President Isaac Herzog began a series of meetings with party leaders on Wednesday night (Tel Aviv time) to determine whom to designate to form a government.
“The elections are over. Now is the time to face reality,” Herzog said.
The October 27 vote left neither Netanyahu’s bloc nor the bloc of allies of opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot with a parliamentary majority, raising the possibility of an alliance between the rivals or between Eisenkot and some Arab-led parties.
Netanyahu and his supporters have repeatedly alleged, without providing evidence, that Arab-led parties “stole” the election.
Israel’s elections commission said on Wednesday that after a thorough investigation of all parties’ fraud claims, it had found “no evidence of irregularities that compromised the integrity of the election or affected its results”. The head of the committee, Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, said in a ceremony presenting the certified results to Herzog that the results were legally binding. Public trust in the electoral process was “easy to destroy, yet very difficult to repair”, he warned.
A separate investigation by the Shin Bet intelligence service into foreign interference is ongoing. In a private committee meeting, Shin Bet chief David Zini, a Netanyahu appointee, read out an assessment alleging a “widespread phenomenon” of foreign funds entering Israel from hostile states but provided no supporting evidence.
The Shin Bet sought approval from Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara on Tuesday to interrogate several elected officials, including Ra’am party leader Mansour Abbas, Israeli media reported. In a statement rejecting the request, Baharav-Miara said it was “not permissible to interrogate citizens or elected officials without evidence to justify such action”. The Joint List of Arab parties called the request a “campaign of incitement” by Netanyahu and his allies designed to delegitimise the Arab vote.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right ally of Netanyahu, called for the Shin Bet to “arrest all the leaders of the Arab political parties” and interrogate them in “basement interrogation cells”.
Herzog said the Shin Bet investigation should proceed, but cautioned that Arab Israeli voters “must not be smeared”. “I condemn the coarseness and racist expressions that we have heard recently,” he said.
In the consultations, three factions aligned with Netanyahu recommended he be tasked with forming a government. A fourth faction recommended Eisenkot. Eight more parties are scheduled to meet Herzog on Thursday. If neither leader can assemble a coalition, the country would face a new election early next year.