Israel’s Supreme Court advises Arab party leader to drop election bid

Israel’s Supreme Court has advised Balad party leader Sami Abu Shehadeh to withdraw from the October 27 Knesset election, warning that it could otherwise issue a ruling disqualifying him.

The development came as the court on Thursday began hearing appeals against decisions by Israel’s Central Elections Committee to disqualify Arab electoral lists and candidates from the parliamentary election.

Last week, the elections committee voted to disqualify the country’s two main Arab-majority political lists – Ra’am and the Joint List, which is an alliance of Hadash, Ta’al and Balad. Separately, it moved to disqualify Abu Shehadeh and parliament member Ofer Cassif, a Jewish politician from the Arab-Jewish Hadash party.

Abu Shehadeh is a historian from Jaffa who served in the Knesset on the Joint List from September 2019 until November 2022; Balad was voted out of the Knesset in 2022. Hadash legislator Cassif first appeared on the joint Hadash-Ta’al list in April 2019, in the slot reserved for a Jewish candidate.

On Thursday, the panel of nine justices heard arguments from Abu Shehadeh and his legal team, headed by Hassan Jabareen, according to the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation.

Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit told Abu Shehadeh that a majority of the judges favoured disqualifying his candidacy and gave him until Friday to withdraw, according to the broadcaster. If he does not withdraw, the judges would have to issue a ruling disqualifying his candidacy, according to the report.

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