Israel's electoral integrity: No electoral fraud affected the election results

When the votes were counted and it was clear that the prime minister's coalition had lost its majority in the Knesset, Netanyahu's camp demanded that the election be annulled.

On Sunday evening, the chairman of the electoral authority, HD judge Noam Sohlberg, spoke to the public on television and explained that none of the few cases of suspected vote-buying affected the distribution of mandates.

At dawn on election day, the houses of several people were searched in the Negev desert, the most important stronghold of the Islamist party Ra'am. At least one envelope containing money was seized and seven people were arrested. Five of them have been released, one has been placed under house arrest and one remains in custody, businessman Ibrahim al-Gharibi.

Here, more and more people are now asking: If the police had reason to suspect vote buying, why didn't they wait a couple of hours until the polling stations opened, to test this thesis and perhaps catch perpetrators red-handed?

The whole matter has come into new light since it emerged that the police acted on a tip from Ido Norden, the head of Netanyahu's office. Were the seven arrested so that the Prime Minister could trumpet his allegations of electoral fraud and thus spur his own supporters to vote? A week before the election, TV12 reported just this: Netanyahu planned to fill election day with alarmist reports of Arab cheating to scare and spur hesitant Likud voters. Judging by Likud's results – 27 mandates against the forecasts' 20 – this succeeded.

The second case of suspected electoral fraud concerns a Knesset member from the other Arab party, the secular "Joint List", who, according to Netanyahu's spokesmen, received money from Qatar. The affair has caused disagreement within the Shabak security service. The experts consider the matter to be of no importance, while Shabak head David Zini wants to continue investigating.

One way out, vented by a close Netanyahu ally, would be to get Donald Trump to intervene now.

Both Arab parties have made it clear that they will help the four Jewish opposition parties take over the Knesset Speaker's post when the newly elected parliament is sworn in on November 10. When this happens, the Knesset majority plans to appoint a state inquiry into the Gaza war and its preludes – in particular, the lousy preparations on October 7, 2023 and the flow of money from Qatar to Hamas in Gaza.

The plan is also to appoint a new head of the parliamentary auditors to replace the Netanyahu family's lawyer, who was given the post recently but blocked by the Supreme Court. Netanyahu will do his utmost to prevent these actions. One way out, vented by a close Netanyahu ally, would be to get Donald Trump to intervene now and force a coalition government with Likud and Yashar, the main opposition party, before the Knesset majority has time to make fateful decisions on its own.