(CNN) - As the Republican losses in the US midterm elections became clear, President Donald Trump stated that he would accept the results. But the same cannot be said about Benjamin Netanyahu, the man who enjoyed Trump's support in Israel.
A week after the Israeli elections that took place on October 27, Benjamin Netanyahu - who lost his majority bloc - is still contesting the officially approved results. Netanyahu and his Likud party claim - without providing evidence - that the votes were “stolen” by Arab parties in Israel and external parties.
The post-election dispute worsened this week, after David Zinni, the head of the Shin Bet internal security service and loyal to Netanyahu, sought to conduct an investigation into Arab party leaders. However, the Attorney General, who has long been a target of the Israeli right, refused to allow such an investigation in the absence of evidence to support it.
Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu's main rival, said Tuesday: "The Likud Party and Netanyahu are trying to launch a comprehensive campaign of destruction against democracy and the rule of law."
A day later, Netanyahu reiterated his allegations of fraud. He said in a video statement: “There are serious suspicions about the involvement of foreign countries - which used huge sums of money - in an attempt to tamper with the election results in the State of Israel.”
Official results show Netanyahu's bloc declining sharply from 68 seats - a number that gave him strong dominance - to 53 out of 120 seats in the Knesset. In contrast, the opposition, led by Eisenkot, has 67 seats. About a third of it comes from the two Arab parties - the Joint List and the United Arab List (Ra'am) - after a historic participation rate that enabled them to win 19 seats.
The support of the Arab parties is a decisive factor in any effort to replace Netanyahu. For this reason, undermining its legitimacy has become the focus of Netanyahu's post-election strategy.
Since the results came out, Netanyahu and his right-wing allies have been making allegations that the elections were “stolen” by Arab parties, through bribery, foreign financing and fraud.
One day after the vote, the Likud Party submitted hundreds of certificates to the Central Elections Commission, demanding investigations and arrests. Over the weekend, Netanyahu posted a video on social media showing a right-wing activist alleging widespread fraud and calling for the elections to be "simply cancelled."
For its part, the committee rejected allegations of widespread fraud and considered them baseless, stressing that there was no evidence to support allegations of systematic manipulation in the electoral process.
However, the committee asked the Shin Bet last week to examine “serious suspicions” about foreign financing aimed at influencing the election campaign. In a letter leaked to the Israeli media, the head of the committee, Judge Noam Solberg, warned that he could not verify the seriousness of the information received. However, the Likud Party, led by Netanyahu, treated this message as confirmation of its broader story, which claims fraud.
Solberg appeared alongside the head of the Shin Bet security service and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Meara on Sunday to deliver an unusual joint statement in which they assured the public that the elections were conducted properly. They stated that even if suspicions regarding the presence of foreign funding are proven, this will not change the results or undermine the integrity of the electoral process.
However, Zinni's subsequent actions exacerbated the controversy. Fazzini, a retired IDF major general who describes himself as a “proud Messianic,” was appointed by Netanyahu last year from outside the ranks of the Shin Bet security service. It is reported that he is currently seeking to interrogate four prominent Arab political figures, including a number of party leaders.
The General Security Agency (Shin Bet) reported to the committee on Wednesday that its intelligence information appears to indicate the existence of a “widespread phenomenon” represented by the flow of large sums of money into Israel from external sources, “on a scale that includes thousands of people, and perhaps more than that,” according to a source familiar with the matter. The agency explained that there is a need to conduct further investigations before the extent of this phenomenon can be determined “with a high degree of certainty.” However, the Shin Bet did not provide any public evidence in this regard.
In a rare statement issued Tuesday, the Attorney General's Office said that Zinni prevented the Shin Bet Security Service from providing any relevant evidence to his office or to the police. The statement said: “In a state where the rule of law prevails, citizens or elected officials cannot be subjected to investigation without evidence justifying it. Anyone who requires investigation will be subject to it, but no person will be investigated without evidence to support that.”
In contrast, the Likud Party accused Baharav-Meara of obstructing the investigation. Itamar Ben Gvir, an ally of Netanyahu from the far right, called on Zinni to arrest Arab leaders and investigate them, even without obtaining the approval of the Attorney General. This clash comes in the context of an ongoing conflict. The Netanyahu government - whose term later ended - had voted in August 2025 to dismiss Baharav-Meara, but the Supreme Court blocked this step. Since then, the government has repeatedly defied and violated its directives.
The Arab parties rejected these allegations, accusing Zinni of participating in the Likud Party's campaign aimed at delegitimizing the Arab public, its votes, and its standard political representation.
A statement issued by the Joint List said: “Netanyahu clings to power and is trying to deny the legitimacy of the Arab public who voted massively and decided to reject his government. As for Zinni, who was appointed by Netanyahu, he acts as a political arm in his service.” For his part, Mansour Abbas, head of the United Arab List “Raam,” described this step as “an unacceptable attempt to distort the image of the Arab public.”
Opposition leaders - who are currently developing plans to exploit their majority in the Knesset in order to replace the Speaker of the Assembly - accuse both Netanyahu and Zinni of dragging Israel into a constitutional crisis and undermining confidence in the electoral process.
Eisenkot described this moment as a test of Israel's future "as a liberal democratic state" and urged security and law enforcement officials to remember that they are "servants of the state, not of the king."
Former Prime Minister Yair Lapid described the matter as "an attempt to crush democracy and steal elections, with the help of regime loyalists who were implanted within the security system." As for Yair Golan, head of the left-wing Democrats party, he stated that Zinni turned the Shin Bet into “a political tool in the service of Netanyahu’s campaign aimed at undermining the election results.”
The political test will come in the coming weeks. If Netanyahu succeeds in convincing right-wing parties - as well as potential individuals who might defect from the ranks of the opposition - that relying on Arab parties is illegitimate, he may succeed in blocking the only path to his ouster. But his tactics may also lead the divided opposition to come together, hastening the outcome he seeks to prevent.
