Israel’s Arrest of Journalist Abed Abu Shehadeh Raises Concerns

Abed Abu Shehadeh, a 38-year-old journalist and a Palestinian citizen of Israel, said he was putting on his pajamas on the evening of Nov. 3 when police officers and intelligence agents burst into his family’s third-floor apartment in Jaffa.

They strip-searched him, confiscated his phone, allowed him to dress and then whisked him away, he said in an interview at a restaurant in the city.

Five days later, after interrogations by Israel’s domestic security agency, the Shin Bet, Mr. Abu Shehadeh, who lives with his wife and two young children, was let go.

A former elected member of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa City Council, Mr. Abu Shehadeh has not been charged with a crime. The Israeli authorities have not publicly offered a reason for his arrest, though court records reviewed by The New York Times show that he was accused of being in contact with an unnamed “foreign agent.”

His highly publicized arrest — a week after Israel’s national elections — came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his allies have claimed that foreign actors illegally funneled large amounts of money to bribe Arab citizens to vote for Arab political parties.

Critics say that Mr. Netanyahu and his allies are seeking to undermine the legitimacy of the record gains by Arab parties in the Parliament, or the Knesset, by contending without basis that Arab voters stole the election.