The chair of Israel’s Central Elections Committee, Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, presented the official election results to President Isaac Herzog on 4 November. He said that casting doubt on the results is a real danger to democracy. At the ceremony Herzog condemned what he called coarse and racist rhetoric aimed at the Arab community. The Joint List says Arab-led parties won a record 19 Knesset seats.
Separately, Hebrew media reported that former Joint List leader Ayman Odeh is the senior Arab lawmaker suspected of receiving hundreds of thousands of shekels in cash from a foreign source, as part of an alleged foreign election-interference probe. Odeh called the investigation political persecution and has not directly addressed the specific allegations. The Joint List accused Shin Bet chief David Zini of acting as a political arm of Prime Minister Netanyahu. The Shin Bet denied it had sought to question four Arab politicians, saying it wanted to question people in their circle, and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara stressed that nobody may be questioned without sufficient evidence.
In a third development, a Beersheba court ordered the release of the last of three Bedouin men arrested on election day over alleged vote-buying, and the judge criticised the investigators. Police said they found tens of thousands of shekels in envelopes, while a suspect’s lawyer said the money found was about NIS 12,000 meant for charity.
Reporting note: the allegations against Odeh come from media reports, have not been confirmed by the authorities, and no charges have been filed. This summary relies on one outlet’s live coverage.
Photo: Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China / CC0 / Wikimedia Commons
