Ten bids to bar candidates, with Balad's Abu Shehadeh at the centre

Ten requests to disqualify candidates or lists from the coming Knesset election have been filed with Israel's Central Elections Committee within two days, Ynet reported, opening what it described as a marathon of hearings at the body that vets who may stand for parliament. The request drawing the most attention is the demand to remove Sami Abu Shehadeh, chairman of the Arab nationalist party Balad, from the race.

According to the same report, the attorney general has determined that in Abu Shehadeh's case the ground of support for armed struggle against Israel is met. Ynet also reported that a parallel fight over Ra'am, the Islamist party, may turn into a political test for the opposition parties, and that National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Likud member of Knesset Tally Gotliv are expected to appear at the committee's hearings.

What the Central Elections Committee is

The Central Elections Committee is the statutory body that administers Israeli national elections. It is chaired by a Supreme Court justice and made up of representatives of the parties in the outgoing Knesset, which means its composition mirrors the political balance of the parliament that has just dissolved. Among its functions is ruling on requests to bar an individual candidate or an entire list from running. Because the committee is political in composition, its disqualification decisions are widely understood in Israel as party votes as much as legal ones, and they are subject to review by the Supreme Court, which has historically overturned most of them.

The legal ground being invoked

Israeli election law sets out narrow grounds on which a candidate or list can be barred. They include negating the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, incitement to racism, and support for armed struggle by an enemy state or a terrorist organisation against the State of Israel. It is the third of these that the attorney general found applicable to Abu Shehadeh, per Ynet's account. The attorney general's position is an opinion presented to the committee, not a ruling: the committee votes, and the courts have the final word.

Who Abu Shehadeh is

Abu Shehadeh leads Balad, a party representing Arab citizens of Israel that campaigns for the country to be redefined as a state of all its citizens rather than a Jewish state. Balad has run at times within the Joint List alliance of Arab parties and at times alone, and it has previously fallen short of the electoral threshold when running separately. Balad candidates and the party as a whole have faced disqualification attempts in multiple past election cycles, making the current filing part of a recurring pattern in Israeli politics rather than a departure from it.

The dispute over the attorney general's stance

The two accounts available emphasise different things about the attorney general's handling of the case. Ynet presents her finding that the ground of support for armed struggle is established. The political commentator Amit Segal, writing on his Telegram channel, argued that Abu Shehadeh still does not condemn the killing of Israeli soldiers and of the female military lookouts, and that even this has not led the attorney general to explicitly demand his disqualification. The two are not necessarily in conflict: one describes a legal finding, the other a criticism of how far the attorney general was willing to go with it. Readers should note that Segal's post is commentary rather than a report of the committee's proceedings.

Ben Gvir, Gotliv and the Ra'am question

Ben Gvir, leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party and minister of national security, and Gotliv, a Likud legislator, are both expected to appear before the committee, Ynet reported. Ben Gvir has himself been the subject of disqualification attempts in the past. The separate question of Ra'am is framed by Ynet as a dilemma for opposition parties, which must decide whether to back or resist a move against a party that has previously sat in an Israeli governing coalition.

What the reports do not say

Neither report lists all ten requests, identifies who filed them, or names every candidate and list targeted. Neither gives a date for the committee's votes or for the hearings at which Ben Gvir and Gotliv are expected. The attorney general is not quoted directly, and the full text of her position has not been published in the material available. There is no response from Abu Shehadeh, from Balad or from Ra'am in either report, and no indication of how the committee's members are expected to vote.