Why is Netanyahu accusing Arab voters of “stealing the election“?

0:00This is the story of the one. As a shipping manager, he's running the dock, stocking supplies, and making sure every order goes out on time. And Grainger helps him stay prepared. From shipping supplies, to PPE, to hand tools, he counts on Grainger to keep products moving and trucks rolling. So his operation runs smoothly, no matter the shift. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click granger.com, or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done. This is a global production. It has started. Benjamin Netanyahu trying today to delegitimize the Arab vote, a vote that could knock him from power. He is alleging that the election was stolen. Is there any basis for this? Or is this Netanyahu just using the Trump playbook?

1:09Welcome to the News Agents. It's John. It's Maitlis. And as we speak, there is still no Israeli government. And it looks like that might still be some way off. The negotiations go on. But it's hard to see how either main party bloc, whether it's Likud Net a Knesset made up of 120 parliamentarians. So a huge block for the Arab parties. And that, in turn, has resulted in Netanyahu coming out and saying, this election was stolen. And I thought, oh, hang on, I'm back to November 2020 when Donald Trump had lost an election. And of course, the only reason he could possibly lose an election was if it had been stolen. This has a bit more racist overtones to it because he's saying it's the Arab parties that have stolen an election.

2:23What, you mean they got their voters to turn out in huge numbers because they were so pissed off? Oh, no, no, no. It must be more than that. So the allegation goes a bit further and says that Qatari money, Q I bet you some American money, maybe British money, maybe even French money has gone in to support Likud or the opposition parties as well. Yeah. And to give you a sense of the significance, there are some 800,000 votes in the Arab parties this time round. That's around 15% of the population. And if that makes up 19 seats in the Knesset, then they really, unarguably, should hold the balance of power. They should be a deciding factor, frankly, in whether the opposition can oust Netanyahu from power, which is why he finds them so intimidating.

3:21Last week on the podcast, we heard from the writer and commentator Ayala Panievsky. And I'm just going to read you her thoughts today, because as soon as this started, as soon as those lines came from Netanyahu saying the election has been stolen, the votes have been rigged. She said it's as expected. Claims from Likud about fraud in the Arab community. These are the things worth remembering. Likud started claiming fraud in the Hebrew community. That means, you know, you wouldn't necessarily read it in the English press, but in the Hebrew community, even before the elections got underway. Tick Trump. Even when Arab Israeli citizens vote legally, Likud sees it as an existential threat. The language that they

4:06use is the Arabs are flooding in. In other words, there is more than a racist overtone. There is a these people are coming to kill you, implied in the idea that Arabs who absolutely have a legitimate vote in Israel are somehow trying to threaten the state of Israel. And then she goes on, for those especially worried about Qatar's involvement in Israel's elections, don't worry. Qatar isn't an enemy state, but a complex country that funds Israel's prime minister's advisors during wartime. And somehow that's totally fine and not grounds for anyone to resign. What she's referring to is the fact that one of Netanyahu's closest advisors is actually Qatari. And there was, I guess, a scandal surrounding whether Netanyahu himself

4:51was being backed by Qatari money, Qatari advisors, which he has just flipped on its head. And now the Home Intelligence Service, MI5, Shin Bet, has actually been called in to investigate what they're calling Qatari Turkish funding to boost Arab turnout in the Israeli elections. Yeah, I think that when you hear stolen election, I think of stuffed ballots of people voting twice or three times or four times or people kind of gathering up all the ballot papers of a community and just, you know, deciding that they're going to vote in one way. That is obviously electoral fraud. It's obviously electoral fraud to go up to Emily Maitlis and say, here's 500 quid. Please vote for me because you can't do that.

