Israel: Election commission move to bar all Arab parties from polls sparks fresh debate

TEL AVIV, With less than a month to go before Israel’s elections, a Central Elections Committee decision to bar all Arab parties from contesting has reignited debate over the relationship between national security, national identity and democratic representation.
If the bans remain in place until the October 27 vote, Israel’s Arab citizens, who make up about a fifth of the population, would lose their most important channel of representation in the Knesset. The decision is not final, however, and the Supreme Court could overturn it within days.
The most prominent party affected is Ra’am (the United Arab List), which holds 5 of the Knesset’s 120 seats and has a conservative Islamist platform. Earlier this year, Ra’am announced it would allow Jewish candidates to run on its ticket. The ban also covers the Joint List, an alliance of three parties: Hadash, Ta’al and Balad. Hadash and Ta’al together hold 5 seats, while Balad has no seats in the current Knesset. The committee also disqualified two individual Joint List candidates.
The committee is chaired by a sitting Supreme Court justice, but the final ruling on the ban rests with the Supreme Court. The rights group Adalah has confirmed it will appeal on behalf of the parties. Right-wing parties, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud and Otzma, had filed petitions seeking the disqualifications.
Under a Basic Law provision on the Knesset, candidates can be barred if they negate Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state, incite to racism, or support armed struggle by an enemy state or terrorist organisation against Israel. Supporters of the ban argue that statements and activities by some party leaders cross those legal lines. According to DW, the petitioners cited links between organisations affiliated with Ra’am and the Joint List and entities they say are tied to Hamas. Both Ra’am and the Joint List strongly reject the allegations.
Israeli electoral authorities have previously tried to disqualify Arab parties and candidates, but barring all major Arab-led parties at once would be unprecedented. Decisions to bar Balad have been made before, but the Supreme Court allowed it to run each time. Since a 1985 amendment gave the committee power to rule on disqualification challenges, the Supreme Court has upheld only one such ruling, in 1988 against the ultra-nationalist Orthodox Jewish party Kach.