Israeli
leader Netanyahu accused of using ‘ugly’ smear tactics to cling to power
Prime
minister claims Arab Israeli parties used foreign backing to steal elections,
in which his coalition lost its majority
Julian Borger in Jerusalem
Thu 29 Oct
2026 18.26 CET
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.
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.
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.
Gadi
Eisenkot at an election night rally in Tel Aviv after the first exit polls were
announced. Photograph: Noam Galai/Getty Images
The prime
minister’s allegations were quickly disowned by a range of government
officials, including police officers and members of the election committee.
Netanyahu was also rebuked by the president for “tarnishing an entire
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”.
Tuesday’s
elections led to Netanyahu’s far-right coalition losing its majority after four
years in 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.
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.
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.”
Amir Ohana
(centre) applauding Donald Trump alongside Isaac Herzog (right) before the US
president spoke in the Knesset in October 2025. Photograph: Getty Images
Opposition
leaders lambasted the claims of Netanyahu, 77, who has run Israel for 19 of the
past 30 years.
Yousef
Jabareen, the Joint List leader, accused the prime minister of 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”.
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.
The acting
director general of the central elections committee, Dean Livneh, said there
appeared to be no basis for the claims. Police officials quoted across the
Israeli press said the allegations were groundless, adding that voting had been
relatively trouble-free.
Yousef
Jabareen casting his ballot in the Arab-Israeli town of Umm al-Fahm.
Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images
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”.
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. Majed
al-Ansari, an adviser to Qatar’s prime minister, said its government
“categorically” denied any involvement in the 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.
On Thursday,
Ben-Gvir called for the arrest of Arab party leaders, and Smotrich demanded
they be subjected to Shin Bet interrogation.
Election
campaign posters in Nazareth. Photograph: Adri Salido/Anadolu/Getty Images
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.
Some packets
of ballots sent to Nazareth polling stations were in Hebrew alone, rather than
in Hebrew and Arabic. Election workers said that monitors sent by far-right
parties had attempted procedural ploys to slow down voting but had been largely
unsuccessful.
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.
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.
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.
Ahmad Tibi
casting his vote. Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters
“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.
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.
“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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