⚔️Democracy, With Exclusions

Far-right lawmaker Simcha Rothman wants Israeli law applied across the West Bank. Asked by The New York Times whether Palestinians there would get the vote, he said, "No."

Yoav Segalovitz, a former police commander and deputy public security minister, is running second on the list of Raam, an Islamist Arab party. He is the first Jewish candidate on its slate. He joined the list and its Knesset faction but not the party itself, and he keeps a free vote on religion and state, security, and LGBTQ rights.

"I am going to an Arab party. They are not coming to me," he told The Media Line. Netanyahu's billboards frame the choice more simply, as "The Right or Palestine!"

The opposition has its own uncomfortable arithmetic. Polls cited by the Times suggest neither camp will reach 61 seats alone, and Raam's projected five or six seats could give Netanyahu's opponents a majority.

Bennett has ruled out relying on Raam, whether as a coalition partner or as outside support for a minority government. Segalovitz is betting his candidacy can change that refusal.

#IsraelElection #Raam #WestBank

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450 Million Slips, One Verdict Pending

Israel has printed 450 million ballot slips for 7,331,981 eligible voters. That is about 60 slips per voter. Only one of them counts.

Voting for the 26th Knesset began at 7 a.m. at 12,018 polling stations. Thirty-six lists are competing for 120 seats.

Most stations close at 10 p.m., while stations in smaller communities, hospitals, prisons, and nursing homes close at 8 p.m.

Trains run free of charge on election day. Election monitors will carry some 15,000 cameras.

Tonight's exit polls will leave a large block of ballots unopened: an estimated 600,000–650,000 double-envelope ballots from soldiers and other voters casting ballots outside their assigned stations.

Officials must first check for duplicate voting, then separate the outer envelopes, which identify the voter, from the sealed ballots.

Those ballots equal roughly 15 Knesset seats. Election-night celebrations will begin before they are counted.

#IsraelElection #Knesset #Election2026

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God, Please Form a Coalition

Israel's election eve came with two requests: stop fighting each other and defeat the enemy. The first appeared in a newspaper column. The second went into the Western Wall.

Writing in The Jerusalem Post, Zvika Klein recalled Rabbi Moshe Yekutiel Alpert's diary from Israel's first parliamentary election in 1949. Alpert rose at 5:35 a.m., reached his polling station at 5:50, and became its first voter once the chairman arrived at 6:02.

Seventy-seven years later, Klein's appeal to today's politicians was less ceremonial: form a government, and indulge the mutual hatred on your own time.

Netanyahu visited the Western Wall on Monday evening, hours before the polls opened. His handwritten note asked for protection for soldiers, victory over enemies, and success for the Jewish people.

His office published the note, complete with a hand-drawn Israeli flag. A prayer between ancient stones also made a perfectly serviceable campaign image.

Netanyahu submitted his requests to a higher authority. Coalition negotiations will still require human signatures.

#IsraelElection #Netanyahu #PoliticalReligion

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The majority that kept moving

Israel’s election-night television offered several governments. The count has yet to confirm any of them.

Kan’s opening exit poll gave Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc 53 seats, Netanyahu’s 50, and the Arab parties 17. Channel 14 gave Netanyahu 60, Eisenkot’s camp 43, and the Arab parties 17. Same electorate, a 10-seat gap for the incumbent’s bloc. A majority requires 61.

For both main blocs, the actual count landed between the two. At 51.8% counted, Netanyahu’s bloc stood at 55 seats, Eisenkot’s at 49, and the Arab parties at 16. Later Wednesday, with roughly 85% counted, projections put them at 53, 48, and 19. These remain provisional allocations, not a final result.

Turnout reached 77.7%, up 7.1 percentage points from 2022. Hundreds of thousands of double-envelope ballots, cast by soldiers, diplomats, and others voting away from their home polling stations, remain to be counted.

Television graphics tend to blur a simple distinction: leading your rival is not the same as holding a majority. Netanyahu’s camp is ahead. Eisenkot’s camp could reach 61 only with Arab partners.

Neither camp has a signed government hiding inside a colored bar. The price of a majority is still to be negotiated.

#IsraelElection #ExitPolls #CoalitionPolitics

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😚Three suspects, every ballot

Police found envelopes of cash. Right-wing politicians demanded that an entire party’s votes be set aside.

Three Negev residents were arrested on suspicion of planning to pay voters to back Ra’am. Searches turned up tens of thousands of shekels in envelopes, along with written notes and other material that police suspect is linked to attempted vote buying.

