Jerusalem (AFP) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc on Thursday piled pressure on Arab-Israeli leaders over unproven accusations of foreign funding, in a push to neuter parties that could hold the key to forming a government after an inconclusive election.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who holds a largely ceremonial role, called for an investigation into allegations but cautioned against stigmatising the entire Arab-Israeli community, who voted at unprecedented rates.

Israel was nearing the completion of ballot counting from Tuesday’s election, the first since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks, with neither Netanyahu nor the opposition bloc led by former military chief Gadi Eisenkot appearing able to secure a majority.

The Netanyahu camp’s accusations, denied by both Arab-majority lists, could bring new uncertainty into the electoral process at a time when the threat of a new Israeli and US attack on Iran looms over the region.

Eisenkot said the official probe into the claims should run its course without interference, but also accused Netanyahu of seeking to “delegitimise” the election results.

The vote saw soaring participation by Arab-Israelis, descendants of Palestinians who stayed after the country’s creation in 1948, as outrage boiled at calls by officials such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to treat their community much as Israel has dealt with Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

Ben Gvir went so far as to encourage Israel to “immediately” order the arrests of Arab party leaders.

The Arab parties together have enough votes to take the opposition bloc over the finish line, but Eisenkot has baulked after relentless attacks by Netanyahu, who warned his right-wing Jewish base that voting for the opposition would put Arabs in power.

- ‘Political earthquake’ -

Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, a conservative who heads the Central Elections Committee, requested an investigation by the Shin Bet security service into allegations that the Arab grouping Raam received money from Qatar, the energy-rich Gulf powerbroker that has channels to Hamas.

“The Raamgate scandal is a political earthquake. Israel’s elections have been stolen!” Netanyahu’s Likud party said.

Raam chief Mansour Abbas said his party had “no connection whatsoever to the affair”, and welcomed an investigation.

The Joint List, which unites three Arab-majority parties, accused Netanyahu and his allies of a “campaign of incitement” that “exposes their fear” of Arab citizens’ political strength.

The Shin Bet cautioned that its investigation into the claims was not over, but added it was not intended to “cast aspersions or place blame on an entire sector that went out to vote in a democratic and lawful manner”.

Government officials did not offer evidence to back the allegations, and left-wing candidate Yair Golan accused Netanyahu of attempting to stir controversy after failing to get a majority: “He is trying to challenge the election results.”

Eisenkot said he had been briefed by the Shin Bet and the elections committee, adding it was “too early to understand what happened, and whether anything happened at all”.

But, he continued: “It’s already clear that Likud and Netanyahu have embarked on a coordinated, organised campaign seeking to delegitimise the results of the election.”

Netanyahu himself has long been under the cloud of allegations related to Qatar after the arrests last year of two of his aides for allegedly receiving payments from the Gulf state.

Qatar called the latest accusations “ridiculous and dangerous”.

Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, for years tacitly supported Qatar funding for Hamas rule in Gaza, hoping to preserve stability, but that paradigm collapsed on October 7, 2023.

- Kingmakers under pressure -

With nearly all of the vote counted, Netanyahu’s bloc was at 53 seats and the opposition forces led by Eisenkot on 48 – both under the 61 needed to form a government.

The two Arab formations were on track for an unprecedented 19 seats between them.

Yousef Jabareen, head of the Joint List, has told AFP that he is willing to cooperate with the opposition to bring down Netanyahu but without joining it in a government.

On Thursday, he accused Netanyahu of launching a “campaign of incitement against Arab citizens”.

Netanyahu had tried during the voting to raise allegations of fraud, saying that Arab parties were caught with envelopes of cash, and Likud peddled the accusations throughout Thursday.

Police said they arrested three suspects but the election commission called it an isolated local case.

Dean Livne, acting director general of the central elections committee, said any suggestion of widespread issues was “entirely groundless”.