From the Liveblog of
Saturday, October 31, 2026
Right-wing protesters rail at Arab parties during Tel Aviv rally against ‘stolen’ election
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About 200 supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rally at Tel Aviv’s Habima Square to claim Arab parties “stole” Tuesday’s election, after Israeli voters gave the premier’s bloc a 53-seat minority.
Protesters chant “Jewish state” and “terrorists to Gaza, not the government.”
Some youths on the sidelines of the rally chant the racist slogans “may your village burn” and “a Jew is a soul, an Arab is a whore’s son.”
Speakers accuse Arab-majority Ra’am and Joint List of support for terrorism and say the rally is the first act of a protest movement against a potential government that relies on Arab parties.
“Sometimes a massive flame erupts from the smallest spark, and this here is the smallest spark,” says Deputy Minister Almog Cohen, who was elected to the outgoing Knesset with National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s ultranationalist Otzma Yehudit party but ran this time with Netanyahu’s Likud.
“We won’t let anyone steal the elections,” he says. “If you think we’ll let you sell the Jewish people’s only nation to the highest bidder, you are sorely mistaken.”
A sign hoisted next to him reads: “Arabs won’t dictate the Jewish character of the Jewish state.”
Eli Shtivi, whose son Idan was abducted and murdered at the Nova music festival in the Hamas onslaught on October 7, 2023, calls for a government that relies on a 101-seat majority — all parties other than Ra’am and Joint List.
Shtivi, who ran in the Likud primary but will not enter the Knesset, calls on protesters to join “hostage families from the right” and “fight with blood for our country, our identity” and “the integrity of the election.”
“Only a Jewish majority will determine the future of the State of Israel,” he says.
The protest follows a larger left-wing rally at Habima attended by thousands of demonstrators.
Protesters from that rally marched down Ibn Gabirol Street to Rabin Square, chanting slogans against racism and for Jewish-Arab partnership.
More from today’s Liveblog:
The Times of Israel Community.