On Wednesday, Otzma Yehudit MK Yitzhak Kroizer, joined by Ministers Amichai Chikli and Amichai Eliyahu and MK Simcha Rothman, called on Central Elections Committee chairman Noam Sohlberg and Shin Bet chief David Zini to open an urgent investigation. They also demanded that every vote for Ra’am be disqualified pending clarification.

The letter goes on to make allegations involving fuel vouchers, gift cards, and an official of Aid 48, [short description]. Those claims need to be investigated, not treated as established fact. No decision to disqualify Ra’am’s votes wholesale has been announced.

Buying votes would corrupt the election. Disqualifying every Ra’am ballot before establishing who paid whom would distort the result more efficiently than any bribe: wholesale disenfranchisement, no envelopes required.

#IsraelElection #Raam #ElectionIntegrity

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An investigation, a verdict already

Likud called Israel’s election “stolen.” The Shin Bet says its investigation is unfinished, focused, and limited. The party has reached a conclusion the investigators have not.

Central Elections Committee chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg instructed Shin Bet chief David Zini to investigate suspected foreign financing and election bribery and to report findings within a week.

His letter named neither a foreign country nor a political party. Reports linking the suspicions to Qatar, Turkey, and Arab voter mobilization went beyond what the letter disclosed.

The agency already held relevant intelligence when Zini publicly declared the elections secure before the vote.

It now says the inquiry grew out of its own intelligence and warns against using it to discredit Arab citizens who voted lawfully.

Police reported no unusual pattern of irregularities. Central Elections Committee director Dean Livne rejected claims of systematic interference with the vote.

Counting and publication of the final results will proceed unaffected by the investigation[, the committee said].

The authorities must establish whether foreign money financed illegal activity and whether anyone bought votes. Higher Arab turnout answers neither question.

Sohlberg gave investigators a week. Likud needed only the announcement of an investigation to declare the election stolen.

#IsraelElection #ShinBet #ElectionIntegrity

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An arrest list before the findings

Israel’s national security minister wants Arab party leaders arrested. Its finance minister wants them interrogated today. The investigation has not established that their parties bought the election.

Itamar Ben-Gvir demanded that Arab party leaders be arrested wherever legal grounds exist. Bezalel Smotrich demanded that the Shin Bet question them immediately. Likud supplied the verdict, declaring, “They stole the elections in Israel!” It then demanded that no Zionist party use Arab parties’ votes to replace the Knesset speaker or form a government.

That demand would protect Netanyahu from a rival majority assembled with Arab support. Likud’s statement treats allegedly purchased votes as fact, though investigators have not confirmed the claim. Police rejected the broader stolen-election allegations.

Likud calls the affair “Ra’amgate.” Ra’am leader Mansour Abbas denies involvement and welcomes an investigation. No connection has been publicly established between the suspected foreign-funding case and the separate Negev vote-buying investigation. The branding got ahead of the evidence.

After meeting Shin Bet chief David Zini, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid said the material posed no challenge to the election results and no obstacle to swearing in the Knesset.

Investigators must determine whether crimes occurred. Likud has already identified which parliamentary votes it wants ruled unusable.

#IsraelElection #Likud #ShinBet

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Qatar denies buying the country

“If these claims were to be believed, Qatar would apparently own all of Israel.”

Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari delivered the line after listing accusations that Doha had bought off Netanyahu, the Israeli left, and now Arab voters. He categorically denied that Qatar had financed activities intended to influence the election.

The Shin Bet is investigating suspected foreign funding of Arab voter-mobilization groups. Israeli reports identify Qatar and Turkey as possible sources. Both governments deny interference. Central Elections Committee chairman Noam Sohlberg asked investigators to establish whether the suspicions, which he called “serious,” were supported by evidence.

The distinction matters. Funding turnout campaigns, illegally financing political activity, and buying individual votes are three different things. Likud’s claim that the election was stolen collapses them into a single accusation. Police and election officials say they have found no evidence of systematic irregularities.

Doha’s sarcasm also sweeps in a separate investigation into alleged Qatar-linked payments to Netanyahu’s associates to promote the emirate’s interests. That case neither proves election interference nor disappears because the latest accusations are unsubstantiated.

Likud wants suspicion to invalidate its opponents’ votes. Qatar wants the excesses of Likud’s accusation to discredit every question about Qatari influence. Both would prefer the argument settled before investigators finish tracing the money.

#Qatar #IsraelElection #ForeignInfluence

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