5:38I think that's what Trump just suggested he was going to do in Dallas, didn't he? Five thousand dollars. Five thousand dollars for everyone. Fair point. Fair point. Well made. But of course, this is about donations to the political organisation, the campaigning, you know, just as we've been talking about, I don't know, reform in the UK, getting kind of tonnes of money from these people overseas. I mean, British people overseas, that it's transforming their ability to operate. So, look, there may be a legitimacy in saying, did foreign money come in that shouldn't have done? But to say the election was stolen gives a completely different understanding of what is going on. And, you know, people you

6:18speak to say there isn't much to this. This is Netanyahu, who has got a grip on the Likud party I mean far stronger than Donald Trump has over the Republican party and Donald Trump has the Republican party in a vice-like grip and you know Netanyahu just kind of stirring the pot and I think the other point to make is and I think a lot of people forget this the Israeli Arabs are Israeli citizens they have passports, they have the vote they can vote in elections it's not the same in the West Bank it's not the same in the Gaza Strip which are kind of seen as different territories but within Israel there is a significant Arab population and there are certain towns which have got Arab majorities and they will have

7:05Arab mayors in those towns and they play a part in civic public life. The idea that it's the Arab parties that are stealing an election is ridiculous. What's happened is that there are an awful lot of Arabs who are deeply pissed off with the way that they have been governed for the past three or four years with netanyahu with smotrich with ben gavir for following these extreme right-wing nationalist policies anti-arab policies and what's happened is the arab population have said we've got a voice and we're going to vote and we're going to vote in large numbers. I think clearly what Netanyahu is doing, not just here, I think it has been part of his playbook, his populist racist playbook for the last 30 years or so, is trying to use the word Arab in a way that will be triggering, frankly.

8:01And it all follows the events of Octoberober the 7th which has left i mean if you talk to israelis they will say not just ptsd not just post-traumatic stress but current traumatic stress and that by using the word arab uh repeatedly in election campaign or post-election campaign you are trying to make people feel that those people who are absolutely legitimate Israeli citizens were somehow the people that massacred Israelis in 2023, and that they are somehow the people that are threatening your very existence. I mean, to kind of spell out the obvious, Netanyahu is not talking about Gaza. He is not talking about the destruction and the killing of the Palestinian people here. That is not ever going to be part of what he talks about on the campaign trail.

8:56What he will do is say, I am the person that can keep Israel safe. I mean, laughably for many who think that it was his failures that led to October 7th in the first place. But every time he invokes this idea of the Arab vote, the Arab-Israeli, the Palestinian Arab-Israeli voters, he's basically saying, oh, how safe do you feel about this? How comfortable do you feel about this? How do you know that they aren't coming for you? I mean, it is utterly unrelated to what happened from Hamas on the 7th of October. And yet that is the linguistic trickery that it involves. And the other thing that is going on, and never underestimate Netanyahu's sort of wiliness and kind of serpentine like skills as a politician

9:46is that he is trying to kind of portray the Arab vote the Arab Knesset members as sort of people who've essentially got bubonic plague and if any other political party Israeli political party touches them they're going to get bubonic plague too And so what he's trying to do is to make them out of bounds for the opposition party. Because if Gaddy Eisenkot said, OK, well, let's do a deal with the Arab parties, he's got his majority and Netanyahu's gone. And he's trying to make it, frame it so that Israeli public opinion would just never accept a coalition that is formed and built upon Arab votes. And I think that's part of what he's doing as well. A hundred percent. And, you know, up to this point, it has worked.

10:30Netanyahu said there's no way he will work with the Arab parties. Some of the adverts, the campaign adverts, were so hideously racist over the course of this, showing, you know, parties working with sort of hookah-smoking Arabs with their legs on the desk, you know, the whole thing. Every trope. Every single trope. And yet, Eisenkot is also, it seems, too scared up till this point to work with the Arab parties. And one of the things that they are trying to work out is, is your political life over if you let Netanyahu have another term? Or is your political life over if you sign up to a deal with an Arab coalition? And at the moment, there is complete deadlock because nobody knows which is going to be more damaging. No, we still don't know what's going to happen, whether we're going

11:24to find ourselves, you know, reporting on another Israeli election in 90 days if they fail to form a government, whether there's going to be a revolving premiership where a number of different people get the chance to be prime minister for, you know, half an hour and then it's someone else's turn. And these things are still so complex and labyrinthine that we just have to wait on that. Well, joining us down the line now from Jerusalem is Anshel Pfeffer, the Economist Israel correspondent, author, as you can probably see, of Bibi, The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu, and really somebody who has become the go-to voice on Israeli elections. Anshel, we've been covering, we've been trying to decipher the results in the

