔呼吁逮捕阿拉伯政党领导人，本·格维尔声称这是卡塔尔资助的一项旨在提高阿拉伯选民投票率的行动，但卡塔尔断然否认，称其“荒谬且危险”。

第14频道将此事称为“选票恐怖”。利库德集团议员博阿兹·比斯穆特在X网站上撰文称，在“彻底调查”之前，不应承认“恐怖政党”的选举结果。周日，内塔尼亚胡本人分享了一段右翼活动人士的视频，该活动人士声称存在大规模舞弊，并呼吁“直接宣布选举无效”。

这些事件引发了对以色列警察总监和辛贝特局长（均为内塔尼亚胡任命）的严厉批评。

《国土报》高级国防分析师阿莫斯·哈雷尔写道：“这两起事件有一个共同点。在这两起事件中，总理办公室都在幕后与辛贝特和警方勾结，而利库德集团则立即利用这些报道发起大规模宣传攻势”，旨在抹黑阿拉伯政党，并限制反对派的行动自由。

然而，选举当局驳斥了内塔尼亚胡的说法。中央选举委员会正式驳斥了有关大规模舞弊的指控，称其毫无根据，并表示没有任何证据可以证明存在系统性的选举舞弊行为。

周日，选举委员会主席与以色列国家安全局局长和总检察长共同发表特别声明，称选举程序合法合规。他们表示，即使外国资金干预的指控属实，也不会推翻选举结果或损害选举的公正性。“你们在投票箱前做出的选择将得到尊重，”索尔贝格说道。

利库德集团对此无动于衷，并在声明中坚称选举结果笼罩着“阴云”。

反对派总体上支持这项调查，但认为内塔尼亚胡的指控意在破坏选举结果。艾森科特称其为“卑鄙恶毒的影响行动”，旨在拖延公布选举结果并质疑第26届以色列议会的合法性。左翼民主党领导人亚伊尔·戈兰表示，这就是“拒绝接受选举失败的独裁者”的行事作风。

作为此次去合法化运动的目标，联合名单党发表声明予以反击。

该党上周在一份声明中表示：“任何抹黑运动都无法抹杀阿拉伯人民的成就，任何质疑我们投票合法性的企图都无法改变选民的意愿。你们想要我们弱小无力，结果却让我们变得强大。”