From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, September 22, 2026
Election panel to hear cases for disqualifying parties, candidates
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.
The Central Elections Committee will convene Wednesday for the first of two days of hearings on petitions to bar parties and candidates from running in the October 27 election, with most of the challenges targeting Arab parties and candidates by right-wing parties.
Any bans approved by the committee, however, are unlikely to survive Supreme Court scrutiny, given the high bar the court has historically set for disqualification.
Three separate petitions seek to disqualify Mansour Abbas’s Islamist Ra’am party, filed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit and the Choose Life Forum, an organization representing victims of terror.
Likud is also seeking to disqualify Hadash MK Ofer Cassif and the Joint List, the alliance of Arab-majority Hadash, Ta’al and Balad. Otzma Yehudit is seeking to bar Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh and the small Orot HaShachar party has filed a separate petition against the hardline Balad. Petitioners accuse the parties of supporting terrorist groups and of rejecting Israel as a Jewish state.
The petitions come as Netanyahu’s bloc remains without a clear path to a 61-seat majority in current polls, while Ra’am could potentially provide the anti-Netanyahu bloc with the seats needed for a majority. Likud has attacked its rivals over the prospect that they may rely on Ra’am, while simultaneously seeking to prevent the party from running.
Separately, Yair Golan’s left-wing Democrats and the Zulat Institute for Equality and Human Rights are seeking to disqualify Otzma Yehudit, accusing it of racist incitement and undermining Israel’s democratic character. Otzma Yehudit is seeking to disqualify the Democrats, while Zulat is also seeking to ban Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism joint slate with Moshe Feiglin’s Zehut.
The hearings will be chaired by Deputy Chief Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, who heads the election committee. Coalition parties hold 18 of its 31 seats, giving the governing bloc control of the committee’s voting majority.
A committee decision to disqualify individual candidates requires Supreme Court approval, while decisions on party slates can be brought to the court on appeal. The court has historically struck down most disqualifications.
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