Eisenkot Demands Probe After Uvda Election Report | JP
Yashar! party chairman Gadi Eisenkot said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu must not remain in power “even one more minute,” following a Channel 12 investigative report alleging that Netanyahu’s circle was involved in planting election fraud claims with the police. The Prime Minister’s Office dismissed the report as false.
According to the report by Uvda, Channel 12’s investigative program, Netanyahu’s chief of staff Ido Norden did more than file a police complaint against activists of Ra’am, the Islamist Arab party. Uvda reported that Norden also directed police to an “intelligence source,” which led to the activists’ arrests. That source, the program said, is a former employee of the Prime Minister’s Office who is close to Yossi Shelley.
The investigation turned up nothing. The office of the Attorney General and the police investigations division are now examining whether the information was deliberately planted to strengthen the “Arabs are stealing the election” campaign.
“The conduct of outgoing Prime Minister Netanyahu and his circle is a tangible, direct and immediate threat to Israeli democracy,” Eisenkot said in response to the report.
“There is no corner of Israel that has not been corrupted, distorted and subordinated to Netanyahu’s personal political survival,” he added. “There is no restraint he has not cast off, and no line he has not crossed.”
Eisenkot also explicitly ruled out a rotation agreement with Netanyahu. “Under no circumstances may Netanyahu continue to hold the reins of government for even one more minute. Under no circumstances may Israel be dragged into another round of elections while he is prime minister,” he said. “Clearly, as long as he is in office, there will be no more fair and proper elections in Israel. This is the central consideration guiding me in every coalition negotiation I am conducting these days.”
He called for “an immediate investigation” of the affair, and for the police and the Shin Bet security agency to clarify the reported details at once. “I will work to establish a commission of inquiry into the involvement and interference of the Prime Minister’s Office on election day, and into the conduct of the security agencies in the run-up to it and during it,” he said.
The Prime Minister’s Office rejected the report outright, calling it “a false report, intended to silence the election contamination affair.”
“On the substance: criminal information reached chief of staff Ido Norden, and he fulfilled his duty, as is expected of any law-abiding citizen, and connected that person with the police,” the office said. “Any further involvement by the chief of staff alleged in the report is false and grounds for a defamation suit.”