Netanyahu's son driving the election fraud campaign

The Israeli security service Shin Bet is to set up an investigation into election fraud.

"Serious suspicions of undue influence with foreign funding have been presented to me," writes Noam Sohlberg, chairman of the election committee and a resident of the occupied West Bank, in a statement.

Even before the election was decided, the prime minister's son, Yair Netanyahu, and other government supporters began to portray the high voter turnout among the country's Arab population as something suspicious. Among other things, Yair Netanyahu has shared pictures of queues to polling stations and figures on the increasing turnout in areas with a large Arab population.

On Wednesday afternoon, he wrote in a post that was shared on several social platforms:

"Almost 100 percent voter turnout in some Arab communities. Sure. The Islamists stole the election."

From Wednesday afternoon until noon on Thursday, Yair Netanyahu has written and republished over 50 posts with various accusations of election fraud on X. A similar campaign has also been run on Facebook and Telegram.

The claims are about everything from the Arab states having pumped money into the Arab parties in Israel to the fact that voters were paid or that Muslim women wearing veils voted several times.

Voter turnout has risen by many percentage points in several areas with large Arab populations, and Arab parties have received record support in the election, the first since the October 7 attacks and Israel's war in Gaza.

The Israeli fact-checking organization Fake Reporter describes Yair Netanyahu as one of the most pushy actors on social media.

Fake Reporter has long pointed to the risk of the governing parties questioning the legitimacy of the election on loose grounds. A similar campaign was launched by Likud also during the 2022 elections, the organization explains in a clip published two months ago.