Jerusalem Daily: Who will form Israel’s next government?

Aljazeera
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Oct 31, 2026
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Accusations of foreign interference
in Israeli elections continue to fly as Netanyahu and
Eisenkot both scramble to form the coalitions needed to govern.
Meanwhile, forced displacement
and home demolitions in Hebron continue
as Israel's strangling siege on the city enters its ninth day.
Was there really any foreign interference
in Israel's elections or was it yet another
attempt by Netanyahu to scapegoat others
for his party failing to win a majority?
Accusations that Qatar
and Turkiye interfered by funneling money to candidates and bribing
Palestinian citizens of Israel have
been dismissed as baseless and ridiculous.
The Elections Commission found no evidence of fraud,
yet some are still clinging on to these
ideas. First of all, it's not just Qatar
that is being accused of this meddling, it's also Turkey.
Two, we found people with bags of cash, OK,
and stuffed envelopes, OK, in places where
in Arab villages where the voter turnout
was at a maximum of maybe 19 or 20 percent.
All of a sudden, it turned into a 90 percent voter turnout,
which is rather rare in this case.
I think everybody in Israel is absolutely pleased
that everybody is participating in
its democracy, that nearly two million Arabs voted
in Israel's elections, which is absolutely
amazing.
The issue is whether or not they were paid to vote,
which is against Israeli law, or
paid to have their vote swayed a specific way.
When you have an increase
of almost 60 percent voter turnout in a specific area,
Questions are definitely going to be raised.
First, I'll start with condemning any intervention
in any other country's internal affairs.
And I wish Israel would stop doing this.
And I think this hypocrisy of Israelis complaining about interference
in their election after intervening
in every election in Western countries
and military intervention in neighboring countries in interior issues.
I think this is just hilarious.
The whole political debate in America right now
is over Israeli interference in the American election.
While Gadi Eizenkot commended his opponent Netanyahu
for reportedly taking action with the Shin Bet
against foreign interference,
he also accused him of using his typical tactic
of illegitimate influence operations on the Israeli public,
aiming to delay and undermine the final election results.
Netanyahu continues to completely oppose any coalition
with Arab-led parties.
Netanyahu's son, Yair,
has also been posting about Arab parties and Arab voters, calling
them the next biggest threat to Israel aside
from the Iranian nuclear threat.
But Eisenkot's bloc has not yet completely ruled out forming
a coalition with the Arab-led
parties, the Joint List and Ra'am.
However, deep-rooted political
and ideological differences make forming a coalition between
them difficult to imagine.
As a new Israeli government is set to be formed
in the coming weeks, the long-standing policies
of violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank persist.
Nine days into Israel's military operation and lockdown of Hebron,
the city's municipality
The police said the operation has resulted
in the displacement of 537 families so far.
So far, as well as the arrest of 125 Palestinians,
15 of whom were placed under administrative
detention.
Meanwhile, Israeli settler violence against
Palestinian olive farmers and activists continues
in the village of Kafr Malik in the occupied West Bank.
And when the Israeli army intervenes, it's not to stop the settlers.
Instead, they arrest activists
who come to support Palestinian farmers with their harvest,
a harvest that has become synonymous
with Israeli settler attacks, the theft of olives
and army complicity.
