Joint List leader Yousef Jabareen said on Sunday that a new investigative report raised “a grave suspicion of an attempted regime coup by Netanyahu,” after N12 reported that people close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are suspected of involvement in the Election Day arrests of three Ra’am activists.
“Tonight’s shocking exposé raises a grave suspicion of an attempted regime coup by Netanyahu, through the criminal use of the police against the Arab public and its leaders,” Jabareen wrote on X. “The report on the demand to wiretap Arab MKs through the Shin Bet deepens the severity of the matter even further. This is conduct characteristic of dark regimes.”
He called on Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara to immediately order an investigation into Netanyahu and his office.
“While the Arab public showed responsibility for its fate and went out en masse to exercise its right to vote, according to the exposé, Netanyahu’s office was busy fabricating an ugly and despicable blood libel against it,” he said. “If the findings are verified, this is a criminal mechanism that operated from the heart of government to skew the election results. Anyone found responsible must be held accountable, including Netanyahu.”
Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi said Ilana Dayan’s “shocking exposé requires the immediate opening of a police investigation against Netanyahu and his office staff, on suspicion of an attempt to steal the election by using the police and the Shin Bet for political purposes.”
“This is mafia-like conduct that endangers the foundations of democracy,” Tibi said. He called on the attorney-general and the state attorney to order a criminal investigation immediately. “No one is above the law, not even Netanyahu.”
PMO calls report ‘false,’ grounds for defamation
According to the report, Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Ido Norden, called the police commissioner’s office before the election with a complaint about Ra’am activists and referred officers to a source whose information, which N12 said later proved baseless, led to the arrests.
The Prime Minister’s Office dismissed the report as “another false report wrapped in dramatic music, as part of the serious attempts to silence the election-contamination affair.”
“Criminal information reached Chief of Staff Ido Norden, and he fulfilled his duty as expected of every law-abiding citizen and connected that person with the police,” the PMO said. “Any further involvement of the chief of staff alleged in the report is false and grounds for defamation. He never spoke with police intelligence officials or with other parties involved in the investigation.”
“As Israeli citizens and the chief of staff learned through the media on the morning of the election, a person was indeed caught with tens of thousands of shekels in cash and Ra’am ballots,” the statement added.
Eisenkot vows commission of inquiry into Election Day
Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot, who has been tasked with forming the next government, said Netanyahu and his associates posed “a tangible, direct, and immediate threat to Israeli democracy.”
“Under no circumstances can Netanyahu continue to hold the reins of power for even one more minute. Under no circumstances can Israel be dragged into another round of elections while he is prime minister,” Eisenkot wrote. “Clearly, as long as he is in office, there will be no more fair and proper elections in Israel. This is the central consideration guiding me in every coalition negotiation I am conducting these days.”
He described the report as “a new and even more serious affair” than Qatargate, involving “an alleged attempt to disrupt elections by planting evidence” and deploying the police against Arab citizens without valid search or arrest warrants.
Eisenkot called for an immediate investigation and for the police and Shin Bet to clarify the published details, and said he would work to establish a commission of inquiry into the involvement of the Prime Minister’s Office on Election Day and the conduct of the security agencies before and during the vote.
Golan: Shin Bet, police ‘not Netanyahu’s operational arm’
Democrats chairman Yair Golan said the report proved that Netanyahu’s office “crossed another red line,” citing the suspicion that it planted intelligence information against citizens in police systems on the eve of the election “in order to harness the security and law enforcement authorities for a political campaign and to steal the election.”
“This is not just another dirty election trick. It is a suspicion of exploiting state power to harm the democratic process,” Golan said. “The Shin Bet and the police are not Netanyahu’s operational arm. This affair requires an independent and immediate investigation, down to the last of those involved.”
Democrats MKs demand Norden resign, emergency government
Democrats MK Gilad Kariv demanded that Norden resign immediately, and called on the attorney-general to set up a special team from the State Attorney’s Office and the police Investigations Division to examine the conduct of the prime minister and his associates, including the Shin Bet chief, around the election. He said a letter with the demand would be sent to the attorney-general shortly.
“This corrupt man and his partners planned, engineered, and led the campaign to delegitimize the election results, and exploited their control over the security establishment and the Israel Police to try to steal the election,” Kariv wrote.
Democrats MK Omri Ronen said the report showed that “every additional minute Netanyahu and his advisers are in the Prime Minister’s Office is a minute in which the State of Israel is in real, tangible, and existential danger,” and called for the opposition to use its parliamentary majority to form “an emergency government.”
“It is in our hands. No excuses,” he added.
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