Israel: without a majority, Netanyahu blames the Arab vote, Europe must defend the integrity of the election

Two days after the vote of 27 October, Israel's Central Elections Committee published the final results of the count on Thursday. They confirm a deadlock: neither of the two main camps reaches the 61 seats needed to govern, and the Arab parties, with an unprecedented score, find themselves at the centre of the equation.

The facts

According to the Committee's figures reported by the Times of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud remains the largest force in the Knesset with 27 seats. With its ultra-Orthodox and far-right allies (United Torah Judaism and Otzma Yehudit, 7 seats each, Shas and Religious Zionism, 6 each), the outgoing bloc totals 53 seats. Opposite, the opposition gathers 48 seats: Yashar, the party of former chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot, wins 21, Naftali Bennett's B'Yachad 12, Yair Golan's Democrats 8 and Avigdor Liberman's Yisrael Beytenu 7.

The striking feature of the election lies elsewhere. According to i24NEWS, the Joint List wins 11 seats and Ra'am, Mansour Abbas's party, 8, making 19 seats in total, compared with 10 in the outgoing assembly. The channel reports record turnout of around 80% among the Arab population, which makes up nearly a fifth of Israelis. Overall turnout reached 77.9%, according to the Times of Israel.

The timetable is now set: the official results are due to be handed to President Isaac Herzog on 4 November, and the new Knesset will be sworn in on 10 November.

A campaign that continues on the terrain of fraud

The outgoing camp responded by questioning the regularity of the vote. As ABC News reports, Benjamin Netanyahu claimed, without providing evidence, that the election had been "stolen by the Arab parties". Likud spoke, according to AFP as cited by RTBF, of an "attack on democracy", and far-right minister Itamar Ben Gvir called for the arrest of Arab leaders suspected of having received funds from Qatar.

These suspicions are under investigation. The head of the Elections Committee referred the matter to the Shin Bet, the domestic security service, which states, according to i24NEWS, that its inquiries do not target a community as a whole. But the electoral administration has already drawn a clear line. The Committee's acting director general stated, according to ABC News citing public radio Kan, that there was "no basis" for the allegations of election theft, and the Committee indicated that the investigation would not affect the final results. Mansour Abbas, for his part, denies any link to foreign funding and promises to cooperate with investigators.

The positions at stake

Supporters of the outgoing government put forward an argument that deserves to be heard: foreign interference in an election would be a serious violation of a country's sovereignty, and it is legitimate for it to be examined. According to the Jerusalem Post, all the opposition leaders have in fact called for a full investigation into possible Qatari influence, and Gadi Eisenkot mainly accuses Likud of using these suspicions to discredit the result and delay the installation of the Knesset.

President Herzog has chosen a balanced path. According to RTBF, he asked that the whole Arab community not be stigmatised, while wishing for the suspicions to be investigated. He also called on leaders to negotiate with an open mind to avoid a new election.

Then there is the arithmetic. The opposition and the Arab parties total 67 seats, but, as i24NEWS points out, that total does not make a coalition. Avigdor Liberman refuses to sit with the Arab parties as well as with Benjamin Netanyahu, and only envisages an alliance of Zionist parties, Likud included, but without its leader. Gadi Eisenkot rules out serving under the current Prime Minister, even in a rotation government. Only Yair Golan openly argues, according to the Jerusalem Post, for a government formed with the Arab parties. The Joint List said it was ready, according to ABC News, for "political cooperation" to remove the outgoing government.

Analysis: respect for the vote is not negotiable

In a democracy, no voter is worth less than another. That Israel's Arab citizens turned out in large numbers is good news for Israeli democracy, not a threat. An investigation into possible foreign funding is necessary; turning an individual suspicion into a collective accusation against a fifth of the population would, however, be a blow to national cohesion.

For France and Europe, the stakes go beyond Israeli domestic politics. Paris recognised the State of Palestine at the UN rostrum in September 2025, as Le Temps reported at the time, in the name of a two-state solution. Any prospect of peace requires a stable Israeli partner, emerging from an uncontested vote. A country plunged into a crisis of legitimacy, or forced into a new election, will offer neither. The Gaullist tradition of French diplomacy, made of clear-eyed friendship with Israel and fidelity to international law, demands not remaining silent when the integrity of an election is called into question without evidence.

Conclusion

It is not for Paris or Brussels to choose the next Israeli government. But France and the European Union can publicly recall two simple principles: investigations must be carried through to the end, and results proclaimed by an independent commission must be respected. The question now facing Israeli leaders is this: will they agree to treat Arab elected representatives as ordinary political partners, or will they let suspicion serve as a programme?

Article written with the help of artificial intelligence.