Israel Police say no evidence the election was stolen, contradicting Likud on the record

On Wednesday 28 October Likud issued a statement on X, shared by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing Arab parties of stealing the election through bribery, forgery, voter intimidation, ballot manipulation and the use of prohibited software to mobilise supporters. “We demand that the police and Shin Bet conduct a thorough investigation into the theft of the elections by the Arab parties and bring the offenders to justice,” the party said, as rendered by the Jerusalem Post; Ynet’s translation of the same statement ends “perpetrators.” Jewish News reported Likud saying it was transferring hundreds of testimonies and pieces of evidence to the police, the Shin Bet and the Central Elections Committee. The Hill noted that the allegations have not been independently verified and that Likud did not publicly release the evidence it said it held. On Thursday morning the Israel Police rejected the allegation outright, saying there is no investigative or intelligence basis for the claim that the election was stolen — reported by the Jerusalem Post, i24NEWS and The New Arab.

There is a real criminal file underneath the political one, and it is narrower than the party statement. On election-day morning police arrested three residents of the Segev Shalom and Ar’ara areas in the Negev on suspicion of election bribery and conspiracy, after information that individuals in Bedouin communities had prepared envelopes containing ballot slips and cash to induce votes for Ra’am; cash, distributed envelopes and notes were found in their homes, and the file went to Lahav 433, the national investigations unit, per i24NEWS and Arutz Sheva. Ra’am filed its own complaint with the Central Elections Committee. Four more people were taken in for questioning on Thursday, including three school principals from southern Bedouin communities, Ynet reported, alongside Likud preparing to challenge results and seek revotes. AP, carried by Outlook India, cautioned that the arrests concern suspected vote-buying and are not evidence of a wider operation; the CEC said it found no indication of systematic attempts to sabotage voting.

Police Commissioner Daniel Levi put his name to the institutional line. “For every suspicion of an offense, the Israel Police will act resolutely to investigate the truth and bring the involved parties to justice, without exception,” he said on 29 October, in the police statement as rendered by ANI, which also pledged to guard “the purity of the elections” and not allow it to be undermined. Mansour Abbas, the Ra’am chairman, answered the fraud charge by pointing to allegations that Netanyahu employs Qatari agents in his office, per Jewish News. The same outlet reported that the chair of the Central Elections Committee has asked the security services to examine allegations of foreign interference, without specifying whose. JNS’s breaking-news feed logged President Isaac Herzog calling for arrests over Knesset election irregularities at 06:48 on 29 October; the underlying statement has not surfaced in full.

Assessment: The asymmetry is the point. Likud’s charge is sweeping, unreleased and delivered on a party X account; the rebuttal is narrow, on the record and comes from the police the party asked to investigate. That the contradiction is carried by the Jerusalem Post and i24 as well as The New Arab means it cannot be dismissed as hostile sourcing. Expect the claim to migrate from evidentiary to procedural ground: petitions for revotes at named polling stations do not require proving systematic fraud, only sustaining doubt about the 19 Arab-led seats long enough to shape who gets the mandate to form a government.