JERUSALEM (AP) โ Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday accepted the certified results of last week's parliamentary elections as legally binding and began consultations with party representatives on forming a new government.
The move dealt a blow to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's efforts to discredit the vote, in which he and his allies lost their majority in parliament, known as the Knesset, while Arab-led parties made historic gains.
"The elections are over. Now is the time to face reality," Herzog said.
Netanyahu and his supporters have repeatedly made unsubstantiated claims that Arab-led parties had "stolen" the election, possibly with foreign assistance.
Herzog began consultations with party leaders on Wednesday night to determine whom to designate to form a government โ a process that could bring Netanyahu's opponents to power.
Israel's elections commission said earlier on Wednesday that after a thorough investigation of all parties' claims of fraud, it had found "no evidence of irregularities that compromised the integrity of the election or affected its results." Netanyahu's Likud party did not respond to a request for comment.
A separate investigation by the Shin Bet intelligence service, which is headed by David Zini, a Netanyahu appointee and loyalist, into allegations of foreign interference in the election is still ongoing.
In a private meeting Wednesday of the elections committee's members, its head, Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, read out an intelligence assessment from the Shin Bet saying the agency believed there had been a "widespread phenomenon involving the influx of substantial funds into Israel from foreign states," including from countries hostile toward Israel.
The Shin Bet provided no evidence to explain its assertion. The Associated Press obtained a transcript of the assessment from a person who attended the meeting and requested anonymity to discuss a closed-door meeting.
The committee has previously said that while claims about foreign actors seeking to influence the election are serious and under investigation, it does not believe that any such interference affected the results โ even if it had happened.
Sohlberg reiterated that stance on Wednesday. "At this stage, these are merely suspicions, and even if they are substantiated, the scope of their potential impact is limited," he said during a ceremony to present the certified election results to Herzog.
Sohlberg added that it was dangerous to cast doubt on the results and said they are legally binding.
Public trust in the electoral process is "easy to destroy, yet very difficult to repair," he warned.
In the Oct. 27 vote, neither Netanyahu's bloc nor the bloc of allies of his chief rival, opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot, secured a parliamentary majority needed to form a new government, raising the possibility of an alliance between the two rivals or an alliance between Eisenkot and some of the Arab-led parties.
Herzog began a series of sit-downs with political parties on Wednesday. Three factions โ all aligned with Netanyahu's religious-nationalist base โ recommended Netanyahu be given a chance to form a coalition government, while a fourth โ led by a former Netanyahu ally turned rival โ recommended Eisenkot. Eight more parties, including the two Arab-led factions, are scheduled to meet Herzog on Thursday, with Eisenkot's Yashar and Netanyahu's Likud speaking last.
After the consultations, Herzog will choose the candidate โ most likely Netanyahu or Eisenkot โ who he believes is most likely to be able to form a coalition government. He has several days to announce his decision, which will then set the stage for weeks of negotiations.
If neither man can put together a government, the country would hold a new election early next year.
The Shin Bet sought approval from Israel's attorney general Tuesday to interrogate several elected officials as part of its separate investigation, including Ra'am party leader Mansour Abbas and other senior Arab lawmakers, Israeli media reported.
In a statement rejecting the request, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara said, "It is not permissible to interrogate citizens or elected officials without evidence to justify such action."
The Joint List of Arab parties condemned the request, calling it a "campaign of incitement" by Netanyahu and his allies designed to delegitimize the Arab vote.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right ally of Netanyahu, called on the Shin Bet, over which he has no authority, to "arrest all the leaders of the Arab political parties" and interrogate them in "basement interrogation cells until these suspicions are fully clarified."
Herzog said Wednesday that the Shin Bet's investigation into possible foreign interference should proceed, but cautioned that Arab Israeli voters "must not be smeared."
"I condemn the coarseness and racist expressions that we have heard recently," Herzog said.
