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

Israel’s Central Elections Committee voted last week to bar both main Arab lists and two candidates from parliamentary election.

Sami Abu Shehadeh, leader of the Balad party, arrives at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem on October 1, 2026 [AFP]

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.

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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.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose Otzma Yehudit party petitioned to disqualify Abu Shehadeh, appeared in court wearing a lawyer’s robe. “Sami Abu Shehadeh cannot be a member of Knesset. A supporter of terrorism belongs in prison, not in the Knesset,” he said.

Abu Shehadeh was accused of sympathising with Hamas and of failing to condemn the October 7, 2023 attacks. He denied this at the hearing, saying his words “may have been taken out of context” and that he is “completely opposed to acts of violence”.

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara backed his disqualification over an article he published a day after October 7, which she said expressed support for armed struggle. She opposed disqualifying Cassif and the Joint List, saying the evidence did not meet the stringent legal threshold.

‘A dangerous precedent’

Mairav Zonszein, a senior Israel analyst with the International Crisis Group, told Al Jazeera that the banning of Ra’am was particularly “striking”.

“The banning of the Joint List and Balad has almost become a tradition in Israeli politics. However … Ra’am have been part of past coalitions and that its leader, Mansour Abbas, was [a minister without portfolio] in the Bennett-Lapid government. Additionally, it also now has [Yoav Segalovitz] a former police official and a Jewish Israeli politician in its ranks, which makes the attempt more remarkable,” she said.

Israeli affairs expert Shadi al-Sharafa told Al Jazeera that this is “a dangerous precedent that did not exist before”, saying it is the first call to disqualify all Arab representation rather than a single candidate or list.

Al-Sharafa said Arab votes could be decisive in a society “sharply divided between the camp that supports Netanyahu and the camp that opposes him”, and that the petitioners want Abu Shehadeh not only barred from the Knesset, but also put on trial.

The move to ban major Arab parties leaves Palestinian citizens of Israel without major Knesset representation options.

Walid al-Omari, Al Jazeera Arabic’s bureau chief in Ramallah, said that if the court upholds the disqualifications, approximately 20 percent of Arab citizens could be left without representation in the next Knesset.

Israel’s Central Elections Committee is primarily a political body composed of representatives of parliamentary blocs in the outgoing Knesset. In the past, the Supreme Court overturned decisions by the Central Elections Committee to disqualify Arab lists and lawmakers.

以色列中央选举委员会上周投票决定禁止两大阿拉伯政党名单和两名候选人参加议会选举。

2026年10月1日，巴拉德党领导人萨米·阿布·谢哈德抵达耶路撒冷最高法院。[法新社]

以色列最高法院建议巴拉德党领导人萨米·阿布·谢哈德退出10月27日的议会选举，并警告称，否则最高法院可能会做出裁决，取消他的参选资格。

此前，法院于周四开始审理针对以色列中央选举委员会取消阿拉伯选民名单和候选人参加议会选举资格的决定提出的上诉。

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上周，选举委员会投票决定取消该国两大阿拉伯裔政党联盟——拉姆党和联合名单党（由哈达什党、塔阿勒党和巴拉德党组成）的参选资格。此外，委员会还决定取消阿布·谢哈德和来自阿拉伯裔犹太人政党哈达什党的犹太裔政治家、议员奥弗·卡西夫的参选资格。

阿布·谢哈德是来自雅法的历史学家，他于 2019 年 9 月至 2022 年 11 月在联合名单中担任以色列议会议员；巴拉德于 2022 年被选出议会。哈达什党议员卡西夫于 2019 年 4 月首次出现在哈达什-塔阿勒联合名单上，占据了为犹太候选人保留的位置。

据以色列公共广播公司报道，周四，由九名法官组成的小组听取了阿布·谢哈德及其以哈桑·贾巴林为首的法律团队的辩论。

据该广播公司报道，最高法院院长伊扎克·阿米特告诉阿布·谢哈德，多数法官倾向于取消他的候选人资格，并要求他到周五之前撤回申请。报道称，如果他不撤回申请，法官们将不得不做出裁决，取消他的候选人资格。

国家安全部长伊塔马尔·本-格维尔身穿律师袍出庭，他所在的奥茨马·耶胡迪特党曾请愿取消阿布·谢哈德的议员资格。他说：“萨米·阿布·谢哈德不能成为以色列议会议员。恐怖主义的支持者应该待在监狱里，而不是议会里。”

阿布·谢哈德被指控同情哈马斯，并且没有谴责2023年10月7日的袭击事件。他在听证会上否认了这些指控，称他的话“可能被断章取义”，并表示他“完全反对暴力行为”。

总检察长加利·巴哈拉夫-米亚拉支持取消卡西夫的参选资格，理由是他在10月7日之后一天发表了一篇文章，称该文章表达了对武装斗争的支持。她反对取消卡西夫和联合名单的参选资格，称证据未达到严格的法律门槛。

“一个危险的先例”

国际危机组织高级以色列分析师迈拉夫·宗斯泽因告诉半岛电视台，《拉姆》被禁播尤其“引人注目”。

“在以色列政坛，取缔联合名单党和巴拉德党几乎已成为一种惯例。然而……拉姆党曾参与过过去的联合政府，其领导人曼苏尔·阿巴斯也曾在贝内特-拉皮德政府中担任不管部长。此外，该党现在还有前警官、犹太裔以色列政治家约阿夫·塞加洛维茨，这使得此次取缔尝试更加引人注目，”她说道。

以色列事务专家沙迪·沙拉法告诉半岛电视台，这是一个“以前从未存在过的危险先例”，并表示这是第一次呼吁取消所有阿拉伯代表的资格，而不是取消单个候选人或名单的资格。

沙拉法表示，在一个“支持内塔尼亚胡的阵营和反对他的阵营严重分裂”的社会中，阿拉伯人的选票可能起到决定性作用，请愿者不仅希望禁止阿布·谢哈德进入以色列议会，还希望对他进行审判。

取缔主要阿拉伯政党的举措，使得以色列的巴勒斯坦公民在以色列议会中失去了重要的代表权。

半岛电视台阿拉伯语频道驻拉马拉分社社长瓦利德·奥马里表示，如果法院维持取消资格的决定，大约 20% 的阿拉伯公民在下一届以色列议会中可能没有代表。

以色列中央选举委员会主要是一个政治机构，由即将卸任的以色列议会各党派的代表组成。过去，最高法院曾推翻中央选举委员会取消阿拉伯候选人名单和议员资格的决定。