Israel’s Supreme Court, sitting as the High Court of Justice, on Friday overturned the Central Elections Committee’s decision to disqualify four Arab parties and two candidates for parliament for the October 27 Knesset election.
The Joint List, composed of Balad, Ta’al and Hadash, as well as Ra’am will now be permitted to run after the court rejected a motion brought by National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and his Otzma Yehudit party.
The motion had argued that the Arab parties supported armed struggle against Israel and undermined its right to exist as a Jewish, democratic state, which would allow their disqualification under Israeli electoral law.
But the court, in an expanded panel of nine justices, unanimously accepted the appeals by Ra’am and the Joint List, saying that the criteria for applying that legislation are narrowly construed and limited to extreme cases.
Knesset member Ofer Cassif of Hadash, who had previously been banned by the CEC, was also allowed to run by a vote of seven justices to two.
Justices David Mintz and Alex Stein held that he should be disqualified for supporting an armed struggle against the State of Israel. The other panelists, however, said that his case did not fully meet the stringent criteria.
The proceedings concerning Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh were dismissed after he announced earlier in the day that he was withdrawing his candidacy for the Knesset.
His announcement came after the justices appeared to indicate that he would be disqualified by a majority vote.
The case centered on an Arabic-language article Abu Shehadeh published on October 8, 2023, in which he described the previous day’s Hamas-led attack as “an important historic event militarily, politically and strategically”.
Abu Shehadeh denied supporting the attack or political violence, saying he opposes armed struggle and maintaining that the article was purely analytical.
“In the end, what happened yesterday was a historical catastrophe for democracy, or the very narrow margins of democracy in the State of Israel,” he said in the wake of his withdrawal.
“I was disqualified because I think differently, because I have a different narrative on how to read history, the present, and the future in the place that we live today.”
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