Middle East Insider · Issue 071 · Thursday, October 29, 2026

The Fraud Question

Good evening. Three stories about the integrity of Israel’s vote are running as one; the first part of this edition keeps them apart. Then the double envelopes, Vance’s letter to Tehran, Lebanon, Gaza and the Gulf, and Damascus, Ankara and Belgrade.

A claim the police call unsupported, an inquiry its author says he cannot vouch for, and a bribery case in the Negev are three different things, and only the second has a deadline.

Likud’s claim that the election was “stolen by Arab parties” drew two answers today. The police said “there is no investigative or intelligence evidence to support the claims,” and their data show 48 complaints of fraud and impersonation nationwide against nearly 80 last time. Dean Livne, the Central Elections Committee’s acting director general, told Kan, “We received a list of claims, not evidence, from the Likud party and other parties.” The party says it filed 1,183 complaints and that nobody called a single witness, and it is preparing a petition for repeat voting at stations it calls compromised, without alleging forged ballots or falsified totals, Ynet reported.

The second matter is in the Shin Bet’s hands. Justice Noam Sohlberg, the committee’s chairman, wrote on Wednesday to David Zini, who directs the Shin Bet, the domestic security agency, that “serious suspicions have been brought to my attention regarding improper influence on the elections” through “funding provided by foreign entities acting against Israeli interests,” that “while I cannot attest to the substance of these suspicions” there is “an obligation to investigate them thoroughly,” and asked for findings within a week. The letter names no country and no party; Zini brought the matter to Sohlberg himself and briefed Netanyahu on Wednesday and Gadi Eisenkot, the opposition’s candidate for prime minister, on Thursday morning. Hebrew outlets say the suspicion is Qatari money for turnout in Arab towns; a source described it to Ynet as “a much smaller affair than is being made out,” and Qatar called the allegation “ridiculous and dangerous in equal measure.” The Telegraph quoted Iranian officials who said Tehran had sought to interfere in Israel’s election and will try to disrupt next week’s American midterms; one said, “we would like to see a divided America and a divided Israel.” Committee officials told Ynet the agency never raised the matter in the security assessments before the vote, and Kan reported a senior official’s view that even if every suspicion were substantiated the scale would not have changed the outcome. Likud, which has named it “Ra’am Gate,” called it “an earthquake” and said “They stole the elections in Israel!”; Mansour Abbas said Ra’am “has no connection whatsoever to the affair in question”; President Isaac Herzog said “we must avoid tarnishing an entire community.”

The third is the Negev bribery case that produced Netanyahu’s election-day video. Seven people have been arrested, three of them school principals, and the file has gone to the national fraud unit; a magistrate’s court ordered the doctor among the first three released to house arrest, the police appealed and his detention was extended, the other two are held until Sunday, and three of Thursday’s four are confined at home. Before the new arrests detectives had said they found no significant evidence and expected to close the case, and the scheme has no link to the Shin Bet inquiry, a police official told Channel 12.

The ballots of soldiers, diplomats and prisoners were opened from 1 a.m., and by 4:57 p.m. all 392,234 double envelopes were in. Likud took a seat from Shas during the afternoon, the final table has Ra’am at 8 and the Joint List at 11, and the blocs finished at 53, 48 and 19; the result is made official by November 4. United Torah Judaism sources told Channel 12 the party could back an Eisenkot government from outside, its alliance with Netanyahu “exhausted.”

I draw two conclusions. First, the inquiry that matters is the judge’s. A list of complaints with no witness called and a bribery case in one region are matters for the police and the courts; a security service testing intelligence its chairman would not vouch for, with a deadline before the official result, is the one to watch, and a committee source says it will delay neither the final figures nor President Herzog’s consultations. Second, the remedy is narrower than the rhetoric: if the Shin Bet proves that foreign money bought votes, a court can annul a station’s result or recalculate seats, not disqualify a community or a bloc, and if it comes back empty the figures stand as the committee has them. Washington’s stake is unchanged: a government in Jerusalem, soon, able to decide on Iran before the President does.

MEF Observer, Iran at a Domestic Stalemate as It Seeks to End ‘Neither Peace, nor War’ (Oct 29): Shay Khatiri on a leadership debating how to leave its no-war, no-peace limbo while it fears another uprising, with inflation at 89.8 percent by the central bank’s own figure.

