Freed suspect in alleged Ra’am vote-buying scheme: Cop asked why Arabs are unhappy with Ben Gvir, ‘he’s done only good by you’

Saef Abu Reash, a Bedouin doctor who was detained at dawn on election day over an alleged vote-buying scheme for Ra’am, tells Haaretz after the court released him unconditionally yesterday that a police officer told him National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has done “only good” for Arab society.

The far-right minister’s tenure has seen a massive uptick in demolitions of Bedouin homes built without permits, and annual homicide rates in Arab society at large roughly double.

Abu Raesh, who led a get-out-the-vote effort in the southern Bedouin town of Rahat, says investigators didn’t show him any evidence for the vote-buying allegations, but instead asked whom he encouraged people to vote for and if he was aware his activity could “determine who will lead the country.”

According to Abu Raesh, an officer who later took him from one police station to another asked: “What do you want from Ben Gvir? He’s done only good by you. He helps you, creates law and order for you.”

Abu Raesh tells Haaretz that’s when he realized “that this is pure political persecution.”

He also says he was unable to vote on election day.

“On the day of the arrest they told me, ‘We’ll take you to vote,’ but when we reached the station in Dimona the officer said, ‘Why are you telling me now?'” Abu Raesh tells Haaretz. “In the end I didn’t vote, but masses of others did. The Arab public realized it has to go to the polls to change the reality.”