Trump said he’d accept the election results. Netanyahu is challenging the outcome of his.

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As Republican losses in the US midterm elections came into focus, President Donald Trump said he would accept the results. The same cannot be said of Benjamin Netanyahu, the man Trump endorsed in Israel.

A week after Israel’s October 27 election, Netanyahu, whose bloc lost its majority, is still challenging the officially certified results. He and his Likud party allege, without presenting evidence, that the vote was “stolen” by Israel’s Arab parties and foreign actors.

The post-election dispute deepened this week after the David Zini, chief of the Shin Bet internal security service and a Netanyahu loyalist, pushed to investigate the leaders of the Arab parties. The attorney general, a longtime target of Israel’s right-wing, refused to authorize such an investigation without evidence.

“Likud and Netanyahu are trying to commit a pogrom against democracy and the rule of law,” Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu’s main rival, said Tuesday.

One day later, Netanyahu doubled down on his claims of fraud. “There are serious suspicions that foreign countries have been involved, using enormous sums of money, in an attempt to manipulate the results of the elections in the State of Israel,” he said in a video statement.

The official results show Netanyahu’s bloc plummeted from a commanding 68 to 53 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, or parliament. The opposition, led by Eisenkot, holds 67 seats. But nearly a third of those comes from the two Arab parties, the Joint List and Raam, after a historic turnout that secured 19 seats.

The Arab parties’ support is decisive to any effort to replace Netanyahu. That is why undermining their legitimacy has become the focus of Netanyahu’s post-election strategy.

Since the results came in, Netanyahu and his right-wing allies have been propagating claims that the election was “stolen” by the Arab parties through bribery, foreign funding and fraud.

A day after the vote, Likud submitted hundreds of testimonies to the Central Elections Committee demanding investigations and arrests. Over the weekend, Netanayhu shared a video on social media of a right-wing activist claiming massive forgeries and calling to “simply invalidate the elections.” The committee has rejected claims of widespread fraud as baseless, saying there is no evidentiary basis to allege systematic compromise of the vote.

The committee did, however, ask the Shin Bet last week to examine “serious suspicions” of foreign funding intended to influence the campaign. In a letter leaked to Israeli media, committee chair Justice Noam Sohlberg cautioned that he could not verify the seriousness of the material. But Netanyahu’s Likud party treated the letter as a confirmation of the broader fraud narrative.

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Sohlberg appeared alongside the Shin Bet chief and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to make an unusual joint statement Sunday in which they assured the public that the elections were conducted properly. They said that even if the foreign funding suspicions were substantiated, it wouldn’t overturn the result or undermine the integrity of the process.

But Zini’s subsequent conduct has escalated the controversy. A retired Israel Defense Forces major general who describes himself as a “proud messianic,” Zini was appointed by Netanyahu last year from outside the Shin Bet ranks. He is now reportedly seeking to question four senior Arab political figures, including several party leaders.

The Shin Bet told the committee Wednesday that its intelligence “seemingly” points to “extensive phenomena” of large sums being funneled into Israel from foreign sources “on a scale exceeding thousands of people and possibly even more,” according to a source briefed on the matter. The agency said further investigation was needed before it could point “with a high level of certainty” to the scope. But the Shin Bet presented no public evidence.

In a rare statement Tuesday, the attorney general’s office said Zini had prevented the Shin Bet from passing any pertinent evidence to her office or to the police. “In a state governed by law, citizens or elected officials cannot be investigated without evidence justification,” it said. “Anyone who needs to be questioned will be, but no one will be investigated without evidentiary grounds.”

The Likud party, in response, accused Baharav-Miara of obstructing the investigation. Netanyahu’s far-right ally, Itamar Ben Gvir, called on Zini to arrest and investigate the Arab leaders even without the attorney general’s approval. The clash feeds into an ongoing conflict: Netanyahu’s outgoing government voted to dismiss Baharav-Miara in August 2025, but the Supreme Court blocked the move. Since then, the government has repeatedly challenged and defied her directives.

The Arab parties rejected the allegations, accusing Zini of participating in the Likud’s campaign to delegitimize the Arab public, their votes and their record political representation.

“Netanyahu is clinging to power and trying to deny the legitimacy of the Arab public which voted en masse and decided against his government. Zini, appointed by Netanyahu, is acting as a political arm in his service,” the Joint List said in a statement. Mansour Abbas, chairman of Raam, called the move an “an unacceptable attempt to tarnish the Arab public.”

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Opposition leaders, who are now making plans to use their Knesset majority to replace the body’s speaker, accuse Netanyahu and Zini of dragging Israel into a constitutional crisis and eroding trust in the election.

Eisenkot called the moment a test for Israel’s future “as a liberal democratic state.” He urged security and law enforcement officials to remember they “are servants of the kingdom, not the king.”

Former Prime Minister Yair Lapid called it an “attempt to crush democracy and steal the elections with the help of regime loyalists planted in the security system.” Yair Golan, chairman of the left-wing Democrats party, said Zini has turned the Shin Bet into “a political tool in service of Netanyahu’s campaign to undermine the election results.”

The political test will come in the weeks ahead. If Netanyahu persuades right-wing parties and potential individual defectors in the opposition that relying on Arab parties is illegitimate, he may block the only path to his ouster. But his tactics could also push the divided opposition to come together and hasten the outcome he is seeking to prevent.

