Elections panel bars Joint List 18-5 on a Likud petition

Update, 23 September, 20:08 Israel time

Balad's chairman has now responded to his own disqualification and pointed to a High Court ruling expected next week. Abu Ali Express reported that Sami Abu Shehadeh is placing his hopes on the court, saying he expects it to reverse the Central Elections Committee's decision when it rules next week. The same report said that, on the basis of past experience, the committee's move against Ra'am is likely to be overturned at the High Court as well.

That is the first indication in the reporting of a timeframe for the judicial stage, which earlier accounts of the day's votes had left open.

Writing on his Telegram channel, Amit Segal argued that the protection he said former Supreme Court president Aharon Barak had extended to members of Knesset who back terrorism was stripped away by the Knesset as a whole in the course of the day. Readers should note that this is commentary rather than an account of the committee's proceedings, and Segal does not name the votes he is referring to.

Neither report gives a tally for the Ra'am decision, names the panel that will hear the appeals, or sets a date within next week for the hearing.

Update, 23 September, 19:08 Israel time

A vote tally has now been published for the list disqualification. The Times of Israel reported that the Central Elections Committee voted 18-5 to bar the Joint List from the October 27 election, accepting a petition filed by Likud that invoked Basic Law: The Knesset and its bar on lists that back armed struggle against Israel. The same report notes that Ofer Cassif, barred earlier in the day, is the slate's only Jewish candidate.

The Joint List rejected the decision. N12, citing Inbar Twizer, quoted the list saying the committee should rename itself the Kahanist elections committee, calling the votes political persecution of the Arab public as a whole and saying it hoped the Supreme Court would not lend a hand to it.

Amit Segal wrote that the Beyachad representatives of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid did not take part in the votes on the Joint List and Ra'am.

Haaretz reported that the day's decisions have prompted appeals to the High Court and exposed divisions inside the opposition over disqualifying Arab-majority parties and candidates.

The reports still do not give the tally on Ra'am or say when the court will hear the appeals.

Update, 23 September, 18:08 Israel time

The committee has gone on to bar whole lists. The Jerusalem Post reported that the Central Elections Committee barred Ra'am from running in the coming election. News.co.il reported that the decision covers both the party and its leader Mansour Abbas, that it is expected to reach the Supreme Court for a final ruling, and that the assessment is that the court will overturn it.

N12, citing Inbar Twizer, reported that the committee then also disqualified the Joint List, and Ynet's alert carried the same result on the list.

Abbas responded to the vote on his party. N12, citing Mohammad Magadli, quoted him saying that the figure he called "Abu Yair", who in the last two election campaigns had chosen not to join attempts to disqualify Ra'am in the hope of forming a government with it and who negotiated with him personally at Balfour, now understands that barring Ra'am is his only way to prevent the next change government from being formed.

The reports do not give the vote tallies on either list, do not set out the grounds the committee accepted, and do not say when the Supreme Court will hear the cases. No result has been reported on the request against Balad as a party.

Update, 23 September, 16:08 Israel time

The committee's session is continuing. N12 reported, citing Dvir Jabara, that the next items on the Central Elections Committee's agenda are requests to disqualify the Joint List and Balad themselves, rather than an individual candidate.

Separately, Amit Segal wrote that until now the chairmen of the elections committee had not taken a position on, or opposed, the disqualification of Arab candidates, framing Justice Noam Sohlberg's decision to cast a vote as a break with that practice.

No result has been reported yet on the requests against the two lists, and neither report sets out the grounds cited in those petitions or when the votes will be held.

Update, 23 September, 14:08 Israel time

The vote has been taken. The Times of Israel reported that the Central Elections Committee voted 30-4 to disqualify Sami Abu Shehadeh, who is also number 3 on the Joint List, from running in the October 27 election, with every opposition party backing the move. According to the same report, the committee accepted both grounds set out in the petition: support for armed struggle by an enemy state or a terrorist organisation against Israel, and negation of Israel's existence as a Jewish and democratic state.

The committee's chairman took the unusual step of casting a vote himself. Amit Segal quoted Justice Noam Sohlberg saying he would depart from the practice of chairmen remaining neutral because he had found no satisfactory answer, and that if there is a case where the legal test applies clearly, this is it. N12 reported that Sohlberg voted on the ground of support for armed struggle, the first time in decades a chairman has done so. Ynet's alert described the chairman's participation as exceptional.

News.co.il quoted Itamar Ben Gvir, who filed the request, welcoming the decision and saying he hoped the Supreme Court would rise to the occasion.

Update, 23 September, 12:08 Israel time

The Central Elections Committee has begun voting. Ynet reported that the committee ruled Hadash MK Ofer Kasif barred from running, not for the first time, and that the decision now goes to the Supreme Court for review.

Support for barring Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh has widened well beyond the coalition. Amit Segal published a statement from Naftali Bennett's Beyachad party saying it would vote in favour, citing Abu Shehadeh's remarks on the October 7 massacre. Yair Golan said he would back the disqualification request submitted by Itamar Ben Gvir, arguing that legitimising armed struggle is a red line and that the same rule must apply to everyone, adding that the Supreme Court should decide whether the remarks meet the legal ground. News.co.il reported that MK Naama Lazimi of the Democrats told Army Radio her party supports the move.

Abu Shehadeh joined the hearing by video link and rejected the charge. News.co.il quoted him saying he had never supported armed struggle against the State of Israel and had chosen a path of peace and persuasion. Ynet reported that he described the October 7 attack as a significant historical event and said the post should not have been written, with the attorney general calling him disingenuous.

News.co.il also quoted Ben Gvir at the hearing pressing Abu Shehadeh over whether his opposition to killing civilians extended to Israeli soldiers and the female military lookouts, and calling for a unanimous vote.

The story as first reported

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.