Netanyahu claims election was stolen despite no evidence of fraud
Final results released early Friday local time left Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc short of a governing majority in the Knesset, with the prime minister’s coalition winning 53 seats against 48 for the opposition grouping led by retired general Gadi Eisenkot. Palestinian-led parties won 19 seats, a record high. The vote was described by many Israelis as the most consequential election in the country’s history.
Neither bloc reached the 61 seats needed for a majority, so Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, is expected to invite the party most likely to be able to form a government to start coalition negotiations. Herzog has urged politicians to have an “open mind” before talks begin, and the country potentially faces weeks of rancour and uncertainty. No single party has ever claimed a majority of 61 seats, so Israel has always been governed by coalitions.
The arithmetic leaves the Jewish Israeli opposition bloc with a clear majority only if it is prepared to make a governing pact with Palestinian Israeli parties, which secured what the Guardian described as a historic result. Eisenkot has not ruled out cooperating with Palestinians because of their race, but he has effectively barred them from a future coalition by laying out conditions for any partner which are politically impossible for them to accept.
Yair Golan, leader of the centre-left Democrats, a junior partner in the Jewish Israeli opposition bloc, told Israeli media on Thursday that he was meeting Eisenkot and others for initial talks. If the opposition cannot agree on a coalition, or cannot secure Palestinian support for a minority government, Netanyahu could retain power; the Guardian reported that he is pushing for a right-wing governing coalition and would probably welcome new elections or a lengthy period of uncertainty during which he would stay on as caretaker prime minister.
Netanyahu has gone further since Tuesday’s vote, claiming that Palestinian-led parties have “stolen the election” despite Israeli authorities insisting there is no evidence of election fraud. On Wednesday night he reacted to the high Palestinian turnout and the success of Arab Israeli parties by calling for the central elections committee and the Shin Bet internal security agency to investigate foreign interference in the vote. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich amplified the claims, calling for the arrest of Arab Israeli leaders. He was swiftly accused of using smear tactics to cling to power. Eisenkot warned that Likud and Netanyahu “have embarked on a coordinated, organised campaign seeking to delegitimise the results of the election.” Herzog rebuked the prime minister, saying “we must avoid tarnishing an entire community.” A spokesperson for Qatar’s foreign ministry rejected “ridiculous and dangerous” accusations that the country had interfered in the election.
Israeli police and the central elections committee have said there is no evidence of election fraud, the Guardian reported. During the campaign, Netanyahu and his right-wing allies framed Palestinian voters — who make up about 20% of the population — as a direct threat to the state, with Netanyahu repeating the slogan “the right or Palestine”, which rhymes in Hebrew. On election day, voters received a robocall purporting to come from the prime minister falsely claiming that Palestinian party leaders had been caught with envelopes full of cash, and Netanyahu and his allies repeatedly made claims about high turnout in Palestinian areas, in a bid to get his own voters out.
Emma Graham-Harrison, the Guardian’s chief Middle East correspondent in Tel Aviv, described the tactic as “both tragic and depressing,” adding that it was “attempting to paint Palestinians as untrustworthy citizens with dual loyalties, a racist trope that also appears in antisemitic attacks.”
The two main Palestinian-led parties would be the likely partners. The Joint List, which represents a number of mainly leftist Israeli Arab-led parties, is led by Yousef Jabareen, who has previously said the Joint List could not join an Eisenkot-led government because of its support for Israel’s military operation in Gaza and southern Lebanon, but has left open the possibility of bolstering a minority government through confidence votes.
Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, includes a Jewish former chief of police as number two on its slate, a signal of its commitment to working with Jewish Israelis and its desire to tackle organised crime, a major issue for the Palestinian population. Ra’am joined Naftali Bennett’s government in 2021, the first time a Palestinian party entered an Israeli coalition, but the pact collapsed after 18 months, partly because of disagreements over the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian citizens turned out in historic numbers after many had boycotted previous elections. Many had done so, Graham-Harrison said, “on the grounds that participating endorses a discriminatory system or because they felt their representatives had little leverage.” This year, she said, “They’re watching ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, a genocidal war in Gaza, and are under huge pressure inside Israel from an openly racist government, which has allowed organised crime to soar, ramped up home demolitions, and targeted political speech. They felt that, if Netanyahu managed to get another mandate with his far right allies including [extremist security minister] Ben-Gvir, this would only accelerate.”
A survey taken as polls closed on Tuesday showed that a clear majority of opposition voters supported forming a government with Ra’am in order to unseat Netanyahu. Graham-Harrison noted an inconsistency in the opposition’s position: Palestinian citizens play a key role in Israeli life, with outsized representation in professions from medics to security guards, including much of the team at Eisenkot’s election night headquarters. “You would think some of these parties might ask, if you trust Palestinian citizens to secure your campaign events why don’t you trust them to be part of your government?”
