When sirens started warning over rocket fire from the Gaza Strip Sept. 10, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was forced to step off the stage in Ashdod where he was addressing an election rally. But shortly after his humiliating removal from the stage, Netanyahu got right back on the campaign trail, with the same message he has been trumpeting for the last few weeks: “They are trying to steal the election from us!” He even called the Knesset back into session Sept. 11, so that he could fast-track his Camera Bill at breakneck speed, something never done before during an Israeli election. The law would have allowed representatives of the different parties to install cameras in the various polling stations on election day. He did this even though General Attorney Avichai Mandelblit opposed such urgent legislation on the eve of an election, and the fact that the law wasn’t even approved by the Knesset’s Regulatory Committee Sept. 9. As expected, Netanyahu failed to get the necessary majority, and the new law was rejected.

The question that needs to be asked is why Netanyahu insisted on moving ahead with his Camera Bill in the first place. What was he trying to achieve? The answer is that he had several goals. He wanted to create chaos in the polling stations on election day; he wanted to discourage Arab citizens of Israel from going to the polling booths and voting; and he wanted to apply pressure to his supporters by relaying a sense of real risk — "They are trying to steal the election from us” — so as to maximize the number of voters on the right.

In the last presidential election in the United States, candidate Donald Trump refused to commit himself to accepting the outcome of the election. As he put it, “Of course I would accept a clear election result, but I would also reserve my right to contest or file a legal challenge in the case of a questionable result.” It looks as if Netanyahu is now trying to adopt Trump’s approach. Creating chaos in the polling stations on election day will give Netanyahu reason to reject the results, if it is impossible for him to form a majority coalition.

What is important to remember is that the moment Netanyahu used the phrase “stealing the election” in the same sentence as the term “polling stations,” he meant polling stations where Arab citizens vote. Evidence of this can be seen in the April election, when the Likud sent 1,200 cameras to document voting in Arab towns and villages exclusively. Anyone who was really interested in ensuring a clean election would have sent cameras to all the voting stations in Israel, rather than categorizing them on the basis of ethnicity. Obviously, Netanyahu has no problem ignoring Chairman of the Central Elections Committee Orly Adas, who said in a Sept. 8 statement, “Only two polling stations were found in which there was a suspicion of voter fraud, and in both cases it was in favor of Shas and the Likud.”