Israel's elections committee votes to bar both main Arab-led lists from October election
Israel's Central Elections Committee voted to disqualify Ra'am and the Joint List from next month's election, putting Palestinian citizens' representation before the Supreme Court weeks before polling day.
Israel’s main Arab parties have denounced a move to bar them from next month’s election as an attempt to stop Arab voters helping to unseat the government.
On Wednesday, the country’s Central Elections Committee voted to disqualify the United Arab List, or Ra’am, and the Joint List, putting the political representation of Palestinian citizens of Israel before the Supreme Court weeks before voters go to the polls on 27 October.
The committee also voted separately to bar Hadash legislator Ofer Cassif and Balad leader Sami Abu Shehadeh. Ra’am is led by Mansour Abbas, while the Joint List is an alliance of the Arab-led Hadash, Ta’al and Balad parties.
The bans are not final. Disqualifications of individual candidates require Supreme Court approval, while lists can appeal their exclusion. Adalah, the legal centre representing the parties and candidates, says it will challenge the bans when the court hears the cases next week.
Ra’am called its exclusion “political and unacceptable”. The Joint List said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir were trying to discourage Arab citizens from voting. Its leader, Yousef Jabareen, questioned how the committee could bar parties representing more than 1.25 million voters.
The petitions invoke Section 7A of Basic Law: The Knesset. Likud sought to disqualify the Joint List and Cassif, and was among the groups that filed against Ra’am; Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party sought to bar Abu Shehadeh. The committee voted 31-4 to bar Abu Shehadeh; Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara found no legal basis to exclude the other targets.
Sources
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