Israeli Supreme Court overturns Joint List, Ra'am, Cassif election ban

Israel's Supreme Court has overturned the ban on several Palestinian parties and a Jewish-Israeli candidate from running in the upcoming elections by Israel's Central Elections Committee (CEC), with rights groups telling The New Arab this is further evidence of anti-Palestinian racism being used as "election propaganda".

In a decision announced on Friday, the court allowed the Joint-List—consisting of Hadash, Ta'al and Balad - alongside Ra'am, as well as Hadash MK Ofer Cassif, to run in the upcoming election set for 27 October.

The court unanimously struck down the decision against the Joint List, saying it did not meet the requirements for disqualification, and also unanimously struck down the ban on Ra'am.

On the decision to ban Ofer Cassif, the court overturned the ban with a seven-two majority and while the judges "object to his outrageous comments and actions," they did not meet the threshold for disqualification, the Times of Israel quoted the Supreme Court as saying.

The CEC issued bans against the Joint-List, Ra'am, Ofer Cassif and Balad leader Sami Abu Shehadeh on 23 September, with the bans seeing consensus among Jewish Zionist parties, including between left-wing Democrats leader Yair Goland and far-right Otzma Yehudit leader Itamar Ben-Gvir, who filed unsuccessful motions to ban each other in the committee.

The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (Adalah), which was representing all who had been banned by the CEC, told The New Arab that the court order "confirm what we argued before the court: the motions against the Joint List, Ra'am and MK Ofer Cassif rested on old, irrelevant, distorted evidence that fell far short of the 'critical mass' of evidence required by law."

"This entire process was a deliberate attempt to delegitimise Palestinian citizens and their parliamentary representatives, and to turn racism against Palestinians into election propaganda," Adalah said, adding that the same scrutiny of the process was not offered to Sami Abu Shehadeh, "who was unjustly pushed out of the elections in an unprecedented and dangerous move by the Supreme Court."

Balad's Abu Shehadeh withdraws from election

The move to ban Abu Shehadeh was also set to be decided by the Supreme Court, though Abu Shehadeh withdrew from the race on Thursday after the head of the Supreme Court said during a hearing that a majority of judges were inclined to uphold the ban, suggesting the withdrawal.

Abu Shehadeh is now set to continue leading the Balad party despite his withdrawal, with the Joint-List saying in a statement on Friday that it would continue to participate in the election campaign against Israel’s far-right and for equality among Arab Palestinians and Jews in Israel.

In a separate statement issued on Friday, Adalah said that "for the first time since Section 7A of Basic Law: The Knesset was enacted in 1985, the court has effectively decided to bar a Palestinian leader, a citizen of Israel, from standing for election to the Knesset."

"There is no legal basis for this," Adalah said, noting that the article on the Hamas 7 October attack on Israel by Abu Shehadeh that was the basis for his ban did not call for violence, in contrast to far-right MKs who openly call for violence against Palestinians.

"By making clear that it would disqualify him, the Supreme Court endorsed two separate tracks for political participation: one for Jewish Israelis and another for Palestinians, whose leaders can be excluded from Knesset elections over a single published article," the statement read, adding that it undermines Palestinian representation in Israel.

Amjad Iraqi, a Senior Analyst on Israel and Palestine at the International Crisis Group, told The New Arab that the double standards against Abu Shehadeh were extreme. 

"It's very reflective of the way that the Knesset and the Israeli political spectrum, including members of the opposition, really despise the Arab political representatives in the parliament." 

Arab Palestinian representation and the upcoming elections

Iraqi said that Israel's Palestinian minority is unlikely to be dissuaded by the attempted ban: "They sense this is a very existential omen for their political rights," he said, adding "but it really puts a very sour taste in a lot of voters' palates about this."

"It is a weaponisation of Israel's political and legal tools to keep Palestinian citizens feeling unwanted, and that they're only being tolerated as citizens," Iraqi continued.

"And to be tolerated as citizens, you need to be a quiet subject rather than a genuinely active participant trying to transform the situation around you."

Collectively, the parties are polling around 14 seats in the Knesset, with nine set for the Joint-List and five for Ra'am according to a recent Channel 13 poll. Despite this, neither coalition wants to work with the Palestinian Arab parties, who are increasingly being used in election campaigns to dissuade sections of the Israeli electorate from voting certain ways. 

Following the Supreme Court Coalition, Yisrael Beytenu head MK Avigdor Liberman called on Balad to be outlawed from the Knesset, a call that saw accusations from the head of the far-right Religious Zionism party, Bezalel Smotrich, that the anti-Netanyahu opposition coalition would govern with the support of the Joint-List, despite no declaration being made.

Yet despite the declarations against the Arab Palestinian parties, neither coalition is polling enough to get an outright majority.

"The irony is that both the governing coalition and most of the opposition are trying their best to ignore the clout that Arab political parties carry on the electoral map," Iraqi said, noting that there are fears that any recognition of working with them from the coalition blocs may dissuade voters from supporting them.

Without such support, or deals that could see parts of either coalition bloc join each other, there could be a hung parliament: "For now, all the arrows are indicating that everything might be in limbo, and that we might be back here in just a few months."

Editor's Note: This article was edited to include comments from Adalah and Amjad Iraqi at 15:46 BST.