Israel’s election commission head said Sunday that the Israel election results from the October 27 vote would stand even if alleged Qatari funding of the Arab-led Ra’am party is confirmed. The Shin Bet security agency is still examining the claims.
Central Elections Committee head Noam Sohlberg said in a video on Sunday that even if the suspicions are substantiated, this would not undermine the integrity of the electoral process or the election results as a whole, according to Al Jazeera. He said that so far "suspicions remain suspicions" and that the review would be conducted with "utmost seriousness," according to the Straits Times.
The Shin Bet launched the inquiry last week at the elections chief’s request to determine whether Ra’am received money from Qatar, the Straits Times reported.
Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas denied the foreign funding allegations, welcomed the investigation and said the party has "no connection whatsoever to the affair," according to The Hindu. Qatar called the accusations "ridiculous and dangerous," The Hindu reported.
Likud, the party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said that without providing evidence, Arab-led parties "stole" the vote and accepted Qatari funding, according to Al Jazeera. Likud also said a "dark cloud hangs over the election results" until the investigation concludes.
No evidence has been presented to support the vote-theft claim, and the sources do not include any.
The results show no bloc with a majority. Netanyahu’s bloc won 53 seats and opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc won 48, both short of the 61 needed in the 120-seat parliament to form a government, Al Jazeera reported. The three Arab-led parties, including Ra’am, won a record 19 seats.
Netanyahu’s claims of malfeasance by Arab parties began on election day, following a campaign in which he cast them as a threat. Arab Israelis, about 20% of the population, turned out in unprecedented numbers. Eisenkot has previously ruled out a coalition with Arab parties but is reportedly weighing their support, which would give a majority of 67 in parliament.
Separately, vote-buying arrests tied to Ra’am were made on election day. Police said three people were arrested with envelopes of cash, and Netanyahu publicised the arrests in a video urging supporters to vote Likud.
The sources differ on what happened to the three political activists arrested before the polls opened. Al Jazeera reports that police released two of the three, with one released on unspecified conditions and another ordered to remain under house arrest. The Straits Times and The Hindu, citing AFP and The Times of Israel, report that a court released one suspect, extended police custody of another and placed a third under house arrest.
The results are due to be officially certified this week, after which President Isaac Herzog must nominate a candidate to form a government, according to Al Jazeera. Until then, the Shin Bet inquiry continues and no findings have been published.
Several points remain unresolved. The Qatari funding inquiry has not concluded, Likud’s vote-theft claims are unsupported by evidence in the sources, the Ra’am arrest details lack an independent second source, and the results had not been officially certified at the time of reporting. The sources also do not include a direct response from Netanyahu or Likud to Sohlberg’s statement beyond Likud’s written comment.
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This article was written with AI assistance from the published reporting listed above. It is part of the World Brief daily news podcast.