PR firm boasts hidden cameras deterred Arab voters at Israeli elections

POLITICAL operatives working for Benjamin Netanyahu’s party have boasted that they drove down voter turnout among Arab-israelis by illegally hiding 1,300 cameras inside Arab polling stations.

Israeli police intervened during Tuesday’s election after it emerged that volunteers for Mr Netanyahu’s Likud party were monitoring Arab polling stations with hidden cameras attached to their clothing.

Israeli election law forbids filming inside polling stations and police confiscated the cameras.

Mr Netanyahu defended the use of hidden cameras to combat voter fraud in Arab areas. Arab and Left-wing political parties said the cameras had deterred voters because they were intimidated. Turnout was 50 per cent, down from 63 per cent in 2015.

The heads of Kaizler Inbar, an Israeli PR firm, wrote on Facebook that they were behind the hidden camera operation and boasted “the percentage of [Arab] voters dropped to 50 per cent, the lowest seen in recent years”. A photograph alongside the post appeared to show the PR firm’s leaders with Mr Netanyahu and his wife on election night.

Mr Netanyahu made antagonising Israel’s Arab citizens a part of his election campaign. He said Israel was “not a state of all its citizens” but a nation state of the Jewish people. The comments led to a rebuke from Reuven Rivlin, Israel’s president, condemning “entirely unacceptable remarks about the Arab citizens of Israel”.

However, it seems more likely that turnout was low because of frustration with Arab political parties. Many Arab voters were frustrated when the Joint List coalition of parties split after political infighting. The Arab parties appear to have won 10 parliamentary seats, compared with 13 in the last election.