(Photo credit: Michael Giladi/FLASH90)
The Cradle
OCT 2, 2026
Israel’s High Court of Justice ruled unanimously to reject the Central Election Committee’s decision to disqualify political parties representing Palestinians with Israeli citizenship from running in the upcoming Knesset elections, Israeli media reported on 2 October.
The Central Elections Committee had voted to disqualify the United Arab List slate and the Joint List on 23 September.
Elections are scheduled for 27 October to elect all 120 members of the 26th Knesset and determine the governing coalition that succeeds the current coalition led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu, the head of the Likud party, is hoping to return for a seventh term as prime minister.
The United Arab List is the political arm of the Islamic Movement in Israel, while the Joint List consists of the Hadash, Taal, and Balad parties.
Hadash (Democratic Front for Peace and Equality) is a Jewish-Palestinian, non-Zionist left-wing alliance with roots in the Communist Party of Israel.
Taal (Arab Movement for Renewal) is a secular party focused on representing Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Balad (National Democratic Assembly) is a secular Palestinian-nationalist party that advocates making Israel a “state of all its citizens” rather than a “Jewish state.”
The committee said it disqualified the United Arab List and Joint List parties under Israel’s Basic Law on the Knesset.
The law states that a candidate or party may be barred from an election for rejecting Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state, inciting racism, or supporting armed struggle against Israel by an enemy state or terrorist organization.
Despite the Basic Law, disqualifying Palestinian parties from running in Knesset elections was seen as unusual.
The United Arab List previously participated in the ruling coalition of former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett, which led to criticism from Zionist parties.
Bennett has stated that he refuses to partner with any Palestinian parties to form a government if he wins this month’s elections.
The Central Election Committee, largely made up of members of Netanyahu’s Likud, also banned Knesset member Ofer Cassif of the Hadash party and Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh the same day.
However, the High Court overturned the decision to disqualify Cassif on Friday.
Abu Shehadeh told the court on Friday that he is withdrawing his candidacy after court president Justice Isaac Amit indicated the court would not overturn his disqualification.
The bid to disqualify Abu Shehadeh was filed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party in response to an opinion article he wrote after Hamas’s 7 October 2023 Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.
Abu Shehadeh described the Hamas attack on Israeli military bases and settlements as “an important historic event militarily, politically and strategically.”
Cassif, the Joint List’s only Jewish Knesset member, had been disqualified for denouncing Israel’s actions in Gaza as genocide, calling for the repeal of the Law of Return (which grants automatic citizenship to Jews emigrating to Israel), and calling for the release of jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti.
Cassif responded by saying that “The disqualification requests are intended to achieve the complete delegitimization of Arab society and Israeli–Arab partnership, and to perpetuate totalitarian rule and majority tyranny.”