Graham-Harrison pointed to a rarely referenced precedent from three decades ago, when Yitzhak Rabin relied on Palestinian support for a minority government as he sought a negotiated end to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Discontent with Netanyahu was evident throughout the campaign. That did not mean a shift to the left: young Israelis are more rightwing than older generations, the Guardian reported, and the national conversation ahead of the election was dominated by security at home and abroad. Although he was in charge on 7 October 2023, when Hamas attacks resulted in the deaths of about 1,200 people, the majority of them civilians, the prime minister tried to shift blame on to the security services. His opponents pledged a state commission of inquiry into the events of 7 October and spoke to voters’ concerns about the social toll of three years of multi-front wars, and anger about the draft exemption for ultra-orthodox young men when other Israelis are spending hundreds of days on reserve duty.
Graham-Harrison described the moment facing the country as existential. “This whole campaign has been based on Israeli voters urgently wanting change, because Netanyahu has led them to the brink of disaster. And now they have voted, this is an existential moment.” She added: “You have a parliamentary majority to bring about that change. Is your racism ultimately more important to you? What matters more: the desire to exclude Palestinians or the desire to get rid of Netanyahu?”
The briefing also carried the following headlines. UK politics: John Healey has backed away from cutting the cost of welfare this parliament, amid dire warnings his first budget could lead to brutal spending cuts because of a £28bn shortfall in public finances. Patrick Stewart: The acclaimed British stage and screen actor, renowned for both Shakespeare and sci-fi, died at his home in Los Angeles after “a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia”, his longtime spokesperson said. Environment: One of the most ambitious nature recovery projects ever undertaken in England can go ahead after campaigners announced they had raised £30m to buy an estate in Northumberland. Europe: Spain began three days of mourning on Thursday for at least 69 people who died in a high-speed rail collision, as hospitals continued to treat dozens of injured passengers and train drivers went on strike to urge more investment in railway safety. US news: The Trump administration has opened a criminal investigation in California over claims that thousands of noncitizens are registered to vote in the state, and has begun subpoenaing election officials.
More than 100 people were injured in the crash between two high-speed trains, which is the second fatal train collision in Spain in less than a year, the Guardian reported. The town of Urda has become the site of a major operation, as emergency services continue to search through the wreckage and relatives wait for news of their loved ones, and there is growing public anger over the incident. Lucy Hough spoke to the Guardian’s Madrid correspondent, Sam Jones.
The briefing’s further-reading picks included a Tim Burrows deep dive on how Romford might actually be the birthplace of jungle; the latest instalment of the US politics film series Anywhere but Washington, which captures the vibe in Texas, where all eyes are on a hotly contested midterm Senate race; Adrian Chiles on the cryptic sign outside his local pub; and Andy Beckett’s ode to the British Library, published as some of its silent, free-to-access reading rooms face a co-working-space fate. It also pointed to readers’ reactions to the budget.
In women’s Champions League football, Paris Saint-Germain’s Tara Elimbi Gilbert scored a late equaliser moments after Khadija Shaw scored a penalty as Manchester City drew their third league phase game in a row. England beat Sri Lanka in the One Day International by 55 runs but did not progress to the final on Sunday. Everton beat Newcastle 3-1 with goals by James Garner, Hayden Hackney and Thierno Barry to set up a Carabao Cup quarter-final with Fleetwood Town.
The critics’ roundup covered Wicker (in cinemas now, ★★★☆☆), in which Olivia Colman stars as a depressed and bullied fisher in medieval England and Peter Dinklage’s basketmaker delivers the answer to her dreams — an Alexander Skarsgård made of wicker, reviewed by Peter Bradshaw; Nocturne (Apple TV, ★★★★☆), in which Stephen Graham plays a sadistic murderer still pulling the strings from behind bars, with his high-pitched giggles and fatal whispers a perfectly terrifying show for Halloween, reviewed by Lucy Mangan; Forever by The Big Moon (★★★★☆), written after front person Juliette Jackson lost half her hearing, when she pivoted from sad songs to writing herself a happy ending, with joyfully convincing results, reviewed by Dave Simpson; and Hanif Kureishi’s Are You With Me Now?, in which the rebel writer’s musings on everything from sex chatbots to film stars, after his catastrophic accident, have become gloriously unleashed, reviewed by Melissa Denes.
The Guardian’s front page leads with “Netanyahu accused of smearing Arab voters to hold on to power”. Across the rest of the UK press, The Times leads with “Defence to benefit from off-the-book spending”, the Telegraph writes “Prepare for decade of pain, warn IFS”, and the i Paper leads on “No welfare cuts before election – as Britons face ‘worst decade’ for pay growth”, while the Mail has “Humiliation for Healey”. The FT says “Alphabet shares battered as cash burn deepens investor fears over AI returns”, Metro writes “Manosphere ‘as bad as smoking’”, and the Sun splashes “Fright of the round table”.
The briefing’s Upside section reported on the move away from diesel-powered ferries to electric vessels, noting that the transition has not been an easy task: batteries are heavy, which means more power is needed to propel electric boats forward through significant resistance. More companies are finding solutions, the briefing said, and creating workable vessels that reduce emissions. Vessev’s electric ferries rely on underwater wings called hydrofoils that lift the boat above the water, dramatically reducing drag by up to 66% and making the boats more energy-efficient. Swedish company Candela is designing boats which, the company claims, can reduce energy use by 80% compared with conventional vessels of a similar type. “I think in a more sustainable future we’re likely to see more and more vessels like this around the world,” Eric Laakmann, the chief executive and co-founder of Vessev, said.