Joint List accuses Netanyahu of trying to steal election, urges opposition to reject incitement against Arabs

The Arab-majority Joint List party accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of attempting to undermine Tuesday’s election results through “baseless” allegations of fraud and foreign interference, calling on opposition leaders to reject what it described as his campaign of incitement against Arab voters and cooperate with Arab parties to replace his government.

“We are done apologizing and defending ourselves against filthy lies and baseless accusations from right-wing figures who refuse to accept the election results,” the Arab-led party says in a statement. “These racist accusations only demonstrate how afraid they are of the power of our community.”

The party accuses Likud figures of financing a coordinated campaign to delegitimize Arab political participation that began months before the election, including attempts to disqualify Arab parties and alleged intimidation of voters at polling stations.

“We turned out to vote in unprecedented numbers and achieved a historic result, both for our community and for the entire democratic camp,” it says. “No smear campaign will erase the Arab public’s achievement.”

With Netanyahu’s bloc projected to win 53 seats, the 19 seats secured by the Joint List and Ra’am give the 48-seat opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot a potential parliamentary majority, provided the parties agree to cooperate.

“We call on the leaders of the opposition bloc to stop cooperating with the filthy lies of Netanyahu and the racist Kahanists,” the Joint List says, urging them to demonstrate “political courage, not just in words but also in deeds.”

“Without us, you cannot win. With us, we can build a different future,” it adds.

The statement comes after Central Elections Committee chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg requested a Shin Bet investigation into alleged foreign funding aimed at improperly influencing the election. No evidence has been presented publicly substantiating the suspicions or implicating Arab parties, but Netanyahu and his allies have seized on the probe to allege that the election was stolen through foreign-funded efforts to boost Arab turnout.

Acting Central Elections Committee director general Dean Livne has rejected allegations of widespread fraud in Tuesday’s election as baseless, saying the vote was conducted lawfully and that to the best of his knowledge, there was no evidence of systematic irregularities.