Anti-Druze incitement doubles after Israeli elections, pushed by stolen vote conspiracists - report

NOVEMBER 8, 2026 16:55The Druze community has faced more than double the amount of violent and incendiary discourse on Israeli social media since the elections last month, a FakeReporter report released last week found.FakeReporter found that online hate speech against the Druze increased by 106% from Election Day until October 30, when activity peaked because some Right-wing conspiracists began pushing claims that Arab voters stole the election.The report, first reported by Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, emphasized that the accounts leading the trend were all associated with current coalition parties.Pro-government accounts on X included pictures of polling stations in Druze villages with captions such as "the Druze are ungrateful. They betrayed Netanyahu and stabbed him in the back,” while also including false claims about low percentages of Druze support for Likud.Between October 27 and October 31, FakeReporter identified 952 posts mentioning the Druze community among X accounts it classified as part of the "poison machine."People from the Druze minority vote in the Israeli national election at a polling station in the Druze village of Daliyat al-Carmel, northern Israel, October 27, 2026. (credit: REUTERS/AMMAR AWAD)Online anti-Druze sentiment comes after Likud received 5% more Druze votes than in 2022However, the hate comments came after Druze support for Netanyahu's Likud rose.While a majority of Druze voters chose Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar or Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu, support for Likud rose among Druze voters by 5% since the last election.FakeReporter noted that in the 2026 Knesset elections, Likud received 16% of overall Druze votes, as compared to 11% in the 2022 election. However, Druze support for Likud fell from its overall high in 2021, when the party received an overall Druze vote share.Notably, Yashar and Yisrael Beiteinu both have Druze candidates who will serve in the 26th Knesset: Kamil Abu Rukun was 13th on Yashar’s list, and MK Hamad Amar was 7th on Yisrael Beiteinu’s list.'I spit on you': Pro-government accounts claim Israeli Druze ungrateful to NetanyahuSeveral of the comments portrayed the Druze community as traitors to Israel."Very unfortunate… but says a lot about the Arab character… I spit on you,” one post, with 64,400 views, reads.People line up at a polling station to vote in the Israeli national election in the Druze village of Daliyat al-Carmel, northern Israel, October 27, 2026. (credit: REUTERS/AMMAR AWAD)Others characterized the Druze community as inseparable from other Arabic-speaking communities in Israel.Another user posted that the Druze community “are no longer my brothers. You have Muslim brothers. Wretched traitors." That post received 27,000 views.Some of the comments identified by FakeReporter accused the Druze of being "ungrateful" to Netanyahu and to Israel, and accused them of bringing the "...next massacre upon your Druze brothers in Syria.""After these elections I understood that it is only a matter of interest and apparently if they were strong, they too would slaughter me if only they could… In my opinion, these ungrateful people should be transferred to Syria and Lebanon."A small minority of the hate comments called for the Druze community to be expelled from the country."The Druze are traitors who should have been murdered… What have we seen? That one must not trust the gentiles,” one comment read."The Druze are Arabs exactly like Hamas; they too should be expelled from here,” another read.Most of the comments that called for expelling the Druze from Israel had only a few dozen views.Notably, FakeReporter noted that it identified a 428% increase in the amount of negative and inflammatory discourse against Arab Israelis two days after the elections, approximately when coalition supporters began claiming the election was stolen.FakeReporter CEO Nir Rosen noted that "this is not just an attack against the Druze community, but part of a broader discourse of delegitimization of the election results, and of populations that voted contrary to the political expectations of profiles belonging to the poison machine."Some of the accounts that led the vitriolic comments against the Druze had tens of thousands of followers, and several were followed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s son, Yair.“This is dangerous discourse that undermines the social fabric in Israel and harms its democratic foundations," Rosen said.“When incitement against entire populations becomes intertwined with attempts to undermine the legitimacy of election results, the danger is not only in deepening hatred and division, but also in refusing to accept the voters' decision and deteriorating into violent confrontations."Follow us on Google