Israel's Central Elections Committee has certified the results of last week's parliamentary elections after reviewing all 9,069 polling stations and finding no irregularities that compromised the vote. Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg cast the deciding vote after Likud and Shas abstained from the five-member presidium, while Yesh Atid and Blue and White voted to ratify. Sohlberg warned that those casting doubt on election results pose "a real danger" to Israel's democracy. The certification lands a direct blow to a weeks-long campaign by Netanyahu and allies to discredit the outcome. The prime minister and his coalition partners have repeatedly claimed, without evidence, that Arab-led parties "stole" the election with possible foreign help. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir demanded the arrest of all Arab party leaders and called for a freeze on certification. Likud legislator Amit Halevi resigned from the committee, alleging seats were "bought with bribe money" from Qatar, Iran, or Turkey. Qatar has rejected the claims as disinformation. The institutional fault lines are now visible within the security establishment itself. The Shin Bet told the committee that intelligence pointed to "widespread foreign funding and influence operations involving thousands of people and possibly more." But law enforcement sources told Haaretz they were unaware of any operation of that size. The Shin Bet is seeking to question four Arab politicians but has provided prosecutors with evidence on only one of them. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara effectively accused Shin Bet chief David Zini — a Netanyahu appointee — of undermining the rule of law, while Likud accused her of blocking interrogations. The arithmetic remains unresolved. Netanyahu's bloc won 53 seats, Eisenkot's coalition secured 48, and the Arab-led parties Ra'am and the Joint List claimed a record 19 seats. Neither major bloc can reach the 61-seat majority needed to govern. President Isaac Herzog has begun two days of consultations with party leaders, breaking with custom by meeting smaller parties first — starting with Religious Zionism, then Shas and Yisrael Beytenu, before concluding Thursday with Eisenkot's Yashar and Likud. The coalition math opens three paths: a unity government, an Eisenkot-led alliance with Arab parties, or another election early next year. Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid argued that the Democrats' victory in the US midterm congressional elections has eliminated the viability of a Netanyahu-led unity government, given Netanyahu's close alignment with President Donald Trump. "Israel cannot afford to let him remain prime minister," Lapid wrote on X. What makes this episode structurally significant is not the fraud claims themselves — those were expected — but the institutional behavior surrounding them. A sitting security chief amplified unverified claims. A governing party abstained from certifying its own country's election. A cabinet minister demanded extrajudicial arrests of elected Arab politicians. The committee chair had to state explicitly that no party, "however distinguished or senior," could withhold publication of results. These are not signs of a system that has rejected democratic backsliding. They are signs of a system where the antibodies are still working, but the infection is advancing. Sohlberg's ruling that even confirmed foreign interference would not undermine the overall result establishes an important precedent — but only if the political class accepts it. The next 48 hours of coalition negotiations will determine whether the fraud narrative was performative positioning or the opening move in a longer campaign to delegitimize any government that excludes Netanyahu.
