Israeli services ask permission to question Arab politicians

O director of Israeli internal security service, David Zini, asked the Public Prosecutor to authorize the interrogation of four Arab politicians, including Raam party leader Mansur Abbas, for alleged interference in the elections.

Shin Bet's boss asked the Attorney General, Gali Baharav-Miara, to authorize the interrogation of Sami Abu Shehadeh, president of the Balad party; Ahmad Tibi and a fourth deputy, both on the Joint List.

This is what the Israeli television station i24 reported, which states that the latter is a member of the Knesset “whose identity cannot be disclosed”.

However, the Attorney General replied that “in a rule of law, it is impossible to question citizens or holders of elected positions without proof that justifies it”.

In a statement released by the newspaper “The Times of Israel”, Baharav-Miara urged Shin Bet to present the evidence at his disposal and to “justify an investigation.”.

The Likud party, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accused the prosecutor of obstructing the investigation of an alleged conspiracy of foreign interference in the Israeli electoral process, a case he denounced on Thursday, referring to him as “Ra’amgate”.

“Baharav-Miara is preventing Shin Bet from applying investigative measures (...) and intended to hide from the public that it is a crime against security (...) He is acting to cover up and frustrate the investigation into the manipulation of elections,” he said on social media, where he denounced a “selective application of the law”.

Shortly before, the party demanded that the prosecutor “budget his attempts to cover up and delay the investigation into the case of foreign interference in the elections, stop putting obstacles to Shin Bet and allow the investigation of the MPs of the Arab parties and their assistants”.

In addition, he recalled the statements of Judge Noam Solberg, President of the Central Election Commission, who, at first, pointed to the alleged participation of foreign actors who would have intervened in the process and bribed voters to favor the Arab parties, although he later ruled out the thesis of electoral fraud.

The opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot, for his part, accused Netanyahu and Likud of trying “to raise an attack on democracy and the rule of law”, something he attributed to his “desperate” in the face of difficulties in forming government, despite winning the elections with 27 seats.

“ They are trying to drag us all into a dangerous constitutional crisis, unfortunately not for the first time, which is precisely why they are neither worthy nor fit to remain in power. That is why most citizens of Israel voted against their stay in office,” he said on his social networks.