Israel’s Arab Balad party on Thursday evening decided to withdraw its leader's candidacy from the October 27 general elections after the Supreme Court indicated that a majority of its judges supported his exclusion.
Channel 12 reported that Balad, formally known as the National Democratic Assembly and running as part of the Joint List, agreed that its leader Sami Abu Shehadeh would accept the court’s proposal to withdraw from the parliamentary (Knesset) election.
The decision followed a hearing earlier on Thursday during which Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit told Abu Shehadeh that most judges on the panel favoured upholding his disqualification.
The court gave him until Friday to withdraw voluntarily, warning that otherwise it would issue a ruling barring his candidacy, according to Israeli public broadcaster KAN.
Israel’s Central Elections Committee voted on September 23 to disqualify Abu Shehadeh and Joint List lawmaker Ofer Cassif.
The committee also voted to exclude the Joint List, led by Yousef Jabareen, and the United Arab List, led by Mansour Abbas, from the election.
The case against Abu Shehadeh centres on an article he published on October 8 2023, a day after a Hamas-led attack on Israeli communities near Gaza.
Right-wing Israeli groups, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party, sought his disqualification, alleging that the article expressed support for the attack. Abu Shehadeh denies the allegations.
Speaking before the court on Thursday, Abu Shehadeh said he did not support “armed struggle” and acknowledged that a paragraph in the article had been incorrectly worded. He said his intention was to call for moving the conflict towards a political process.
KAN reported that the judges considered some passages in the article to provoke “displeasure and revulsion.”
Exclusion protested
Adalah, the rights group representing Abu Shehadeh, argued that the request to bar him relied on a single article that contained no explicit call to support armed struggle.
Israel’s attorney general supported disqualifying his candidacy.
Arab lawmakers and supporters held a demonstration outside the Supreme Court in West Jerusalem as hearings on the disqualification decisions began.
Ben-Gvir arrived at the scene and waved an Israeli flag in front of the protesters, according to an Anadolu correspondent.
Under Israeli electoral rules, a decision to disqualify an individual candidate takes effect only after High Court approval. Decisions barring electoral lists can be appealed before the court.
The High Court has previously overturned Central Elections Committee decisions excluding Arab candidates and parties.
Palestinian citizens of Israel make up about 20 percent of the country’s population. Voters will elect members of the 120-seat Knesset on October 27.
