Arab party leader forced to withdraw from Israeli elections

JERUSALEM — Arab Israeli politician Sami Abu Shehadeh withdrew his candidacy on Thursday from the upcoming parliamentary election after Israel’s Supreme Court advised him to drop out, sayinga majority of its judges supported barring him from the race.Arab Israeli parties are seen by political analysts as potential kingmakers in the October 27 election, with polls showing neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition nor the main opposition bloc on course for a majority.Abu Shehadeh leads the left-wing Palestinian Balad party and served in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, from 2019 to 2022.The Balad leader was withdrawing his candidacy, but the decision did not mark the end of his political struggle, his party said in a statement, adding that he would remain the party’s leader.Last week, Israel’s Central Elections Committee voted to disqualify Abu Shehadeh at the request of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who accused him of supporting Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023.Adalah, a rights organisation representing Abu Shehadeh, condemned the court, saying the evidence it presented had no legal basis.“The court has effectively decided to remove a Palestinian leader, a citizen of Israel, from the Knesset,” Adalah said in a statement.“The court’s clear intention to disqualify him,” it added, was “a direction that would have set a dangerous legal precedent with devastating consequences.”Ben Gvir accused Abu Shehadeh of supporting the Hamas attack due to an article issued the following day in which he called it an “important historical event”.Speaking to the Supreme Court on Thursday, Abu Shehadeh said he did not support “armed struggle” but acknowledged that a paragraph in the article had been incorrectly worded. He said his intention was to call for moving the conflict toward a political process.Adalah labeled his withdrawal from the election “a severe blow to the right of Palestinian citizens to be represented and to stand for election”.The elections committee has also barred two Arab electoral lists: the United Arab List and the Joint List, a three-party alliance that includes Abu Shehadeh’s party Balad. Adalah has questioned why the Palestinian candidates are being disqualified but far-right Israeli candidates were “cleared to run” despite openly calling for violence against Palestinians and making statements “amounting to incitement to genocide”.