Netanyahu’s party claims election ‘stolen’ by ‘foreign entities

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

The Hard Shoulder, with Ciara Kelly and Shane Colman. On Newstalk, with Ciara.

Ciara Kelly (0:10)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his party have amplified allegations that the country's Arab-led parties had stolen the election, with final results expected to confirm his bloc has lost its majority in parliament. And joining me now is Bel Trew, Chief International Affairs Correspondent with the Irish Independent. Good evening to you, Bel.

Can you start by just telling us where we are at now in terms of numbers a day on, really, from the election?

Bel Trew (0:37)

Well, we're still very much in this deadlock. So neither bloc, Netanyahu's extreme-right bloc or the opposition bloc led by his main challenger, Gadi Eisencott, have got that magical 61 seat majority needed to have a direct pathway to the Knesset. At the moment, with about 99% of the votes counted, Netanyahu's bloc has got 53 seats and Eisencott's got 48 Now, what's key about this is that in the middle, with 19 seats, are the Arab-led parties, the Palestinian citizens of Israel. They could easily push the opposition bloc over the margin and get them to the Knesset.

Now, Netanyahu has put out on social media some very inflammatory statements claiming that the elections have been stolen by the Arab parties. That's borrowing from the playbook of Donald Trump.

It has even talked about contesting the election results or insinuated that, which of course would cause a lot of problems. So at the moment, it's quite tense, but there's no clear winner.

Ciara Kelly (1:44)

There has been much pushback on Netanyahu's claims around that, not just from places like Qatar or Bel.

Bel Trew (1:52)

Yeah, I mean, I think there's been a lot of concern that this is very inflammatory language, that it's targeting Palestinian citizens of Israel who already feel excluded and oppressed within Israel, which is partly what drove the massive turnout from their communities and their unprecedented or at least record-breaking number of seats in this vote. So, I think this is only going to cause more anger on the ground. And of course, this could be over if Eisencourt, Netanyahu's main challenger, agreed to team up with the Arab-led parties. And certainly there's voices from within his block, which are pushing for him to do that.

Ciara Kelly (2:32)

Okay. And how likely is that? How popular would that be? Obviously, there were quite a large number of right-wing, hard-line Israeli politicians whom I'm sure would be very disparaging about it. But in general, how would the population of Israel view that?

Bel Trew (2:49)

So 60% of Jewish Israelis, according to various different surveys, self-identify as right-wing. And the right-wing in Israel tends to not be amenable to the Palestinian citizens of Israel. The exclusion of the community, the oppression of the community has increased in the last few years since those 7th October Hamas attacks and the war on Gaza. Aizen Ka himself in his kind of semi-victory speeches as the vote count began, has vowed repeatedly to form a Zionist government, which means that he likely won't reach out to Arab-led parties. But there are groups within his coalition who have said he must. For example, the Democrats, which is the only Jewish Israeli party in Israel that supports Palestinian statehood.

There would be a lot of people who probably wouldn't be that positive about this. However, it would mean that unseating Netanyahu, and that has been the main objective from the opposition parties now for years. And that's really achievable if this distrust of the Palestinian citizens of Israel is reduced.

Ciara Kelly (3:51)

Yeah. And maybe finally, Bella, if that doesn't happen, if a coalition doesn't form between those two blocs, what is likely to happen next? Are we looking at going back to the polls? Are we looking at a minority government? What are we looking at?

Bel Trew (4:06)

We have multiple different scenarios. One is Netanyahu ramps up his attacks on the election results and tries to push through some kind of contesting it. And we're in some kind of very gray legal area, but I don't think that will be successful. Two, Netanyahu tries to pilfer seats from across the divide. He tries to bring some of the more right wing people to him, which I think is actually the goal.

Ciara Kelly (4:30)

He's skilled in that, and he has form in that area.

Bel Trew (4:33)

Yes, and I think that's really what's behind all of this scaremongering. And to be honest, people have called it racist attacks on the Palestinian citizens of Israel, is to get those right wing voters to be like, hey, if you stay with Eisencot, you're going to be in this alliance. So you could do that. Third, Eisencot could have a minority government, which is backed externally by the Arab led parties. That's also a possibility. A fourth possibility, which is very unlikely, is Netanyahu, Eisencot, and maybe one of his coalition partners, like Naftali Bennett, form a unity government and do a kind of merry-go-round of being prime minister. That's been done before, but it's not very viable, and it makes quite a weak government. Or we go back to elections. And that's also happened before. Between 2019 and 2021, there were four elections. That just puts the country in a never-ending groundhog day.