Israelis await final election results as claim of foreign interference emerges

Is­raeli Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu and his par­ty on Thurs­day am­pli­fied al­le­ga­tions that the coun­try’s Arab-led par­ties had “stolen” the elec­tion, as fi­nal re­sults are set to con­firm that Ne­tanyahu’s bloc has lost its ma­jor­i­ty in par­lia­ment.

The op­po­si­tion ac­cused Ne­tanyahu of de­mo­niz­ing the Arab pop­u­la­tion af­ter a his­toric show­ing by Arab-led par­ties. If the rest of the op­po­si­tion teams up with them in a rare and po­lit­i­cal­ly risky move, they would form the next gov­ern­ment. Fi­nal vote re­sults are ex­pect­ed Thurs­day evening.

Ne­tanyahu seized on a new re­quest by the coun­try’s elec­tions com­mit­tee to the Shin Bet in­tel­li­gence ser­vice to in­ves­ti­gate al­leged elec­tion in­ter­fer­ence by un­spec­i­fied “for­eign en­ti­ties against the Is­raeli in­ter­est.” While the re­quest had no ref­er­ence to Arab-led par­ties, the prime min­is­ter and his Likud par­ty said no par­ty should co­op­er­ate with Arab-led ones.