Trump said he’d accept the election results. Netanyahu is challenging the outcome of his.

In Israel, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is contesting the outcome of the country's recent October 27 election, despite President Donald Trump having previously endorsed him. Trump had said he would accept the results, but Netanyahu, whose bloc lost its majority, is continuing to challenge the officially certified outcome.

Netanyahu and his Likud party allege without presenting any evidence that the election was "stolen" by Israel's Arab parties and foreign actors. The dispute intensified this week after Shin Bet chief David Zini, a Netanyahu loyalist, pushed for an investigation into the leaders of the Arab parties. However, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara refused to authorize such an investigation without any evidence.

Netanyahu, in a video statement, claimed there were serious suspicions that foreign countries had used large sums of money to manipulate the election results. The official results show Netanyahu's bloc dropped from a commanding 68 to 53 of the 120 seats in the Knesset, parliament. The opposition, led by Netanyahu's rival Gadi Eisenkot, holds 67 seats.

But nearly a third of those seats come from the two Arab parties, the Joint List and Raam, after a historic turnout that secured 19 seats. Netanyahu and his right-wing allies have been spreading claims of fraud, including alleging bribery, foreign funding, and fraud. Despite the Central Elections Committee rejecting claims of widespread fraud as baseless, Netanyahu's Likud party treated a letter from the committee as confirmation of the broader fraud narrative.

The attorney general's office criticized Zini for preventing the Shin Bet from passing pertinent evidence to her office or the police, stating that citizens or elected officials cannot be investigated without evidentiary grounds.