Israeli right warns of stolen vote as counts fall short of majority
Leaders claim Arab parties will break the Jewish state's character, while polls show no single bloc holds the 61 seats needed to rule.
By Rebecca Foster ·
Tension gripped Israeli political headquarters on Tuesday night as exit polls suggested a fragmented result. Neither the governing right-wing alliance nor the opposition camp secured the 61 seats required for a majority in the 120-seat parliament. This deadlock places Arab-led parties in a critical position to influence the formation of the next government.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich spoke early Wednesday from his party's headquarters in Jerusalem. He dismissed celebrations by opposition supporters and vowed to protect the expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank. Smotrich declared that Jewish settlements would be established in Gaza, a territory where Israel dismantled its settlements in 2005.
Earlier in the day, Smotrich claimed on Facebook that voter turnout was unusually high in Arab communities and left-wing strongholds. He offered no specific figures to support this assertion. He argued that if right-wing voters did not mobilize, supporters of terror could enter the government.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made similar appeals while voting was underway. He warned that Arab voters were rushing to polling stations and that an opposition victory would threaten Israel's Jewish character. Netanyahu accused three senior figures from the Arab-majority party Ra'am of attempting to steal the election. Police confirmed arrests for suspected voter bribery, but they did not indicate that the three individuals held senior positions within Ra'am.
Transportation Minister Miri Regev of the Likud party repeated these theft allegations in a post on X. She wrote that opponents were trying to steal the elections and the country. She framed the choice as being either the right or Palestine.
Al Jazeera correspondent Nida Ibrahim reported from Ramallah that with about 55 percent of ballots counted, Netanyahu's bloc was projected to win 56 seats. This falls short of the majority threshold. Mansour Abbas, the leader of Ra'am, stated that he had been approached by both Netanyahu's Likud party and the opposition camp led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot.
Dov Waxman, a British-American political scientist, noted that Netanyahu is likely to emphasize to the public that a coalition including Arab parties would be illegitimate. Arab political leaders condemned the prime minister's election-day messages as racist and inflammatory.
