Abed Abu Shehadeh, a 38-year-old journalist and a Palestinian citizen of Israel, said police officers and intelligence agents burst into his family’s third-floor apartment in Jaffa on the evening of 3 November. They strip-searched him, took his phone and led him away, he told The New York Times.

Five days later, after questioning by the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, he was released. He has not been charged. Shehadeh lives with his wife and two young children and is a former elected member of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa city council.

The authorities have not publicly given a reason for the arrest. Court records reviewed by The New York Times show he was accused of contact with an unnamed “foreign agent.” Shehadeh said the questions focused on a podcast interview he recorded in Qatar last month, before the election, with Azmi Bishara, a former member of parliament. Bishara, now based in Qatar, was accused by Israel in 2007 of spying for Hezbollah; he denies it and rejects the “foreign agent” label. He said he gave the interview to raise turnout among Arab citizens, which he called essential to removing Netanyahu’s coalition.

The arrest, a week after the national election, comes as Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies claim that foreign actors illegally moved large sums to bribe Arab citizens into voting for Arab parties. Critics say they are trying to undercut those parties’ record result — 19 Knesset seats for two lists — by arguing, without public evidence, that Arab voters “stole” the election. On Tuesday in parliament, Netanyahu again demanded an inquiry into foreign influence and called Arab lawmakers “terror supporters” and “Israel haters.”

Police and intelligence investigators have not publicly produced evidence for those claims. Last week, Supreme Court justice Noam Sohlberg, who chairs the Central Elections Committee, certified the final tally and dismissed attempts to cast doubt on Arab votes. Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the anti-Netanyahu opposition, is trying to build a coalition and could look to the Arab parties for support.

Former Shin Bet director Ami Ayalon said, after meeting the agency’s current leadership, that it is “smearing a broad, legitimate segment of citizens fighting for their rights” and failing in its duty to defend the democratic system. The Shin Bet did not answer the Times; the police did not reply immediately. Al Jazeera separately reported the release after five days without charge, and the suspicion of contact with a foreign agent tied to the Qatar interview.

A day after he got out, Shehadeh said he was sure he would not have been arrested if Arab turnout had been lower: “It’s political persecution to delegitimize Arab voters.” On Sunday, before more than a hundred Jews and Arabs who gathered to welcome him, he warned: “First they will come for us, the Arabs. Then they will come for anyone who opposes the government.”

Image: Wikimedia Commons — Old Jaffa in the evening (Pudelek, CC BY-SA 4.0). The photo shows the city, not the arrest.

Sources consulted: Journalist’s arrest adds to fears the security agency is being politicized — The New York Times; Israeli forces release Palestinian journalist Abou Shhadeh — Al Jazeera.