Explainer: Israel's Election—Allegations, Evidence? Coalition, and What Comes Next

The Result

Israel voted on Tuesday, October 27, and the outcome was not the one the Prime Minister's camp wanted—but better than he expected, except where it wasn’t. Let me explain.

• Turnout was historically high, reported at about 78 percent.

• With roughly 90 percent of the vote counted, Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc of right-wing and Haredi parties stands at 53 seats, eight short of the 61 needed to govern.

• The opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot has 48,

• And the Arab-led parties, Ra'am and the Joint List, are headed for a record 19.

• Between 430,000 and 480,000 ballots from soldiers, prisoners and diplomats were still being tallied at the last report, but nothing suggests they will close an eight-seat gap.

The Claims

Almost immediately, Netanyahu’s Likud began telling the public the election was stolen. The Central Elections Committee chair, Supreme Court Deputy President Noam Sohlberg, then asked the Shin Bet (Israel’s FBI) to examine whether the vote was swayed by "funds from foreign entities acting against the Israeli interest," according to the Times of Israel. He did not name the entities, and he said he could not attest to the substance of the suspicions. Hebrew media reports connect the matter to Qatari money allegedly used to encourage Arab turnout. Qatar calls the charge "ridiculous and dangerous."

Likud says it is submitting hundreds of testimonies, including claims of cash handed out with Ra'am ballot slips, double voting, and mismatches between voter counts and ballot envelopes. Prime Minister Netanyahu said no Zionist party could now partner with the Arab parties—this is an effort to shame the “Change Bloc” led by Eisenkot into not partnering with the Arab parties. Finance Minister Smotrich called for Arab party leaders to be questioned by the Shin Bet, and Minister Ben Gvir called for arrests. All this is without any evidence that has been presented to the public. In other words, at this point, it’s politics.

What the Officials Say

The people responsible for running the election have been notably more restrained. Dean Livne, the Committee's acting director general, wrote to a committee member that there is "no basis for allegations of systematic violations of election integrity." A police source described very few irregular incidents on election day, something common, and no investigative or intelligence-based substantiation for the idea that the vote was stolen. The Shin Bet has said its probe is limited in scope, and the article does not say how many of Likud's testimonies have been submitted or verified.

To be fair, not everything has been dismissed. Police arrested three Ra'am operatives on election day for alleged bribery, and four more on Thursday. The party denies any involvement, and its chairman, Mansour Abbas, welcomed the Shin Bet inquiry, saying, "There will be nothing, because there is nothing." Vote-buying is a crime in Israel, and if anyone did it, they should be prosecuted. That is how a healthy democracy handles lawbreaking. Seven arrests in a country of millions of voters is a matter for the courts. It is not, on its face, evidence of a stolen election.

Could the Results Change?

Almost certainly not. Under Israeli law, a petition must be filed within 14 days of the final results, and it is heard by the Jerusalem District Court only if the alleged violation could materially change the outcome. The court has never annulled an entire election. The only precedent for re-running any voting is from 1988, when three polling stations voted again and the result stayed the same. Petitions also do not delay the swearing-in of the new Knesset—which will happen on November 10. The real effect of these allegations is not on the seat count but on the coalition talks that follow.

My Read

I wanna be measured with my words, because the investigation is still open and I could be wrong. But I am skeptical. Here is why: These allegations surfaced after a historic turnout, including unprecedented Arab turnout, left the Prime Minister without his majority. We have seen this pattern elsewhere in the world: the side that wins does not question the count, and the side that loses suddenly discovers fraud. I do not say that to excuse any actual crime. I say it because a claim of stolen elections should be held to a high standard of evidence, and so far the people who administer the vote, the police and the Shin Bet have not offered that evidence.

There is one fair complication. Sohlberg is a respected jurist, not a politician, and Hebrew media report that the Shin Bet had some intelligence before voting day. That is a reason to let the probe finish. It is not yet a reason to say the election was stolen. Those are very different statements, and the second is being made far louder than the first.

Let me also say that the idea that a large number of people were paid money to vote is not easy to hide. I don’t have a high level of trust in Qatar, but I do understand that if they were paying thousands of people to vote, it would come out. Voter fraud happens all the time; large-scale voter fraud in a democracy is almost impossible to hide.

Understand that nearly one million Israelis voted for the Arab parties. And I know for a fact that some Jewish voters voted for the Arab parties–each one having at least one Jewish member. In order to significantly change the number of seats those parties would have received, it would mean that over 100,000 people were involved. It’s just not plausible. Or, they’re saying that Qatar and maybe Turkey funded get-out-the-vote campaigns in the Arab communities. If it happened, I have no doubt that it will be discovered.

What It Could Mean

The Times of Israel's Ben Sales offers a sobering analysis. He notes that Netanyahu is not acting like a victor, and that every post on X since Wednesday morning, apart from thanking foreign leaders, has attacked the Arab parties. Sales suggests two possible explanations. The first is groundwork for a repeat election: delegitimize Arab turnout, energize the base, and perhaps climb to 57 or 58 seats. The second is that Netanyahu may have lost a stable government for good, since his bloc is fracturing over whether Haredi men should be drafted.

At 77, he may be a prime minister who stays in office but cannot pass major legislation. One of his partners, United Torah Judaism, has already signaled to the opposition that they might be willing to defect. That’s promising for the opposition, but also tricky since the opposition’s platform calls for the ultra-Orthodox to enlist in the army—something they are against.

President Herzog struck what I think is the right balance. He said the allegations must be thoroughly investigated but warned against tarnishing the entire Arab community. Arab citizens of Israel voted in record numbers. Some of those votes may have been tainted by bribery, and the law should address that, but a vote cast openly by a citizen is not a conspiracy.

Why the huge turnout from the Arabs?

Arab participation in elections is typically low. Israel is a Jewish nation—the only Jewish nation among over 50 Muslim-majority nations. So there can be a lot of apathy in the Arab communities. But in the aftermath of October 7, and what many of them would consider overreach by Israel and the rise in settler violence that the current government does not seem to care about at the level they should, it is reasonable to understand why they came to the polls.

What will be interesting is this: if it turns out that the allegations are false, then Gadi Eisonkot will have the opportunity to build the first coalition with significant Arab partners. For some reason, when God brought the Jewish people back to Israel, he brought them back to a land populated with other humans. Part of our test as Israelis who have come back to the promised land is to live with these people. To be clear, as a historian, I can tell you that it has not been easy. In 1948, Prime Minister Ben Gurion pleaded with the Arab inhabitants to help us build a nation together, offering them citizenship. That outreach is in our Declaration of Independence. But this is the first time that they have participated in a national election at this level. Let’s just say that the next few weeks or months are going to be very interesting for the nation of Israel.

How to Pray

• Let us pray for the integrity of the investigation, that truth would come out and that no one would be condemned without evidence.

• Let us pray for wisdom for President Herzog and the Knesset as they work toward a government.

• And let us pray for a nation that is deeply divided, that anger would not harden into contempt for fellow citizens.

Whatever coalition emerges, our hope is not in a bloc of seats but in the God of Israel.

Sources: Times of Israel — "What are the election fraud allegations roiling Israel, could they change the results?"; "Arab parties pan racist campaign as PM allies claim foreign influence plot stole election"; "Netanyahu isn't acting like he won the election, here's what that could mean"; "Election committee director rejects claims of widespread fraud as baseless."