A Shin Bet referral, a Qatar headline nobody at the elections committee wrote, and police with no evidence
The foreign-interference investigation ordered by the Central Elections Committee chairman has produced releases rather than charges. Likud is now attacking the Supreme Court justice who ordered it.
On October 28–29, CEC chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg, deputy president of the Supreme Court, wrote to Shin Bet chief David Zini instructing him to investigate suspected foreign funding and election bribery: “Serious suspicions have been brought to my attention regarding improper influence,” Sohlberg wrote, as carried by the Times of Israel. The letter named no foreign state. JNS is explicit that the identification of Qatar came from Channel 12, not from Sohlberg; the Jerusalem Post extended it to Qatar and Turkey; Israel National News, a settler-right outlet, rendered it as “illegally-funded foreign Arab entities.” Ynet, relayed by the Times of Israel, reported that Zini first raised the suspicions with Sohlberg in a private meeting before the formal letter. A Ynet report also described Qatar “funnelling tens of millions” — a figure with no stated source or denominator, and one this desk will not repeat as fact.
What the police have produced runs the other way. Calcalist reported that police say they have found no evidence supporting claims of widespread electoral fraud levelled by Likud against the Arab parties. Haaretz reported on October 30 that police were set to release three United Arab List activists from house arrest, arrested on Election Day on suspicion of intending to pay voters, having found no evidence that money seized from their homes was intended as bribes; four others had been released the previous day. Haaretz also quotes a single anonymous senior law enforcement official saying the case was exploited by the Prime Minister’s Office. On November 1 its live blog recorded Likud attacking Sohlberg for stating that the results are valid notwithstanding the probe.
Assessment: The order of events is the story: a security-service referral, then no police evidence, then the elections chairman affirming the count, then the governing party turning on a sitting deputy president of the Supreme Court. Two cautions. Tibi’s claim that Zini “manipulated” Sohlberg after meeting Netanyahu is a serious allegation by an interested politician against the head of the Shin Bet, uncorroborated elsewhere; it should never be printed without his name attached. And Haaretz’s November 1 analysis arguing the arrests were “deliberately blown out of proportion” is interpretation by a participant in the dispute, not a finding. The unresolved question is what the referral was actually built on.