Elections committee votes to bar Joint List from running in latest Arab-led slate to be nixed

The Central Elections Committee votes 18-5 to disqualify the Arab-majority Joint List from running in the October 27 election, accepting a petition filed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party.

The decision follows votes earlier today to bar Mansour Abbas’s largely Arab Ra’am party, as well as Joint List MK Ofer Cassif (who is the slate’s sole Jewish candidate) and Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh from the election.

Likud’s petition sought to disqualify the Joint List under Basic Law: The Knesset, a quasi-constitutional law prohibiting parties from running for election if they express support for armed struggle against the State of Israel. The law does not mandate support for specific security policies meant to combat terror organizations.

Hadash and Maki, which make up part of the Joint List, denounce the decision as a “blatant trampling of the most basic rules of the democratic game,” accusing the “fascist right” of seeking to suppress Arab voter turnout and vowing to challenge what they call “political persecution.”

As with the committee’s other disqualification decisions, the ruling must be approved by the Supreme Court. It is unlikely to be upheld given the court’s historically high threshold for disqualification.