Yisrael Beytenu says it backs barring Ra’am, Joint List from running

Yisrael Beytenu announces that it will back the disqualification of the Joint List of Arab parties as well as Ra’am and Joint List politicians Sami Abou Shahadeh and Ofer Cassif.

The Central Elections Committee is slated to hold hearings today and tomorrow on requests to bar a number the Arab parties and politicians, as well as parties on the far right.

Avigdor Liberman’s hawkish party has regularly led efforts to disqualify Arab political representation, but formerly allied with Ra’am as part of the 2021-2022 government led by former prime ministers Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid. It has since distanced itself from the Islamist faction and sworn off any future partnership.

“Any Zionist government that takes office after elections must set the elimination of Hamas as a central goal of its security policy,” the party says in a statement. “Any party opposed to that has no place in the Knesset.”

Basic Law: The Knesset explicitly prohibits anyone expressing support for armed struggle against the State of Israel from running for Knesset, but contains no such rule mandating support for specific security policies against terror organizations.

The CEC is led by a judge but comprised of representatives of all Knesset parties, making its decisions highly politicized. Most disqualifications are struck down by the Supreme Court on appeal.

However, on Tuesday Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and State Attorney Amit Aisman told the Central Elections Committee that it should “seriously consider” barring Abou Shahadeh, leader of the Joint List’s hardline Balad faction, citing an article he wrote on October 8, 2023, that they said constituted support for armed struggle against Israel.

The opinion could make the court more likely to uphold a decision barring the Balad leader from running.