12:06last uh 48 hours what has actually happened now that is of significance in terms of the messaging coming out so now what we have is the beginning of the election you might think the election has ended, but the real business is happening now. It's both the horse trading, the fight between different candidates and parties to form a coalition, and also very much a battle for the narrative here in Israel over what is the legitimacy of the votes casted on Tuesday, mainly the legitimacy of that incredible Arab turnout, which has resulted in 18 or 19 seats, 15% of the incoming Knesset. So Netanyahu this morning put out a tweet saying, talking about the Arab-Israeli voters, they stole the elections in Israel.

13:02I mean, does this have the currency to actually change minds? Does it have the currency to change what the president will do next? What is he doing with this? Well, if you mean by currency, is there any hard evidence to back that up? From what I'm hearing and speaking to people here on the ground, it doesn't look like there is any hard evidence. There is an investigation. There does seem to have been some funny money circulating, but it certainly doesn't suggest that there's any legal way to invalidate one of the votes of 800,000 voters. I mean, like I said, that's over 15% of the people who voted on Tuesday. But if by currency you mean the kind of currency that we deal in, in the media and politicians who

13:50are trying to build narrative. Yes, there is a car, there is currency there, because Netanyahu has been working on this for 30 years on trying to delegitimize Arab votes. It's been a very long time project for him. And it's to a degree, it's worked. It is not just amongst his own voters, it's among his base. It's also something which opposition leaders are scared to touch, trying to talk about what the Arab participation means, how can they be part of the political process. that's almost kryptonite here in israeli politics and very much the work the long long-term work of netanyahu as a political player and shall i think some of the one of the things that people misunderstand particularly when accusations are

14:38made about it being an apartheid state is the fact that if you're an israeli arab you do vote if you're in haifa or somewhere like that you probably have got quite an important say in how the city is run through the council and all the rest of it um is there anything in these allegations other than that there was a very high turnout i'm just trying to understand you know look we all saw what donald trump said in 2020 when he said the election was stolen and we we know it wasn't. There was just a big turnout of people who wanted to get rid of him. I mean, is what is this? Is this just high turnout or is there something else? What is the basis of all this? I've been on the ground for months going to various communities here in Israel, including to Arab-Israeli, or as some call themselves,

15:26Palestinian-Israeli citizens. And I've been hearing the same thing over and over again. This time, we're going to come out and vote like never before, because this government, the Netanyahu government, with Itamar Benger as the policing minister, is a government which has pursued such strident anti-Arab policies. And also the other thing that's bothering them, I mean, bothering, that's a light word, is the wave of crime within the Arab community. We've seen murder rates jump to twice their rates pre-the Netanyahu government, and this is in part at least due to a diversion of policing resources away from the Arab communities. So those are the two things that are foremost in their minds, they're trying to block the, you know, trying to do something about the crime wave and trying to

16:14get rid of the Netanyahu-Bengaria government. And, you know, the talk of the, you know, the fact that there's going to be an incredible Arab turnout. It's been around for months. So even if there is, if there turns out to be some evidence of some kind of tampering there, it doesn't mean that this wasn't going to happen. This was going to happen all along. It was clear to anybody who's done any reporting among Arab communities in the last few months. You've just opened the door to the possibility of tampering. I'm trying to work out how seriously you're taking this as an allegation, having explained that you've been covering this kind of propaganda from Netanyahu for 30 years. Well, foreign money in and around an election campaign is a problem which I think isn't just unique to Israel.

