tel aviv —
As the Republican Party’s defeat in the US midterm elections comes into focus, President Donald Trump says he accepts the results. The same cannot be said about Benjamin Netanyahu, whom President Trump supported in Israel.
A week after Israel’s October 27 general election, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who lost a majority of seats, is still contesting the officially certified results. He and his Likud party claim, without providing evidence, that the vote was “stolen” by Israeli Arab parties and foreign actors.
The post-election controversy deepened this week when David Zini, head of the Shin Bet Internal Security Service and a Netanyahu supporter, pushed for an investigation into Arab party leaders. The attorney general, a longtime target of the Israeli right, has refused to authorize such an investigation without evidence.
Netanyahu’s main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, said on Tuesday that “Likud and Prime Minister Netanyahu are trying to carry out a pogrom against democracy and the rule of law.”
The next day, Prime Minister Netanyahu doubled down on his claims of fraud. “There are serious suspicions of foreign involvement using large sums of money to manipulate the election results in the State of Israel,” he said in a video statement.
According to official results, Prime Minister Netanyahu’s seats have plummeted from a commanding 68 of the Knesset’s 120 seats to 53. Eisenkot’s opposition party holds 67 seats. But nearly a third of that vote went to two Arab parties, the Joint List and Ra’am, which won a historic 19 seats.
The support of Arab parties will be crucial to any effort to replace Netanyahu. That is why undermining their legitimacy is a focus of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s post-election strategy.
Since the results came out, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing allies have spread claims that the election was “stolen” by Arab parties through bribes, foreign funding and fraud.
The day after the vote, Likud submitted hundreds of testimonies to the Central Election Commission demanding an investigation and arrests. Over the weekend, Netanaif shared a video on social media of a right-wing activist alleging a massive fabrication and calling for “simply invalidating the election.” The commission said there was no evidence to allege that voting was systematically compromised and rejected claims of widespread fraud as unfounded.
But the committee last week asked the Shin Bet to investigate “serious allegations” of foreign funding aimed at influencing election campaigns. In a letter leaked to Israeli media, the commission’s chairman, Judge Noam Solberg, warned that he could not confirm the gravity of the contents. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party treated the letter as support for a broader narrative of fraud.
Solberg, along with Shin Bet leader and Attorney General Ghali Baharahu Miara, issued a rare joint statement on Sunday, assuring the public that the elections had been properly conducted. He said even if the foreign funding allegations were confirmed, it would not overturn the results or undermine the integrity of the process.
However, Gini’s subsequent actions further escalated the controversy. Zini, a former Israeli Defense Force major general who describes himself as a “proud savior,” was appointed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from outside the Shin Bet last year. He is currently reportedly seeking to interrogate four senior Arab officials, including several party leaders.
The Shin Bet newspaper told the committee on Wednesday that its information “appears to indicate” a “widespread phenomenon” in which large sums of money are funneled to Israel from foreign sources “in the thousands and possibly even more”, according to people briefed on the matter. The agency said further research was needed to determine the extent with “high confidence.” However, the Shin Bet did not present any public evidence.
On Tuesday, the attorney general’s office said in a rare statement that Mr. Zini had prevented the Shin Bet from handing over relevant evidence to the office and police. “In a country ruled by law, you cannot investigate citizens or elected officials without valid evidence,” he said. “Anyone who needs to be questioned will be questioned, but no one will be questioned unless there is evidence.”
In response, the Likud party accused Baharav-Miara of obstructing the investigation. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s far-right ally Itamar Ben Gvir called on Zini to arrest and investigate Arab leaders without the attorney general’s approval. This conflict escalates into an ongoing conflict. Netanyahu’s outgoing government resolved to dismiss Prime Minister Baharav Miara in August 2025, but the Supreme Court blocked the move. Since then, the government has repeatedly challenged and ignored her directives.
Arab political parties rejected this claim and accused Mr. Zini of taking part in Likud’s campaign to delegitimize Arab people, their votes, and their record of political representation.
“Prime Minister Netanyahu is clinging to power and trying to delegitimize the Arab people who voted en masse against his government. Mr. Zini, appointed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, serves as the political arm of Prime Minister Netanyahu,” the Joint List said in a statement. Ra’am chairman Mansour Abbas called the move an “unacceptable attempt to harm the Arab people.”
Opposition leaders now plan to use their Knesset majority to replace the parliament speaker, accusing Netanyahu and Zini of dragging Israel into a constitutional crisis and undermining the election’s credibility.
Eisenkot called this a testing time for Israel’s future “as a free and democratic state.” He urged security and law enforcement officials to remember that they are “servants of the kingdom, not the king.”
Former Prime Minister Yair Lapid called it “an attempt to crush democracy and steal elections with the help of regime supporters implanted in the security system.” Yair Golan, leader of the leftist Democratic Party, said Zini had turned Shin Bet into a “political tool that serves the Netanyahu camp to undermine the election results.”
A political test will come in the coming weeks. If Prime Minister Netanyahu convinces right-wing parties and opposition individual exiles that their reliance on Arab parties is illegal, he could close off his only path to resignation. But his tactics could also help unite a fractured opposition party and hasten the outcome he is trying to prevent.
