Overview
- The Central Elections Committee voted Wednesday to disqualify the Joint List and the United Arab List (Ra’am) and to bar Hadash MK Ofer Cassif and Balad leader Sami Abu Shehadeh from the October 27 ballot, with committee chair Justice Noam Sohlberg unusually voting in favor of Abu Shehadeh’s ban.
- The decisions are not final and will be reviewed by the Supreme Court after legal teams, including Adalah, filed immediate appeals to overturn the committee’s rulings.
- Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara told the panel she found no general legal basis to exclude the targeted parties but said an October 8, 2023 article by Abu Shehadeh merited further examination as possible support for armed struggle.
- The votes drew support from parties across the political spectrum and prompted public criticism that the moves are politically driven, with Joint List chairman Yousef Jabareen publicly condemning Democrats leader Yair Golan for backing Abu Shehadeh’s disqualification.
- If upheld, the exclusions would remove major representation for more than a million Palestinian citizens of Israel, alter the possible routes to a 61-seat governing majority, and repeat a contested legal pattern in which past committee bans were overturned by the Supreme Court.