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随着美国中期选举中共和党的失利逐渐明朗，唐纳德·特朗普总统表示他将接受选举结果。但对于特朗普在以色列支持的本杰明·内塔尼亚胡，情况则截然不同。

以色列10月27日大选一周后，内塔尼亚胡所在的利库德集团失去了多数席位，但他仍在质疑官方认证的选举结果。他和他的利库德集团在没有提供任何证据的情况下声称，以色列的阿拉伯政党和外国势力“窃取”了选票。

本周，以色列大选后的争端进一步加剧。以色列国家安全局（辛贝特）局长、内塔尼亚胡的忠实拥护者大卫·齐尼力主调查阿拉伯政党领导人。而长期以来一直是以色列右翼攻击目标的总检察长则拒绝在没有证据的情况下授权进行此类调查。

“利库德集团和内塔尼亚胡正试图对民主和法治进行一场大屠杀，”内塔尼亚胡的主要竞争对手加迪·艾森科特周二表示。

一天后，内塔尼亚胡再次强调了选举舞弊的说法。他在一段视频声明中说：“我们严重怀疑有外国势力参与其中，动用巨额资金，企图操纵以色列国的选举结果。”

官方结果显示，内塔尼亚胡领导的联盟在以色列议会（Knesset）120个席位中，从占据绝对优势的68席骤降至53席。由艾森科特领导的反对派则拥有67个席位。但其中近三分之一来自两个阿拉伯政党——联合名单党和拉姆党，这两个政党在历史性的高投票率下赢得了19个席位。

阿拉伯政党的支持对于任何试图取代内塔尼亚胡的努力都至关重要。正因如此，削弱它们的合法性成为了内塔尼亚胡选后战略的重点。

自选举结果公布以来，内塔尼亚胡及其右翼盟友一直在散布谣言，称阿拉伯政党通过贿赂、外国资金和欺诈手段“窃取”了选举结果。

投票结束后第二天，利库德集团向中央选举委员会提交了数百份证词，要求展开调查并逮捕相关人员。周末期间，内塔纳胡在社交媒体上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”。委员会驳斥了有关选举舞弊的指控，称其毫无根据，并表示没有证据可以证明存在系统性的舞弊行为。

然而，委员会上周确实要求以色列国家安全局（辛贝特）调查有关外国资金意图影响竞选活动的“严重嫌疑”。委员会主席诺姆·索尔伯格法官在一封泄露给以色列媒体的信中警告说，他无法核实这些材料的严重性。但内塔尼亚胡领导的利库德集团却将这封信视为对更广泛的舞弊指控的佐证。

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索尔贝格周日与辛贝特局长和总检察长加利·巴哈拉夫-米亚拉一同发表了一份罕见的联合声明，向公众保证选举过程合法合规。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程序的公正性。

但齐尼随后的行为加剧了这场争议。齐尼是一位自称“骄傲的弥赛亚信徒”的以色列国防军退役少将，去年由内塔尼亚胡从以色列国家安全局（辛贝特）之外提拔上来。据报道，他现在正试图质询四位阿拉伯高级政治人物，其中包括几位政党领导人。

据一位知情人士透露，以色列国家安全局（辛贝特）周三向委员会表示，其情报“似乎”指向“大量资金从国外流入以色列的现象”，涉及“数千人甚至更多”。该机构称，需要进一步调查才能“高度确定”其规模。但辛贝特并未提供任何公开证据。

周二，总检察长办公室罕见地发表声明称，齐尼阻止了辛贝特（以色列国家安全局）向其办公室或警方提供任何相关证据。声明指出：“在一个法治国家，公民或民选官员不能在没有证据的情况下受到调查。任何需要接受讯问的人都会被讯问，但任何人都不能在没有证据的情况下受到调查。”

利库德集团对此回应，指责巴哈拉夫-米亚拉阻挠调查。内塔尼亚胡的极右翼盟友伊塔马尔·本·格维尔呼吁齐尼，即使未经总检察长批准，也要逮捕并调查这些阿拉伯领导人。这场冲突源于一场持续不断的矛盾：内塔尼亚胡即将卸任的政府曾投票决定在2025年8月解雇巴哈拉夫-米亚拉，但最高法院阻止了这一举动。此后，政府屡次质疑并违抗她的指令。

阿拉伯政党驳斥了这些指控，指责齐尼参与了利库德集团旨在否定阿拉伯公众、他们的选票以及他们过往政治代表权的行动。

“内塔尼亚胡紧抓权力不放，试图否认阿拉伯民众的合法性，阿拉伯民众已经集体投票反对他的政府。齐尼是内塔尼亚胡任命的，他只是内塔尼亚胡的政治工具，”联合名单党在一份声明中表示。拉姆党主席曼苏尔·阿巴斯称此举是“抹黑阿拉伯民众的不可接受的企图”。

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反对派领导人目前正计划利用他们在以色列议会的多数席位来更换议长，他们指责内塔尼亚胡和齐尼将以色列拖入宪政危机，并削弱了人们对选举的信任。

艾森科特称这一刻是对以色列未来“作为自由民主国家”的一次考验。他敦促安全和执法官员记住，他们“是王国的仆人，而不是国王的仆人”。

前总理亚伊尔·拉皮德称其为“企图借助安插在安全系统中的政权拥护者来摧毁民主并窃取选举结果”。左翼民主党主席亚伊尔·戈兰表示，齐尼已将辛贝特（以色列国家安全局）变成了“为内塔尼亚胡破坏选举结果的竞选活动服务的政治工具”。

政治考验将在未来几周到来。如果内塔尼亚胡能够说服右翼政党和潜在的反对派人士相信依靠阿拉伯政党是不合法的，他或许就能堵上自己下台的唯一途径。但他的策略也可能促使分裂的反对派团结起来，加速他试图阻止的结果的出现。