The Election Committee disqualified the Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al parties, Balad chairman Sami Abu Shhadeh, and MK Ofer Cassif of Hadash from running in the elections for the 26th Knesset. The committee’s decisions will be submitted to the Supreme Court for approval.
In previous elections, the Supreme Court has generally tended to reject motions to disqualify Arab parties and their candidates. However, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara said there were grounds for disqualifying Abu Shehadeh, making it considerably more likely that his disqualification will be upheld by the High Court of Justice than in the case of the other candidates.
During the hearing on Abu Shehadeh, the chairman of the Central Elections Committee, Justice Noam Solberg, decided to vote in favor of the disqualification, on the grounds of supporting armed struggle against Israel. This is the first time in decades that a chairman of an Elections Committee has supported a disqualification.
“I thought it would be appropriate to follow in the footsteps of my predecessors and maintain neutrality,” Solberg said. “But alongside the serious things that were said about Abu Shehadeh, I did not find in his remarks an answer that could be considered satisfactory. Even knowing how unusual this is, if there is a case in which the application is clear, I do not see fit to exempt myself and abstain from the vote.”
Aside from Justice Solberg, the members of the Elections Committee are sitting Knesset members appointed according to the parties’ relative strength. In addition to coalition members, most of whom supported the disqualifications, Yisrael Beiteinu supported the disqualification of Ra’am, Hadash-Ta’al, Abu Shehadeh, and Cassif. Yesh Atid supported Abu Shehadeh’s disqualification and did not participate in the other votes. Yashar, which is not currently represented in the Knesset, expressed support for Abu Shehadeh’s disqualification. The Democrats opposed the disqualification of Ra’am, Hadash-Ta’al, and Cassif, and supported Abu Shehadeh’s disqualification.
Abu Shehadeh’s Disqualification
At the center of the request to disqualify Abu Shehadeh was an article he published on October 8, 2023, in which he wrote, among other things, that “Israel and its intelligence services are human beings just like us. […] It is possible to prevent them from infiltrating our countries, our parties, and our political movements. If the small and besieged Gaza managed to do so, then others can do so more effectively and simply.” Abu Shehadeh, who participated in the hearing remotely, expressed regret over what he had written and said, “When I wrote the article, I did not know the scale of the atrocities. If I had known, I would not have written it that way.”
The request to disqualify Abu Shehadeh was submitted by the Otzma Yehudit party on two grounds: denying the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, and supporting the armed struggle of an enemy state or terrorist organization against the State of Israel. On the grounds of “supporting armed struggle against the State of Israel,” the committee voted in favor of the disqualification by a majority of 31 committee members, including chairman Noam Solberg, with four opposed. On the grounds of denying the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, committee members voted in favor of the disqualification by a margin of 30 to four.
Following the disqualification, Abu Shhadeh said it was “directed against an entire society and seeks to exclude it from the political arena and harm voter turnout in Arab society.”
Ra’am’s Disqualification
Requests to disqualify Ra’am were submitted by Otzma Yehudit, Likud, and the “Choosing Life” Forum. The claims concerned, among other things, Ra’am’s alleged ties to associations with connections to terrorist organizations, including the Sixty-Eight Relief Association. The committee disqualified Ra’am on the grounds of denying the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, supporting armed struggle against it, and incitement to racism. The vote to disqualify Ra’am was 18 in favor, five opposed, and one abstention.
Ra’am chairman Mansour Abbas criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “‘Abu Yair,’ who in the last two elections chose not to cooperate with attempts to disqualify Ra’am, in the hope of forming a government with it, and even personally negotiated with me in Balfour, now understands that the only way for him to prevent the next change government from being formed is by disqualifying Ra’am.
“The Election Committee’s decision to disqualify Ra’am is a political, illegitimate, and anti-democratic decision, made contrary to the position of the attorney general and based on false accusations and fabrications. We will refute these claims before the High Court of Justice, as we have done in the past. Ra’am is promoting a process of partnership and coexistence between Arabs and Jews, and this disqualification must also be viewed against the backdrop of that path. Our position is that the response of those who believe in the partnership we are promoting should be expressed through the democratic participation of Arabs and Jews in the elections.”
Disqualification of Hadash-Ta’al and Cassif
The requests to disqualify Hadash-Ta’al (comprising Hadash, Ta’al, and Balad) and MK Ofer Cassif, who is running on its slate, were submitted by the Likud party. During the hearing, among other things, Cassif’s public support for the proceedings at the International Court of Justice in The Hague against Israel, accusing it of genocide, was raised. Regarding Hadash-Ta’al, it was argued that the party supports Hamas’s armed struggle against Israel and rejects its existence as a Jewish and democratic state.
In the proceedings to disqualify Cassif, 19 committee members voted in favor of the disqualification, five opposed it, and two abstained.
Cassif said the disqualification was “a predetermined decision with no legal basis, made by Netanyahu’s coalition and the Kahanists and their allies from the ‘change bloc.’” During the hearing, he said: “There is no contradiction between the unequivocal and absolute condemnation I have expressed of the massacre in Gaza and the war crimes Israel is committing there and in the West Bank, and the unequivocal and absolute condemnation I have expressed of the October 7 massacre and the horrific war crimes committed by Hamas.”
Hadash said that “the sweeping approval by the Central Elections Committee of the fascist right’s requests to disqualify the lists representing Arab citizens and Jewish democratic forces is a blatant trampling of the most basic rules of the democratic game. We fundamentally reject the very fact that a committee composed of representatives of the Knesset factions grants its members the right to persecute and silence voices that deviate from the consensus.”
The Democrats also submitted a request to the Central Election Committee to disqualify National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s party, Otzma Yehudit. However, the request was rejected by a vote of 19 opposed to 10 in favor.