17:07And it's certainly not unique to the Arab parties. I can talk about how various American groups have been funding lobbies and campaigns here in Israel for many years, including Netanyahu's campaign of other people who are close to him. So it's not as if this is like a sudden unique thing that happened, that some Qatari money may have been involved. And that's something that's going to be investigated. But the way Netanyahu is blowing it up is, I mean, it's very convenient for him at this moment. So let me just understand the ramifications, because at the moment the biggest question that overhangs this whole result is, I guess, whether the Rising Court and the Change Coalition would agree to work with the Arab parties in some shape or form. Will these kind

17:50of allegations push them away from even suggesting that? Will the Arab parties themselves feel that if they're being delegitimized like this, they don't want to play a game, they don't want to join in? I mean, what is going to be the result of these kind of claims, do you think, Anshul? Well, I don't think anybody's surprised. We've seen in for the last weeks how the Likud campaign have basically been laying the foundations for they stole the vote kind of allegation post-election. Netanyahu was already saying on election day that they're stealing the vote. So like I said, it's convenient that this investigation has suddenly come to light. So nobody's going to back down at this point. And you know, you began your question with the question of

18:34will the Arab parties being in the coalition? There are several levels of political participation beyond the vote and the election result. There's first of all what happens in the Knesset, Israel's parliament, even before a new government is sworn what happens in the Knesset, in Israel's parliament, even before a new government is sworn in. And the Knesset is going to be inaugurated on November 10. All these new members are going to be sworn in. And there is a plan of the opposition. This is the opposition, both the Jewish and the Arab parties, to try and elect a new speaker from what has been the opposition to take over parliamentary business to try and elect a new speaker from what has been the opposition,

19:08to take over parliamentary business and start doing things that Netanyahu's tried to block, like set up a commission of inquiry into October 7th. The parliament can do that. Now, that is what Netanyahu's fighting right now. He's petrified by the possibility of the Knesset being overtaken by the opposition. And his only way to try and counter that is to legitimise a big chunk of the opposition vote, which is the Arab parties. But is there any kind of constitutional mechanism which can say, this is a foul, we're holding up a red card here, the election needs to be rerun or whatever? Is there a process there? Is there a constitutional arrangement there where that could happen? So the law allows for certain polling stations to do a rerun.

19:56So if it's found that there was tampering or any kind of major problem with vote counting at a specific polling station, and there are 13,000 of those, then that specific polling station can hold a rerun. And usually votes of one polling station won't make that much of a difference. It could potentially move a seat either way, but that's it. But, Anshul, sorry, let me understand that. Because obviously, if people have been stuffing ballots or they've been you know producing their own ballot papers that's fraud and that is you know what what netanyahu seems to be alleging is that too many people came out to vote and maybe they came out to vote because their money had gone their way you know to to encourage them to vote um that is very

20:43different from ballot stuffing or something like that. So that's not addressed by law. It is illegal to pay someone to vote. Sure. But there isn't any legal mechanism with how can you afterwards redo that vote. So even if these allegations are proved, which right now from what I'm hearing, they're being massively ballooned beyond any proportion. But even if there was something here, that could be grounds for individual prosecution. It doesn't invalidate in any way the vote. So what Netanyahu is trying to do is to muddy the waters, but he doesn't have any legal base for that. So where do we go from here what where do you think we are now in terms of coalition building a block getting 60 plus knesset members so that they can form a

21:34government they you know you can elect a prime minister so the problem is is that the opposition is bound by two election promises of all the parties there are basically committed not to working with Netanyahu. So that would rule out a unity government of some form. And some of the parties there, mainly Yisrael Beiteinu, Avigdor Lieberman's party, but also Gadi Eisenkot's party, sort of in an evasive way, have said, well, we don't want to work with the Arab parties. We want to have what's being euphemistically called the Zionist government. So one of those promises has to be broken for there to be a government, either a unity government, which will include Netanyahu, or an opposition government. That is currently what's moving the,

22:17what's kind of like limiting the room to maneuver here, which is why Netanyahu, I think, will try and bide his time in the hope that they'll exhaust the 90 days for forming a coalition. And then there'll be another election in early 27, which gives him another six months as prime minister. And he hopes, I think, with good reason, that he could probably get a better result there. Why doesn't Likud work just to oust Netanyahu? I mean, if they know that he is the real roadblock to them being back in power or to any kind of unity government being back in power, why don't they just shove him overboard? Well, Likud, historically, in its various evolutions, it's been around for over 100 years now,

23:00has always been very devoted, very loyal to its leaders. Likud has only had five or six leaders in the last 102 years. Netanyahu certainly is one of the most dominant of those. And today's Likud includes very, very few figures who are prepared to rebel against Netanyahu in public. Probably none today in public would rebel against him. And the rank and file of the party is extremely loyal. It does sound like you're describing the situation in America. You know, why don't the Republican Party get rid of Donald Trump? Well, because they can't. Was it a stolen election? Who says things like that? I mean, it really does. You're setting up the midterms for us. Yeah, the parallels. And don't forget, Bibi has been in liquid politics since the late 80s.

