TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israeli police on Sunday released two of three suspects in a case of alleged voter bribery, weakening efforts by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party to discredit last week’s parliamentary elections.
Meanwhile, the head of Israel’s elections committee, Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, said even if separate claims of foreign interference raised last week are substantiated, they would not undermine the elections.
Likud has said without giving evidence that Arab-led parties “stole” the elections in which Netanyahu's bloc lost its majority of seats in parliament. By casting doubt on the vote, Netanyahu appears to be trying to block any potential alliance in the opposition with the Arab parties that could force him from office.
Likud has cited a handful of cases, including the arrests of three political activists before polls opened on Oct. 27 with envelopes of cash, allegedly to bribe voters. Two days later, police arrested four more suspects. Police said the suspects were connected to the Islamist party Ra'am, which denied that it was involved.
A judge on Sunday questioned or rejected police requests for further restrictions on the three suspects. Police later said one was released subject to unspecified “conditions” and another was ordered to remain on house arrest for eight days. The detention of the third suspect was extended for two days.
Mansour Abbas, leader of the Ra’am party, which captured eight seats in the Knesset, denounced the arrests as undemocratic and “an attempt to influence the election results.”
Netanyahu saw his parliamentary bloc of allies drop to 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset, down from a peak of 68 in the outgoing parliament.
A bloc of parties led by his main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, won 48 seats, while Arab-led parties, including Ra’am, won the remaining 19 seats. Together, those two blocs opposing Netanyahu have enough seats to form a new government, though it remains unclear whether they will agree to do so.
The results are due to be officially certified on Wednesday, and President Isaac Herzog will meet with each of the parties elected to parliament after that to see who they prefer to be the next prime minister.
Following those consultations, he will choose the candidate — most likely Netanyahu or Eisenkot — who he believes has the best chance of forming a coalition government.
That would set the stage for weeks of negotiations. If they are unsuccessful, Herzog could ask another candidate to try. Otherwise, the country would be plunged into a new election early next year.
Netanyahu has suggested that it would be treasonous for Eisenkot to join with Arab parties.
Likud also has alleged foreign interference in the vote. The Shin Bet security service, at the request of Israel’s election commission, has opened an investigation.
But the head of the elections committee, sitting with the Shin Bet chief and the attorney general in a video released Sunday, said that "our position is that even if the suspicions are substantiated, this would not undermine the integrity of the electoral process or the election results as a whole.”
Likud quickly issued a statement asking how the committee chief can acknowledge there are serious allegations while saying there will be no effect on the final outcome.
Eisenkot on Sunday accused Netanyahu of launching an “orchestrated and organized campaign to delegitimize the election results” by insinuating that Qatar had supported opposition parties to unseat Netanyahu. Eisenkot said that Shin Bet briefed him on the investigation into foreign interference.
Qatar has denied funding any activities meant to influence the election's outcome. Many Israelis see the Gulf Arab country as a patron of Hamas, and allegations of its influence have roiled Israeli politics in other cases, including one in which close aides of Netanyahu allegedly accepted money from Qatar while working for the prime minister’s office.
Netanyahu’s opponents have accused him of using scare tactics and trying to create a narrative to further discriminate against Arab-led parties and Israel’s Arab citizens, who make up 20% of the population.
Yousef Jabareen, leader of the Joint List of Arab parties, which won 11 seats, noted last week that more than half the content published by Likud and Netanyahu on election day was directed against Arab voters as a tactic to encourage right-wing Israelis to vote.
“In moments of crisis, he reverts to his familiar tactic: racist incitement and the delegitimization of the Arab public,” he said.
