‘They are stealing’: Netanyahu unleashes election day scare tactics to rally voters
[*SOTN Editor’s Note: Netanyahu always projects his own crimes on his many enemies as the preceding headlines perfectly illustrates]
Matthew Knott
The Sydney Morning Herald
Tel Aviv: Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to capitalise on anti-Arab sentiment to drive his supporters to the polls as Israelis voted in their highest numbers in over 50 years.
By early afternoon and with hours remaining until polls closed, 45 per cent of eligible voters had cast a ballot, according to Israel’s central election committee, the highest since 1973.
Netanyahu, who voted shortly after noon on Tuesday, local time, said: “This is a very moving and fateful moment. My wife and I are truly overwhelmed. We know what is at stake, and since I am not allowed to say things explicitly, I will say: Vote correctly.”
At an election-day gathering of supporters of his conservative Likud party, Netanyahu warned them that turnout among Arab citizens was at an all-time high and the right needed to rally their supporters to avoid defeat.
Referring to reports of three Bedouin residents being arrested for attempted election bribery, Netanyahu said: “They are stealing our elections.”
“Get out everybody and stop celebrating,” he said.
“Otherwise we will wake up tomorrow morning with a left-wing government with Arab parties.”
Netanyahu, who has previously used scare tactics to rally his voters, also posted a photo of female voters in burqas and hijabs waiting in line to vote, playing on his supporters’ fears of Arab-Israelis.
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Turnout among Arab-Israelis, who make up 20 per cent of Israel’s population, is expected to soar this year because of frustration at high crime levels and anger at Netanyahu’s government, the most right-wing in Israel’s history.
After voting in the morning, leading opposition candidate Gadi Eisenkot called on all Israelis to vote to get rid of the “the worst government Israel has known”. He noted that victory wasn’t certain, adding that “we are on perhaps the most critical day since the founding of the state”.
Yair Golan, the leader of the left-wing Democrats party, said he was concerned his voters had shifted to Eisenkot and former prime minister Naftali Bennett.
“We are in an emergency; we are losing votes,” Golan said in a video. “We are the only ones that for sure will not sit with Netanyahu.”
Voting began early on Tuesday in Israel (4pm AEDT) in the first national elections since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, a day that shook the country and plunged the Middle East into turmoil.
Netanyahu’s hold on power is at stake, with centrist rivals promising to usher in a new era, but the polls have shown a close result between the two blocs, and it may take time before clear results are known.
Israeli media reports passed by the official military censor and published in the final days of the campaign have stated that Netanyahu pressured his military chief to provoke a confrontation with Iran ahead of the elections, suggesting high-level leaks from within the defence establishment. Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz denied the reports.