Israel Insider, Election Results, with Alex Selsky (Oct 28): Thirty minutes on the result as it stood Wednesday evening; on the vote-buying cases Selsky said they did not look significant and that every one would be investigated.

Yesterday’s special edition, What the Ballots Said, carried the result as it stood just before 11 p.m., with a seat table against Channel 12’s exit poll. On Monday at 1 p.m. Eastern the Forum hosts Bernard Haykel of Princeton on Saudi Arabia at War.

Vance wrote to Tehran’s security chief, the President says the letter was about medical supplies, Tehran says it has not replied, and allies were told to prepare for strikes after November 3.

Vice President Vance sent a letter to Mohsen Rezaei, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, to revive negotiations, the Wall Street Journal reported. It went last week through Qatar and proposes talks led by Vance, the New York Times says; by Thursday afternoon Tasnim, the Revolutionary Guards’ news agency, said Tehran had received it, had not replied, and holds to its seven conditions, Reuters reported. President Trump, asked whether he had directed it, said “no” and “They need help with medical supplies and various things. He asked me what I thought, I said if you want to do that, that’s OK.”

AP reports that U.S. officials have warned regional allies to prepare for renewed action against Iran after the midterms, lasting “several days,” and for Iranian strikes on their energy infrastructure. A senior Iranian official called Qatar’s draft “unacceptable ideas and not an offer.” The Guards said three tankers had struck mines and burned south of the Strait of Hormuz; Central Command said on Wednesday the transit lanes “have been cleared of sea mines by US forces and remain so.” The Pentagon told Congress the war has cost $47.1 billion.

Qassem says Hezbollah does not care who governs Israel, Israel holds 63 percent of Gaza, the Houthis hit Aden’s airport, and a ship out of Haifa was sunk in the Black Sea.

Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s leader, wrote, “We do not concern ourselves with who governs Israel, but let it be perfectly clear that it cannot continue its occupation and must leave our land,” and that “there is no room to discuss the disarmament”; the same statement called June’s American-brokered framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel “null and void.” Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun said that a week after the last American-mediated talks none of the four tracks, a ceasefire, withdrawal, demarcation and prisoners, had moved, and the Lebanese Forces’ ministers boycotted Thursday’s cabinet session over the delay in sending Hezbollah’s explosives case to the Judicial Council. Israel’s army said it had killed six Hamas operatives, three of them October 7 participants, “in systematic violation of the ceasefire”; Israel now holds about 63 percent of Gaza, the Times of Israel reports, with the peace plan stalled on Hamas’s refusal to disarm.

The Houthis hit Aden’s airport with two ballistic missiles on Wednesday, the sixth such attack in days, Yemen’s government says; satellite imagery shows their strike on Ras Tanura hit a refining unit while crude exports continued. The Contship Jet, chartered by Israel’s ZIM and out of Haifa, sank off Bulgaria after three boat drones struck it; all 18 crew were rescued.

Syria summoned Jordan’s ambassador over the Daraa strikes, Iraq’s prime minister went to Damascus, Erdogan called the President, and a knife attack outside Israel’s Belgrade embassy ended with the attacker dead.

Syria summoned Jordan’s ambassador over Monday’s Jordanian strikes in Daraa, which Amman says hit Islamic State positions after the Karak church attack that killed nine; Damascus says seven civilians died, and the two governments agreed on a joint security committee. Iraq’s prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi, made the first visit by an Iraqi premier to Damascus since Assad fell, on energy and security cooperation, and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told President Trump by telephone that Turkey is pursuing diplomacy on Hormuz and Yemen under its defense alliance with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

In Belgrade a minor shouting “Allahu Akbar” attacked a police officer outside Israel’s embassy with two knives and was shot dead; the suspect was known as an Islamic State supporter, and Serbia raised its terror alert to red.

Corrections Desk. Yesterday’s edition gave mid-afternoon losses on the Tel Aviv exchange; at the close the TA-35 index was down 1.81 percent and the TA-125 2.46, Globes reported.

If this edition sorted the fraud story for you, forward it to one person who has read only the headline.

Reply with the one question about the Shin Bet inquiry you want answered when the findings come.