Lawmakers ask election chief and Shin Bet to probe Ra'am vote-buying claim

Yitzhak Kroizer, a member of the Knesset (Israel's parliament) for the Otzma Yehudit party, has asked the chair of the Central Elections Committee, Justice Noam Sohlberg, and the head of the Shin Bet security service, David Zini, to open an urgent investigation into suspected election bribery by the Arab party Ra'am or people acting for it, N12 reporter Dafna Liel said.

According to a follow-up report from N12, the request came after three residents of the Negev were arrested the previous day on suspicion of planning to hand out tens of thousands of shekels in return for votes for Ra'am. N12 said the letter, which other ministers and lawmakers also signed, demanded that every vote cast for Ra'am be disqualified until the suspicions are clarified.

Who signed, and what they asked for

The two outlets describe the authorship slightly differently. Commentator Amit Segal wrote on his Telegram channel that the appeal was a request from three people he identified by surname only: Shikli, Rothman and Kroizer. N12 presented Kroizer as the lawmaker who made the approach, adding that additional ministers and Knesset members were co-signatories without naming them.

Segal's post framed the suspicion as Ra'am or its representatives having paid bribes to voters on a wholesale scale. N12's wording was narrower, referring to suspected election bribery and to a plan to distribute money. The demand to set aside all of Ra'am's votes appears only in N12's report.

The bodies being asked to act

The Central Elections Committee is the body that runs Israel's national elections, approves party lists and oversees the counting of ballots. It is chaired by a justice of the Supreme Court; Noam Sohlberg currently holds that role. Requests to disqualify votes or contest results are typically directed to the committee or, later, to the courts.

The Shin Bet, formally the Israel Security Agency, is the domestic security service. Its main remit is counterterrorism and protecting state institutions, and criminal matters such as vote buying are usually handled by the Israel Police. The reports do not explain why the signatories chose to address the Shin Bet chief, David Zini.

The parties involved

Ra'am, known in English as the United Arab List, is an Islamist party drawing much of its support from Arab citizens, including Bedouin communities in the Negev, the arid region that makes up the south of the country. It made history by joining a governing coalition in the previous decade.

Otzma Yehudit, meaning Jewish Power, is a party on the nationalist right whose members have frequently clashed with Arab parties in the Knesset. Ra'am's response to the letter is not included in the reports.

About the reporting

N12 is the news arm of one of Israel's main commercial television channels, and Amit Segal is a political analyst at the same broadcaster who runs a widely followed Telegram channel. Both published the item within minutes of each other on Telegram, so the reports come from outlets connected to one broadcaster rather than from fully separate newsrooms. Both describe the same letter and the same core demand for an urgent inquiry.

What the reports do not say

• Whether the Central Elections Committee or the Shin Bet has acknowledged the letter or intends to act on it.
• The identities of the three Negev residents, which body arrested them, or whether any of them has been charged.
• Any link established by investigators between the suspects and Ra'am itself. The connection to the party is, at this stage, the claim of the letter's signatories.
• The full list of ministers and lawmakers who signed, beyond the surnames Segal gave.
• Any reaction from Ra'am or its leadership.
• Whether there is a legal basis for disqualifying all of a party's votes pending an investigation, and how many votes such a step would affect.