Benjamin Netanyahu has been accused of using smear tactics to cling to power, after he claimed that Arab Israeli parties had used foreign backing to “steal” Tuesday’s election, in which the prime minister’s coalition lost its parliamentary majority.
asserted
coalition → accuse → majority
Netanyahu and his allies called on the internal security service, Shin Bet, to investigate alleged vote buying and other irregularities in Palestinian communities in Israel, supposedly funded by foreign money.
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Netanyahu → call → money
Gadi Eisenkot, the leader of the main opposition bloc, accused the prime minister and his Likud party of trying to derail the election results.
“It’s already clear that Likud and Netanyahu have embarked on a coordinated, organised campaign seeking to delegitimise the results of the election,” Eisenkot said in a video message.
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Eisenkot → accuse → message
The prime minister’s allegations were quickly disowned by a range of government officials, including police officers and members of the election committee.
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allegations → disown → committee
Netanyahu was also rebuked by the president for “tarnishing an entire community”.
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Netanyahu → rebuke → community
On Wednesday night, the prime minister posted a statement by Likud online, which described the claimed violations as “an attack on democracy whose purpose is to lead to a foreign takeover of the Knesset, the Islamisation of Israel, and the overthrow of rightwing rule”.
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purpose → post → rule
Tuesday’s elections led to Netanyahu’s far-right coalition losing its majority after four years in power.
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coalition → lead → power
The main Jewish opposition bloc also fell short, however, leaving two Arab Israeli parties, the Joint List and Ra’am, holding the balance of power.
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bloc → fall → power
The prime minister’s attack appeared aimed at stopping the Jewish and Arab opposition voting together in the new Knesset to oust the incumbent speaker, Amir Ohana, a Likud politician and former Shin Bet official, and advancing their own legislation.
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opposition → aim → legislation
The Likud statement posted by Netanyahu on X said: “It is clear that no Zionist party should cooperate with Ra’am and the Joint List, replace the Knesset speaker through votes bought for cash, and form a government that is dangerous to Israel.”
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that → post → Israel
Opposition leaders lambasted the claims of Netanyahu, 77, who has run Israel for 19 of the past 30 years.
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who → lambast → years
Yousef Jabareen, the Joint List leader, accused the prime minister of incitement.
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Jabareen → accuse → incitement
“Netanyahu was defeated at the ballot box,” Jabareen said, adding that he “refuses to come to terms with the fact that the Arab public voted and decided”.
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public → defeat → fact
Eisenkot said any investigation should be conducted “without fear or favour,” and with “the utmost caution”, but insisted it could not be used as a reason to delay the convening of the newly elected Knesset, due to be sworn in within 14 days of the election.
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it → say → election
The acting director general of the central elections committee, Dean Livneh, said there appeared to be no basis for the claims.
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general → act → claims
Police officials quoted across the Israeli press said the allegations were groundless, adding that voting had been relatively trouble-free.
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voting → quote → press
The president, Isaac Herzog, called for political leaders to “avoid tarnishing an entire community that sought to exercise its right to vote and take an active part in democracy”.
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that → call → democracy
It was not specified in Likud statements, but press reports said Qatar was the foreign power alleged to have funded vote-buying and voter mobilisation.
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Qatar → specify → buying
Majed al-Ansari, an adviser to Qatar’s prime minister, said its government “categorically” denied any involvement in the elections.
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government → say → elections
With almost all the votes counted, Netanyahu’s coalition has 53 seats in the 120-seat Knesset, Eisenkot’s bloc has 48, and the Joint List and Ra’am together have 19 seats, a historic high for the Arab Israeli community, which makes up about a fifth of Israel’s population.
The record turnout among Arab Israelis (Palestinians with Israeli citizenship) appeared to be driven by outrage at routine discrimination and fear that it could become far worse if extremist and openly racist members of the government, such as the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, secured another term in office.
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members → count → office
On Thursday, Ben-Gvir called for the arrest of Arab party leaders, and Smotrich demanded they be subjected to Shin Bet interrogation.
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they → call → interrogation
Voting in Nazareth, the biggest majority-Palestinian town in Israel, was brisk on Tuesday, with few signs of irregularities, other than apparent ploys by the government and coalition parties to suppress the Arab vote.
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Voting → suppress → vote
Some packets of ballots sent to Nazareth polling stations were in Hebrew alone, rather than in Hebrew and Arabic.
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packets → send → Hebrew
Election workers said that monitors sent by far-right parties had attempted procedural ploys to slow down voting but had been largely unsuccessful.
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monitors → say → voting
The leaders of the Joint List and the Zionist “Change” bloc have ruled out a formal coalition, but officials from both have discussed the possibility of tactical voting in the Knesset to unseat Ohana, the speaker, and to pass some consensus legislation.
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officials → rule → legislation
One proposed bill would establish a commission of inquiry into the security failures that helped lead to the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, something Netanyahu has blocked over the past two years.
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Netanyahu → propose → years
Ahmad Tibi, a party leader on the Joint List, said Netanyahu was trying to subvert the election results by trying to sabotage a common front between the Eisenkot bloc and the Arab Israeli parties.
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Netanyahu → say → bloc
“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 the Reuters news agency.
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Tibi → direct → agency
Naftali Bennett, a former prime minister who is a partner in the “Change” bloc, pointed out the irony of Netanyahu denouncing Qatar for election meddling while the Israeli leader’s own political advisers are being accused of taking Qatari money for promoting the Gulf monarchy’s image.
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advisers → point → image
“This morning, suddenly, when it serves his interests, Netanyahu remembered Qatar and is using it to sow chaos and undermine public confidence in the democratic process,” Bennett wrote on X.
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Bennett → serve → X.
The Aporia
