Israel bans Arab parties from election: What you need to know

With less than a month until the Israeli elections, a move from the country's Central Elections Committee (CEC) to bar all Arab parties from running has ignited a debate about the relationship between security, national identity and democratic representation in Israel.

Should the bans remain in place when Israel goes to the polls on October 27, Arab citizens of Israel, who make up about a fifth of the country's population, will find themselves without their most likely source of representation in the Israeli parliament, the Knesset.

However, the decision is not final, and the Supreme Court could overrule it in the coming days.

Which Arab parties have been banned from the election?

Perhaps the most high-profile party to be banned is Ra'am, otherwise known as The United Arab List. The party currently holds five of the 120 seats in the Knesset and takes a conservative, Islamic position. Earlier this year it announced that it would allow Jewish candidates to stand for the party, with former Israeli police commissioner and deputy minister of national security, Yoav Segalovitz, set to run if the party is permitted.

The ban also applies to The Joint List, a coalition of three parties — Hadash (a left-wing Jewish-Arab party), Ta'al (an Arab nationalist party) and Balad (a Palestinian nationalist party). 

The alliance was formed in part to avoid splitting votes and to ensure the parties clear Israel's 3.25% electoral threshold. Together, Hadash and Ta'al currently hold five Knesset seats, while Balad has no representation in the outgoing parliament. In recent polls, the parties jointly hold at least seven seats.

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The CEC also banned two individual candidates from the joint list. These were the chairman of Balad, Sami Abu Shehadeh, a Palestinian-Israeli politician and former member of the Knesset (MK), and Ofer Cassif, a Jewish lawmaker and current MK for Hadash. 

The CEC comprises representatives from the outgoing parliament, meaning Likud is well represented. It reportedly voted 18-5 to bar Ra'am and the Joint List on Wednesday. The following day, the committee rejected a petition against National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's Otzma Yehudit party. Ben-Gvir recently drew criticism from Germany and many other countries for saying that he thinks "targeted killings should be carried out in Gaza" regardless of whether those people posed an immediate threat.

While a representative of the Supreme Court chairs the Central Elections Committee, the court will ultimately decide the ban after the Adalah rights group confirmed it would appeal on behalf of the parties.

Why are these parties banned?

Right-wing parties such as Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud and Otzma Yehudit started petitions to ban these parties and individuals. A stipulation in the Knesset's basic law bans candidates who show "negation of the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state," "incitement to racism" or "support for armed struggle by a hostile state or a terrorist organization against the State of Israel."

Supporters of the bans argued that some of the parties' leaders had made statements or engaged in conduct that crossed those legal boundaries. In Ra'am's case, petitioners cited alleged connections between organizations linked to the party and bodies connected to Hamas, as well as statements by Mansour Abbas that they claimed reflected contradictory messages to Hebrew- and Arabic-speaking audiences.

Petitions against Sami Abu Shehadeh and Ofer Cassif similarly relied on past statements and writings that opponents argued amounted to support for positions that undermine the existence of Israel as a Jewish state.

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What is the response of those banned?  

Ra'am and the Joint List strongly reject the allegations. 

Ra'am argues that petitioners failed to provide the clear and convincing evidence required under Israeli law. The party points to Mansour Abbas' condemnation of the October 7 attacks and his efforts on behalf of Israeli hostages as evidence that it does not support terrorism.

The rights organization Adalah, which is representing the parties, said "the CEC conducted an illegitimate political process aimed at persecuting ideas the majority does not accept, and it ended with the disqualification of all Palestinian representation in the Israeli Knesset."

The Joint List said the move amounted to an attempt to disenfranchise more than a million Arab citizens and accused the government of seeking to suppress Arab political participation. 

Cassif struck a similar tone on X, when he called the decision "another nail in the coffin of the remnants of democracy" in Israel. 

Has this happened before?

Not on this scale. While Israel's election authorities have previously attempted to disqualify Arab parties and candidates, the exclusion of all major Arab-led electoral lists at the same time would be unprecedented. 

Balad, in particular, has been previously banned, before a Supreme Court ruling allowed the party to run after all. This happened in 2022, 2019, 2009 and 2003, often unanimously. Cassif's ban in 2019 was also overturned.

Since a 1985 legal amendment allowed such challenges from the committee, the Supreme Court has upheld only one such decision — against the ultra-nationalist Orthodox Jewish party Kach in 1988.

What has the reaction been to the banning of Arab parties from the Israeli election?

Many supporters of the bans argue that the October 7 attack and subsequent war in Gaza changed the political context. 

They contend that statements or activities that may previously have been tolerated should be viewed more seriously after the Hamas-led attack and during an ongoing regional conflict. 

Ahead of the CEC decision, Netanyahu's Likud party spelled out its backing for a ban. "There is no room in the Knesset for those who harm IDF soldiers and are unable to say that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations," said a party statement.

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Netanyahu is wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza following October 7, 2023.

Responses from the Israeli center, meanwhile, have been divided. 

Some centrist politicians have supported disqualifying specific candidates, while expressing concerns over excluding entire party lists representing a substantial minority of Israeli citizens. 

Perhaps crucially, Israel's legal establishment has so far not endorsed the disqualifications. The office of Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara reportedly concluded that the evidence against Ra'am and the Joint List did not satisfy the legal requirements for exclusion, although it did support the ban of Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh.  

Much of the media reaction has been scathing, with an opinion piece in the Jerusalem Post reading: "Israel has spent decades proudly calling itself the only democracy in the Middle East. Attempting to exclude the political representatives of Arab citizens, who make up roughly a fifth of Israeli society, is dangerous and fundamentally undemocratic."

Meanwhile, the Times of Israel lamented the CEC's back-and-forth banning process, saying that it's a "safe bet that on October 27, voters will be able to cast ballots for the Joint List and Ra'am," before adding that: "Given the unsuccessful track record of these disqualifications, coalition politicians may have been willing to play fast and lose with democratic rights in order to throw some red meat to their base and delegitimize the Arab parties — all while counting on the Supreme Court to maintain the status quo."