23:41Donald Trump has only been doing it since 2016. I mean, if you need a British comparison, Bibi is someone who was doing politics when Thatcher was still prime minister. Anshar Pfeffer, thanks so much. Thanks for your time. This is the story of the one. As a shipping manager, he's running the dock, stocking supplies, and making sure every order goes out on time. And Grainger helps him stay prepared. From shipping supplies to PPE to hand tools, he counts on Grainger to keep products moving and trucks rolling so his operation runs smoothly no matter the shift. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click granger.com, or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done. It is the day after the budget, and John Healy is touring the television and radio studios

24:46opining on what he delivered to the House of Commons yesterday. And he's thinking it's all going so terribly, terribly well. It's quiet, it's understated, it's modest, and then suddenly he finds himself in the thick of it. Yes, well, the announcement that you didn't make today, you did. No, I didn't, and there were television cameras there while I was not doing it. What the...? I'm not quite sure what level of reality I'm supposed to be operating on. Look, this is what they run with. I tell them that you said it, they believe that you said it. They don't really believe you said it. They believe that you said it. They don't really believe you said it. They know that you never said it. But it's in their interest to say that

25:30you said it. Because if they don't say that you said it, they're not going to get what you say tomorrow or the next day when I decide to tell them what it is you're saying. That was Malcolm Tucker, of course, telling Minister Hugh that he basically has to go back and correct what he has said so that everyone who knew what he said originally manages to retract what that was. John Healey had this moment on the Today programme this morning when he was asked whether welfare spending will be cut before the next general election. And this was his reply. There will be a reduction in the benefits bill. We'll do that in a Labour way. We'll do that because it's simply not good for Britain or Progressive to have a bigger and bigger benefits bill.

26:12He was asked specifically whether that would happen before the next election. And a few minutes later, up popped the BBC political editor, Chris Mason, with a retraction or a clarification, I suppose we should say, from the Treasury, who clearly heard that go out live and had a sharp intake in breath and now say that Healy's remarks had been misinterpreted. Now, I'm not quite sure how you can misinterpret something that he'd only just said that hadn't yet gone through a process of interpretation. But they have now had to explain that what the chancellor was doing was not committing to achieving that reduction before the next election. He was just expressing the government's ambition to reduce the benefits bill.

26:56And you have to wonder whether they have made things any better. I'm sorry, Emily, to interrupt you. I'm sorry. It goes even further. Apparently, one Treasury source said that Healey was explicitly attempting to avoid that impression being left that they were going to cut the benefits bill. I'll just read the quote again. There will be there will be a reduction in the benefits bill. We'll do that in a Labour way. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He said it. He said it clearly. There is no doubt over what he said. He wasn't giving the completely opposite impression. I think what is interesting about this, just to pull out for a moment, is that it was what we described yesterday on the show as a very sort of quiet budget.

27:43There were lots of tweakyaky things and i don't know if you've seen the um instagram account that i absolutely love at the moment which is you know andy burnham promises to offer help for people looking to find the end of the roll of sellotape andy burnham offers to close the loophole on people who find they need scissors to open the new packet of scissors i mean the sort of piss take is that we have a government who is so micro at the moment that all the macro is just sort of, you know, going to hell. If Andy Burnham could find odd socks, honestly, he's got my vote. Odd socks in the dryer. Yeah, there you go. That's how he's going to do it. But it points to the fact that really at the end of this hour from the Chancellor,

28:20we had a whole raft of really kind of thoughtful measures, you know, anti-gambling measures, anti-vape measures, pro-high street measures, pro-paternity measures, lots of small things for lots of people who will be grateful. But the big questions of the day on welfare, the big questions of the day on defence, the big question of the day really on where growth comes from now were not really answered. And I guess this is what Nick Robinson was trying to get to when he put the Chancellor through his paces. Where are you on welfare? And I guess Healy comes to that interview thinking, I've got to give them something. Otherwise, I'll just be known as the guy who avoided the big question. So he gives

