Israel’s top court restores Arab parties to ballot

Israel’s Supreme Court has unanimously restored the country’s two main Arab electoral lists to the October 27 parliamentary ballot, overturning disqualifications imposed by the Central Elections Committee before voting this month.

The court ruled that neither Ra’am nor the Joint List met the stringent legal threshold required to exclude a political list from a Knesset election. The decision preserves the principal electoral vehicles representing Israel’s Arab minority in a vote that could determine whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains in power.

The Joint List brings together Hadash, Ta’al and Balad, while Ra’am, led by Mansour Abbas, is contesting separately. Together, the two lists are expected to command a potentially significant bloc of seats in a fragmented parliament where neither Netanyahu’s right-wing alliance nor its opponents have appeared assured of the 61 seats required for a majority.

Israel’s election law permits a list or candidate to be disqualified for denying the country’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state, inciting racism or supporting armed struggle by a hostile state or terrorist organisation against Israel. Supreme Court precedent has required evidence before those provisions can be used to remove parties or candidates from an election.

The Central Elections Committee voted 18-5 in September to bar both Ra’am and the Joint List after petitions accused them of conduct falling within those prohibitions. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara opposed their exclusion, maintaining that the evidence presented against the lists was insufficient to satisfy the legal test.

The committee is composed of representatives of political parties in the outgoing Knesset and is chaired by a Supreme Court justice. Its decisions concerning party lists can be appealed to the Supreme Court, while decisions disqualifying individual candidates require judicial approval. The court has repeatedly applied a narrow interpretation of the grounds for exclusion because of the electoral rights involved.

The judges also overturned, by seven votes to two, the committee’s decision to disqualify Ofer Cassif, a Jewish lawmaker who is running with the Joint List. The majority said his statements and conduct, despite drawing criticism from the judges, did not meet the established threshold for removing a candidate from the ballot.

A separate case involving Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh ended differently. Abu Shehadeh withdrew his candidacy after the court indicated that a majority of the nine-judge panel was prepared to uphold his disqualification.

The dispute centred on an article Abu Shehadeh wrote after the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. He has denied supporting the assault, but the court described elements of his remarks in sharply critical terms and signalled that his case differed from those involving the Arab lists and Cassif. His withdrawal meant the judges did not need to issue a final order excluding him.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the Otzma Yehudit party, had been among those pressing for Abu Shehadeh’s exclusion. The Central Elections Committee had voted 31-4 to disqualify the Balad leader.

The reinstatement of the Arab lists carries electoral significance because polling has suggested their combined representation could affect the arithmetic of government formation. Ra’am played a decisive role after the 2021 election, joining the broad coalition led by Naftali Bennett and later Yair Lapid that ended Netanyahu’s previous 12-year stretch as prime minister. The party was the first Arab party to enter an Israeli governing coalition.

Mainstream opposition parties have remained divided over whether they would form a government dependent on Arab parties after the October vote. That uncertainty means the restored lists could influence coalition calculations without necessarily joining a future administration.

The Joint List welcomed the ruling and urged Arab citizens to vote in large numbers. Its return to the ballot ensures Hadash, Ta’al and Balad can compete as an alliance despite Abu Shehadeh’s personal withdrawal.