A foreign country will attempt to influence Israel's upcoming April 9 Knesset election, head of the Shin Bet security agency Nadav Argaman warned Monday.
Speaking at a Tel Aviv University conference, Argaman told the audience of a "move that could impact the results of the election."
Channel 2 News reported that although Argaman made his comments at a civilian event, the military censor placed a gag order on some of his statements. Other remarks may be cleared by the censor in the future.
The Shin Bet declined to comment and none of its officials verified the report.
Channel 2 quoted Argaman as saying, "I don't know for whose benefit or to whose disadvantage. I don't know at this stage to identify the political interest, but it will intervene.
"I know what I'm talking about," he said.
Argaman said the foreign government in question would use hackers or other cyber tools to intervene in the election.
Although the news report made no mention of which country Argaman was referring to, the country is believed to be Russia.
Asked about the report at a press conference on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, "Russia has never intervened in the past, and has no intentions of intervening in the future in any democratic process in any country in the world."
Peskov said that while he does not read news from Israel, the public should not take everything it reports seriously.
Following the report, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee member Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin announced that "despite the election recess, I will demand an urgent discussion in the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and the [Knesset] Subcommittee for Cyber Defense. It is inconceivable for such a threat to be raised by the head of the Shin Bet and not to be examined in depth and urgently."
Nahmias-Verbin called untainted elections "the basis for a strong democracy."
Meretz MK Tamar Zandberg said, "We demand that our security forces ensure that [Russian President Vladmir] Putin doesn't steal the election from his friend, Bibi the dictator."
In a statement issued to allay concerns, the Shin Bet said it wanted "to make clear that the state of Israel and the intelligence community have the tools and capabilities to identify, monitor and thwart foreign influence efforts, should there be any."
"The Israeli defense apparatus is able to guarantee democratic and free elections are held in Israel," the statement said.
In an interview with Army Radio, Wednesday, former Shin Bet head Yaakov Peri said, "There are world powers, Russians, Chinese, Turks and even terrorist organizations that want to tilt the balance. On the other hand, there is no need to exaggerate the concerns."
Last year, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot told members of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that he believed Israel should be aware of possible attempts to intervene in government decisions through the use of cyber technology, citing instances of similar attempts in the U.S., France, and Ukraine.
