Arab party leaders say Netanyahu is stoking hatred to frighten voters

Prominent politicians from Arab-led parties in Israel have accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of stirring up hatred against the country's Palestinian citizens in a bid to improve his electoral chances.

In a video statement shared on social media on Tuesday, Joint List leader Yousef Jabareen said Netanyahu understood that "we can put an end to his bloody reign." Mansour Abbas, who heads the United Arab List, described the prime minister's remarks as a "scare tactic to mobilise right-wing voters and drive them to the polls."

The criticism followed a series of posts Netanyahu published on X on Tuesday. In them, he attacked Arab voters, calling them "Muslim Brotherhood supporters" and accusing them of "raiding the polling stations and stealing the elections."

In another post, Netanyahu pointed to a photograph of a long queue that appeared to show Palestinian citizens of Israel waiting at a polling station. He urged right-wing Israelis to "go out and vote for Likud," his own party, and portrayed the situation as a "matter of life and death for us."

Separately, Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, said on Tuesday that it had received numerous reports from Arab voters about attempts to discourage them from voting. The group said it had also been told that queues at polling stations in Arab-majority towns were moving very slowly and, in some cases, had stopped entirely. It additionally reported a shortage of ballot slips printed in Arabic.

Adalah said it had passed on its reports of these incidents to Israel's Central Elections Committee and to the Regional Elections Committees.

Sami Abu Shehadeh, a Palestinian politician who leads the Balad party, responded by praising Palestinian citizens of Israel in a post on X. "There are racists for whom these pictures are frightening, but for us, they encourage us and we'll continue with all our might! I call on Arab citizens to continue coming out in droves, it's in our hands!" he wrote.

Netanyahu has also argued that his main rival, Gadi Eisenkot, would not be able to govern without the backing of Arab parties. Eisenkot, however, has ruled out cooperating with any of them, saying they do not share his values.