From the Liveblog of
Thursday, October 1, 2026
Election panel chair rejects bid to ban Religious Zionism’s AI video of judges being dragged from protest
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.
Central Elections Committee chairman Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg rejects petitions seeking to disqualify an AI-generated campaign video by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s far-right Religious Zionism party depicting Supreme Court justices and the attorney general being forcibly dragged away from a protest by security personnel.
Sohlberg rejects arguments by Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition Yashar party and the Israel Bar Association that the video threatens senior law enforcement officials or unlawfully interferes with the election, writing that there is “considerable doubt” that the officials depicted “feel threatened — or should feel threatened — by this video.”
Sohlberg says he personally found the video distasteful, but that his role is to assess it on legal grounds.
“In the absence of grounds [for intervention], the video will be judged by the voters, not by election law,” he writes.
The controversial 34-second video, released earlier this month to promote Religious Zionism’s new judicial overhaul platform, depicts Supreme Court President Isaac Amit, Justice Daphne Barak-Erez and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara being forcibly removed from an anti-Smotrich demonstration.
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