There have been many Zini controversies, but this is the biggest of them all. It encapsulates the deepest fears of everyone involved. On one side, the right sees an attorney general who has effectively functioned as the chairwoman of the opposition and is now obstructing—just as in the Military Advocate General affair—any investigation into suspicions of foreign interference and a devastating violation of electoral integrity. On the other side, the opposition sees a Shin Bet chief appointed by Netanyahu who is blowing open a scandal that aligns with the prime minister’s political narrative at an extraordinarily sensitive moment. And all of this revolves around the most sacred institution of democracy: elections to the Knesset.
“Imagine discovering that Likud was funded from head to toe by Russia,” the Shin Bet chief said this week during a hearing with Justice Solberg. “Would that invalidate the elections, or would we say that because we couldn’t identify a specific polling station, everything was fine?”
Zini made it abundantly clear that he believes Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara is deliberately dragging her feet for political reasons. But he has a problem: On Election Day, he appeared before the cameras and announced that the elections had been conducted properly.
So where did this scandal come from?
“Before the elections, we had general intelligence. At noon on Election Day, reports came in confirming that the phenomenon was occurring across the country, involving both Arab parties. Free fuel cards, numerous reports along the lines of: ‘Vote for us and get 200 shekels; bring your family and get 600 dollars.’”
Zini then used an analogy from his home region, the Golan Heights:
“Imagine someone tells you that a cubic meter of poisoned water has been released from Mount Hermon. Later, you discover poisoned water in the Banias River. Do you close your eyes, ignore it, and say it’s all a coincidence?”
Solberg is right in the formal legal sense: Even if every allegation turns out to be accurate, there are not enough specific polling stations that can be identified for invalidation. But Zini is also right that this is a deeply disturbing affair.
Baharav-Miara is also right that, in this case, the Shin Bet sought to employ measures of a kind never used before—at least not since the days when the security service functioned as David Ben-Gurion’s long arm against the political opposition.
On one side are allegations that Israeli democracy was manipulated through enormous sums of foreign money. On the other are allegations of a grave assault on Israeli democracy by a shadowy intelligence organization headed by an outsider appointed by the leader of a rival political party.
Regrettably, two things need to be said.
First, even if the attorney general is right, she has thoroughly earned—whether fairly or through her own misconduct—the deep suspicion directed at her.
For years, she has delayed decisions in cases involving opposition members (Gilad Kariv, for example), while demonstrating extraordinary activism whenever a decision could harm the government.
Nor were her outcries over the use of the Shin Bet against political figures expressed with anything approaching the same intensity when an investigation was conducted into the office of Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Second, Likud and Netanyahu are misreading reality.
They did not win the elections, and their conduct reflects a defeatist mentality while bringing dangerously close the possibility that a problematic minority government will be formed over their heads.
Even the strongest advocates of national unity on the other side view this behavior as an attempt to undermine the election results. The Shin Bet’s conduct is doing nothing to alleviate their concerns.
The solution must involve acknowledging the election results, insisting that the investigation be pursued to its fullest extent, and calling for the establishment of a national unity government. > >