Israel's Central Elections Committee Disqualifies All Arab Political Party Lists and MK Ofer Cassif and Balad Chairman former MK Sami Abu Shehadeh; Adalah to Challenge Decisions Before Supreme Court

Today, 23 September 2026, after a full day of hearings, Israel's Central Elections Committee (CEC) voted to disqualify the following lists and individuals from running in the 27 October 2026 Knesset elections: 

• the United Arab List (Ra'am), led by MK Mansour Abbas;

• the Joint List, led by Yousef Jabareen and made up of candidates from the Hadash/Jabha, Balad/Tajammu' and Ta'al parties;

• MK Ofer Cassif;

• former MK Dr. Sami Abu Shehadeh.

The hearings, like the motions themselves, showed once again that this is an arbitrary, inciting and racist process, devoid of any legal process. 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 CEC approved every disqualification motion except a separate motion against Balad/Tajammu’ alone, which it rejected on procedural grounds. Adalah represented all the political party lists and individual candidates before the CEC, and will represent them against these decisions before the Supreme Court, which is due to hear the cases next week.

The United Arab List (Ra’am) – The CEC voted 18 to 5, with one abstention, to disqualify Ra'am. The motions presented no evidence that Ra'am supports the armed struggle of a terrorist organization or enemy state, or that any other statutory ground applies. Adalah Attorney Dr. Suhad Bishara argued before the Committee that: “All three motions essentially rely on old evidence that has already been reviewed by both the Attorney General and the security services, and those reviews reached conclusions totally at odds with what the petitioners now claim. It takes a wild imagination to reach the petitioners' conclusions,” she emphasized.

The Joint List – The CEC voted 18 to 5 to disqualify the Joint List, barring a list that represents very large segments of the Arab public. The decision relied largely on outdated material, bills from previous Knessets and positions already examined in the past, some of them by the Supreme Court. The motion pointed to no action by the list that would constitute a ground for disqualification, nor did it present the “critical mass” of evidence required under Supreme Court case law. At stake with the political disqualification of this list is the ability of hundreds of thousands of citizens to choose their representatives.

Balad/Tajammu’ – The CEC rejected a separate motion to disqualify Balad as a separate party based on procedural grounds which Adalah pointed to during the hearing. Adalah Attorney Hadeel Abu Salih also argued before the committee that the motion was filed by “Orot HaShachar – A Party for Everyone,” which publicly advocates encouraging the “emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza and annexing the West Bank, noting that it “seeks to disqualify Balad, a liberal, democratic party the candidacy of which the Supreme Court has approved time and again. Meanwhile, the applicant itself promotes goals that, at the very least, raise serious questions of racism, displacement and forcible transfer.”

MK Ofer Cassif – The CEC voted 18 to 5 to disqualify MK Ofer Cassif (Hadash/Jabha, Joint List), following a motion filed by the Likud. As Adalah attorney Ariel Remez argued before the Committee: “It is hard to believe that the Likud, when it filed this motion, genuinely thought it rested on evidence even remotely connected to the grounds for disqualification set out in the Basic Law: The Knesset. Israeli law does not permit barring a candidate from the Knesset simply for criticizing the army and the government for committing war crimes against Palestinians, and certainly not for supporting the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.”

Former MK Dr. Sami Abu Shehadeh – The CEC voted 31 to 4 to disqualify Balad chairman, former MK Dr. Sami Abu Shehadeh, including based on the claim that he expressed support for armed struggle as a means of advancing a political agenda. Adalah General Director Adv. Dr. Hassan Jabareen argued that this claim contradicts Abu Shehadeh's 30 years of public and parliamentary activity. Before the Committee today, Abu Shehadeh reaffirmed his commitment to universal human rights, noting that since 7 October and throughout the war he has repeatedly condemned harm to civilians, Jews and Palestinians alike, and repeatedly called for a diplomatic solution. Jabareen argued that when the Attorney General responded to motions against political party lists that include figures from Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism, who incited the gravest crimes against Palestinians, she found ways to conclude that their statements fell short of the critical mass of evidence required for disqualification. In Abu Shehadeh's case, by contrast, she relied on a broad reading of mainly one Arabic-language article to conclude that he supposedly supported armed struggle against Israel. She even held against him what the article does not say: a condemnation of the 7 October attack. Jabareen stressed that the article contains no call for violence and nothing that could amount to grounds for disqualification; its central message is a call for a political solution for Israelis and Palestinians, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with support for armed struggle.