From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, September 22, 2026
Eisenkot backs bid to disqualify Balad chief Abu Shehadeh from election
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleAriela Karmel is a political correspondent at The Times of Israel. She previously reported for Calcalist and Haaretz. She holds an MA in Middle Eastern and African History from Tel Aviv University and a BA in Political Science from the University of British Columbia.
Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot backs far-right Otzma Yehudit’s petition to the Central Elections Committee to disqualify Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh from running in the October 27 election, arguing that comments he made immediately after the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks amount to support for terrorism against Israel.
The party cites an article Abu Shehadeh published on October 8, 2023, describing the Hamas assault as “an important historic event militarily, politically and strategically,” and saying that “if small, besieged Gaza managed to do this, and on this scale, others can do so more effectively and easily.”
Abu Shehadeh has since denied supporting the October 7 attacks, and says he would not have published the post had he known “the scale of the atrocities” committed at the time.
“I never called for violence, did not support the events of October 7 and do not justify them,” he says, in a post on X last week, insisting that his support for Palestinian rights and opposition to the occupation “were never support for violence or armed struggle.”
Yashar says Abu Shehadeh’s subsequent clarification reiterating that he did not support the attacks “does not erase what he wrote at the time.”
“Support for the armed struggle of a terrorist organization against Israel is grounds for disqualifying a candidate. In our view, Abu Shehadeh crossed that line,” the statement says.
Yashar’s backing comes as Attorney General Gali Baharav-Meira and State Attorney Amit Aisman call for the CEC to “seriously consider” banning Abu Shehadeh, who has survived previous disqualification attempts.
Basic Law: The Knesset explicitly prohibits anyone expressing support for armed struggle against the State of Israel from running for Knesset.
Separately, Eisenkot petitions the election committee to order the removal of a widely criticized AI-generated campaign video published by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionism party last week depicting Supreme Court President Isaac Amit, Justice Daphne Barak-Erez and Baharav-Miara being forcibly dragged from a protest.
The video was released last week to promote Religious Zionism’s new judicial overhaul platform, which proposes measures going beyond those pursued by the current coalition, including allowing the Knesset to reinstate legislation struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
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