Just five weeks before Israelis go to the polls, the country’s Central Elections Committee voted on Sept. 23 to throw the Joint List—the main political home of Arab citizens and of Jewish-Arab opposition to the war—off the ballot for the Oct. 27 Knesset elections.
The panel also barred Ra’am, the other major Arab-led party, and disqualified two of Israel’s most outspoken political critics of the war on Gaza: Ofer Cassif, a Jewish lawmaker and Communist Party leader, and Sami Abu Shehadeh, chairman of the Balad party.
If the rulings stand, roughly a fifth of Israel’s citizens would be left without a single major party of their own. The Joint List said the vote was an attempt to erase the representation of more than a million voters.
In a joint statement, the Communist Party of Israel and Hadash called the decision “a blatant trampling on the most basic rules of democratic competition.” They charged that the real goal is to depress Arab turnout, part of what they called the far right’s “desperate attempt to cling to the reins of power.”
Hadash, the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality, is a coalition built in 1977 and led by the Communist Party, which has organized Arab and Jewish workers together since before the State of Israel was founded. It runs Arabs and Jews side by side on a platform of ending the occupation, full equality, and workers’ rights.
In this election, Hadash is running within the Joint List alongside Balad, an Arab democratic-nationalist party, and Ta’al, a secular Arab party.
A political panel, not a court
The Central Elections Committee is not a neutral judicial body. Apart from its chair, Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg, its members represent the Knesset’s current parties, giving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition a built-in majority.
The petition against the Joint List was filed by Netanyahu’s Likud Party, which also targeted Cassif. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party went after Abu Shehadeh.
The committee voted 18-5 to ban the Joint List, even though Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara’s office told members the evidence fell far short of the legal bar for disqualification, according to the Jerusalem Post. Israeli law allows a list to be banned only for rejecting Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state,” inciting racism, or backing armed struggle against the state.
Adalah, the Arab minority rights legal center representing all the targeted parties and candidates, described the proceedings as “arbitrary, inciting, and racist.” It said the case against the Joint List leaned on outdated material, and the case against Abu Shehadeh rested mainly on a single Arabic-language article calling for a political settlement.
The double standard was hard to miss. One day later, the same committee cleared far-right Jewish parties to run, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported—including Ben-Gvir’s own party, which traces its lineage to the outlawed Kahanist movement.
Punished for opposing the war
Cassif, who sits in the leadership of both Hadash and the Communist Party, was barred for supposedly backing armed struggle against Israel.
His real offense, supporters say, is denouncing the Gaza war. He called the accusations “a blatant distortion of reality,” insisting that opposing crimes committed in the state’s name does not strengthen its enemies.
The Communist Party said it takes “special pride” in Cassif for raising “the voice of human conscience” against the occupation.
The party’s joint statement with Hadash saved its sharpest words for the so-called center-left, singling out the Democrats party of former General Yair Golan for voting with Ben-Gvir to disqualify Abu Shehadeh, lining up behind “the minister with the noose.”
The motion against Cassif was also backed by Benny Gantz’s Blue and White and Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu, according to the Times of Israel.
What comes next
The bans are not yet final. Disqualifications of individual candidates require Supreme Court approval, and the parties are appealing the bans on their lists. The court is expected to hear the cases this week.
It overturned a similar ban on Cassif in 2019. But Sohlberg’s vote to disqualify Abu Shehadeh alarmed the Communists, who warned it sends a “dangerous message” to the court he sits on.
Hadash and the Communist Party are calling for a broad protest campaign against political persecution, aimed above all at driving up turnout among Arab citizens and democratic Jewish voters. Activists have already rallied outside Likud headquarters in Tel Aviv with a banner warning that election theft begins with disqualifications.
Despite deep distrust of the Zionist opposition, the parties say they will do everything possible to “bring down the fascist right-wing government.”
No paywalls at People’s World
We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!
CONTRIBUTOR
