Israel President Accepts Election Results, Ending Netanyahu Fraud Push

Israeli President Isaac Herzog declared the results of the Oct. 27 parliamentary election legally binding on Wednesday. By accepting the certified counts, Herzog moved to begin formal consultations with party leaders regarding the formation of a new government. This decision directly challenges Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has argued that the vote was compromised.

Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist bloc lost its majority in the Knesset during the Oct. 27 vote. Arab-led parties secured historic gains in the same election. Netanyahu and his supporters had repeatedly claimed that Arab-led parties stole the election, potentially with foreign assistance. These claims remained unsubstantiated prior to the president's ruling.

Israel’s election commission issued a statement earlier on Wednesday following a thorough investigation of all fraud claims. The commission found no evidence of irregularities that compromised the election's integrity or affected its results. Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, who heads the committee, presented the certified results to Herzog during a ceremony on Wednesday. Sohlberg stated that the results are legally binding and warned that public trust in the electoral process is easy to destroy but very difficult to repair.

A separate investigation by the Shin Bet intelligence service into allegations of foreign interference remains ongoing. The Shin Bet is led by David Zini, an appointee and loyalist of Netanyahu. During a private meeting on Wednesday, Sohlberg read an intelligence assessment from the Shin Bet. The agency believed there was a widespread phenomenon involving substantial funds from foreign states, including countries hostile to Israel. The Shin Bet provided no evidence to support this assertion. Sohlberg noted that these remain merely suspicions and that even if substantiated, their potential impact is limited.

The Shin Bet requested approval from the attorney general on Tuesday to interrogate several elected officials. The request included Mansour Abbas, the leader of the Ra’am party, and other senior Arab lawmakers. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara sharply rejected the request. She stated that 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 as a campaign of incitement by Netanyahu and his allies designed to delegitimize the Arab vote.

Far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir rejected the committee’s findings that the elections were valid. He called on the Shin Bet to arrest the leaders of the Arab political parties. Ben-Gvir suggested they be interrogated in basement cells until suspicions are fully clarified. Herzog said Wednesday that the Shin Bet investigation should proceed but cautioned that Arab Israeli voters must not be smeared. He condemned the coarseness and racist expressions heard recently.

Neither Netanyahu’s bloc nor the bloc of his chief rival, Gadi Eisenkot, secured a parliamentary majority in the Oct. 27 vote. This outcome raises the possibility of an alliance between the two rivals or an alliance between Eisenkot and some of the Arab-led parties. Herzog is expected to hold a series of sit-downs with political parties over the next several days. He will then choose the candidate he believes is most likely to form a coalition government, likely either Netanyahu or Eisenkot.

If neither man can put together a government, Israel will hold a new election early next year. The process sets the stage for weeks of negotiations to determine the next leadership. Herzog’s acceptance of the results marks the end of the formal certification phase and the start of the political negotiation phase.