---
title: "The Money That Wasn’t There: Shin Bet Finds No Proof of Israeli Election Meddling"
description: "Netanyahu and his security chief spoke of foreign cash buying Arab votes. Investigators say they have not found it"
author: "Jan Sokol"
published: 2026-11-09T16:18:28Z
modified: 2026-11-10T00:03:11Z
url: https://rews.cc/a/the-money-that-wasn-t-there-shin-bet-finds-no-proof-of-israe-5b2822
language: en
tags: ["israel", "elections", "qatar", "politics", "security", "mideast"]
publisher: "Rews (https://rews.cc)"
---

# The Money That Wasn’t There: Shin Bet Finds No Proof of Israeli Election Meddling

*Netanyahu and his security chief spoke of foreign cash buying Arab votes. Investigators say they have not found it*

By Jan Sokol · November 9, 2026 · https://rews.cc/a/the-money-that-wasn-t-there-shin-bet-finds-no-proof-of-israe-5b2822

## In brief

- Arab-led parties won 19 seats in Israel’s October 27 election, and Herzog asked Gadi Eisenkot to try to form a government first
- Haaretz reported that the Shin Bet found no evidence that Palestinian Authority money reached Arab-led parties
- Zini reportedly spoke of up to NIS 100 million; investigators are looking at a few hundred thousand shekels at most
- Zini reportedly removed internal critics from the probe, and police have restricted cooperation with the Shin Bet
- The attorney general said she had seen nothing that would have affected the result. Qatar denies interfering

After an election, the losing side hunts for an explanation. Arithmetic rarely satisfies it. A conspiracy does better, because a conspiracy means the result can be undone.

Israel voted on October 27. When the count was in, parties led by Palestinian citizens of Israel had won 19 seats, a figure the election authorities confirmed. Those seats changed the sums in the Knesset: if the anti-Netanyahu Jewish parties are willing to work with the Arab-led parties, they have the numbers to remove him. President Isaac Herzog has given the first chance to form a government to opposition figure Gadi Eisenkot. Likud’s response was to say that [the vote had been stolen](https://rews.cc/a/tel-aviv-crowds-ask-eisenkot-to-break-his-pledge-and-govern--b23cbf), and that foreign money had done the stealing.

## A few hundred thousand shekels

On Monday, November 9, the newspaper Haaretz reported that the investigation had not supported the story. Citing that report, [Al Jazeera wrote](https://aljazeera.com/news/2026/11/9/israels-shin-bet-finds-no-evidence-of-foreign-election-meddling-report) that two senior Israeli law enforcement officials said the Shin Bet had found no evidence that several hundred thousand shekels went from the Palestinian Authority to Arab-led parties in Israel. The investigation is still open. Neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nor the agency’s chief, David Zini, both of whom made the allegations, has been backed up by it so far.

The scale of the claim has shrunk as it travelled. Zini has reportedly said that as much as NIS 100 million, about $35 million, may have come from a foreign power, widely reported to be Qatar, to tilt the election toward the Arab parties, according to [the Times of Israel’s account](https://www.timesofisrael.com/report-shin-bet-has-no-proof-of-election-interference-only-zini-has-faith-in-probe) of the Haaretz reporting. What investigators are actually examining, according to [Haaretz](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/2026-11-09/ty-article/.premium/shin-bet-yet-to-foreign-election-interference-evidence-officials-tell-haaretz/000001a1-bf56-dc4a-a7a9-bff7b14a0000), is a possible transfer of no more than a few hundred thousand shekels, from the Palestinian Authority rather than a foreign state. No transfers from Qatar or any other Arab country are under investigation. One hundred million had become a few hundred thousand, and even those few hundred thousand have not been found.

Dozens of people have been questioned. Likud had said that money was used to drive up turnout among Arab citizens, including by bribing voters with fuel cards. It offered no tangible proof. According to the report, the major fuel companies saw no unusual activity on their cards.

The officials did not soften their verdict. One said the matter was “certainly not a security matter, and it is highly doubtful that it is even a criminal one.” Another, in Al Jazeera’s translation: “All there is is intelligence information without any real substantiation.” In the Times of Israel’s rendering, an official added that everyone understood the affair was not heading toward a criminal investigation, “except for Zini himself.”

## The loyal chief

Netanyahu appointed Zini to run the Shin Bet last year, after a long fight with the man who held the job before him, [Ronen Bar](https://rews.cc/a/a-phone-number-and-a-clock-ex-shin-bet-chief-ronen-bar-sues--a95a0e). Zini is regarded as the prime minister’s ally. Since the vote he has tried to investigate several prominent Arab politicians, and he has been criticised over reports that he wanted senior figures in Arab parties questioned under caution even though, critics said, the evidence did not amount to reasonable suspicion, [The New Arab reported](https://www.newarab.com/news/israels-shin-bet-finds-no-evidence-election-meddling-report).

A day before the latest report, Haaretz wrote that Zini had [removed senior officials who disagreed with him](https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-11-08/ty-article/.premium/shin-bets-zini-removed-critics-tapped-ally-to-head-election-interference-probe/000001a1-b79c-deb0-a9b5-ff9fc1ce0000) from the investigation and put an ally in charge of it. “Zini is clearly trying to keep anyone who disagrees with him away from the investigation,” one official told the paper.

Here is a reflection, and it is offered only as one. When an agency is told to find something, it learns quickly to stop asking whether the thing exists. The doubters are the first to go.

The rest of the state has not gone along. The Shin Bet waited several days before giving its material to the police, a delay [Israel Today described](https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/shin-bet-hands-over-evidence-of-possible-foreign-election-interference-to-police) as part of an open conflict between Zini and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara. A senior police official then ordered investigators not to share information with the Shin Bet or help it without his explicit approval, [Ynet reported](https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bjd4zgo6gx). The intelligence service and the police, which are supposed to work as one investigating machine, are working against each other.

On Sunday the attorney general said she had seen nothing that would have influenced the results “or substantiate a claim of influence that could lead to a change in the election results.” The police and the Shin Bet are expected to send her their assessments within days.

## Doha, and a television studio

Part of the case was built from travel. Netanyahu asked why the Arab lawmaker Ahmad Tibi had gone to Qatar a few days before the vote. Tibi said he went to Doha to appear on Al Jazeera. The accusations also continue a campaign against Qatar that began well before the election: Haaretz has previously reported a secret influence operation aimed at Qatar after the October 7, 2023 attacks.

Doha has denied everything. “We reject the accusations made by certain Israeli politicians and their contacts in the media,” Majed al-Ansari, the Qatari foreign ministry’s spokesman, said on October 29. Turkey, also named in the allegations, has rejected them too.

That leaves the people whose votes are under suspicion. Representatives of the Arab parties have warned against treating Arab citizens’ ballots, as a category, as a security problem. They are citizens who voted, in the numbers they chose to, for the parties they chose. For two weeks the head of the country’s internal security service has looked for a foreign hand behind them. So far, the investigators say, he has not found one.