29:02them something and the Treasury immediately slaps him down and says, oh, no, no, no, no. That was not what he meant to say at all. And I suppose the reason that the Treasury have been swift to act and contradict the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which sort of does raise a Liz Truss question of who actually governs. I mean, who's in charge if the Treasury is correcting what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said? Is that, I guess that, you know, it would lead the Commons to the speaker to say, hang on, I'm calling the chancellor back because he didn't say that in the budget. He didn't say that in the budget. It wasn't in the Treasury officials to start briefing and saying, no, no, no. John Healey didn't mean that at all.

29:52I think he wanted to give absolutely the reverse impression of that. Yeah. Or in Malcolm Tucker's words, you didn't say that. Yeah, you didn't say that. But I mean, I think it shows fundamentally just the sensitivity for Labour, for this government around the whole issue of the ballooning welfare benefits bill and how you're going to grapple with it. What number you can attach to cuts in welfare spending, because it doesn't feel as though the government are anywhere close to giving a number for that. And they don't know what to say and he as you say emily he tried to give an answer uh he didn't want to say nothing he didn't want to dead bat and has ended up getting himself contradicted by his own treasury officials

30:37we'll see what tomorrow brings we'll be back in just a moment and barack obama and the cheesecake factory gate this is the story of the one as a shipping manager he's running the dock stocking supplies and making sure every order goes out on time and granger helps him stay prepared We'll be right back. Granger for the ones who get it done. That was the interesting thing about how the administration responded to the speech I gave the other day. They did not dispute what I said about them being directly responsible for rising prices. They did not argue with that. They did not deny terrorists were contributing to higher costs for families. They didn't say anything about that. I accused this administration based on the facts that they were engaging in unprecedented

32:05levels of corruption. They didn't say anything about that. The president wasn't even mad about the Saddam Hussein comparison. That part didn't bother him. But he was very upset about the Cheesecake Factory comments. on the White House and compared it to this sort of slightly flashy suburban mall restaurant in America called the Cheesecake Factory, which loves its chandeliers and its glitz and its glass and its mirror surfaces. And he threw this out there. The Republicans around Trump all accused him of being a snob. But Trump actually, who is quite a snob, just said, it's not. It's not. How dare you say it looks like the Cheesecake Factory. And so what they missed in this whole riff from Obama was that he was pointing to the grift, to the corruption, to the absolute impunity of that

33:21money making machine that sits right at the heart of the White House right now. And that seemed to all go over their heads. That seemed to be fine. But please don't criticise the president's taste in interior decor. No, don't do that. Right, we're off to America tomorrow. Maitlis? Yes. I've got a proposition for you. Oh, I love one of those. We're going to go to a cheesecake factory those we're going to go to a cheesecake factory we will send photos of us can i admit something i did let's not turn it too confessional well i peeked at the menu and i was relieved to see that there is a section called all day morning cocktails oh my god all day morning so we're going to get lashed first thing in the morning.

34:05We're going to try an all day morning cocktail. Yeah. Right. We'll see you tomorrow with a kind of curtain raiser on the midterms. Until then, bye bye. Bye for now. Priya's lease turn in was set for Saturday. So on Friday, she stopped by the dealership to browse. She walked the lot, checked a few window stickers and did the math. Higher prices, higher payments. And none of those cars were any better than the one she already had. So she drove home and went online to leaseend.com instead. In about 12 minutes, she was on her way to buying out her lease. Why pay more for a car you don't know? Keep the one you love. Go to leaseend.com today. That's leaseend.com. This has been a global production.

34:54This is the story of the one. As a shipping manager, he's running the dock, stocking supplies, and making sure every order goes out on time. And Grainger helps him stay prepared. From shipping supplies to PPE to hand tools, he counts on Grainger to keep products moving and trucks rolling. So his operation runs smoothly, no matter the shift. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click Grainger.com, or just stop by. Grainger, for the ones who get it done.