The Central Elections Committee voted Wednesday to bar Ra’am from competing in the October 27 election, hours after it voted to disqualify MK Ofer Cassif and Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh.
Ra’am, the United Arab List led by MK Mansour Abbas, may appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, which is set to hear election-disqualification cases next week. Unlike the disqualification of an individual candidate, a decision barring an entire party list does not automatically go to the court for approval.
The vote followed three requests filed by the Likud, Otzma Yehudit and the Choosing Life forum of bereaved families and victims of terrorism.
The applicants alleged that Ra’am supported armed struggle by a terrorist organization and rejected Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state, two of the three grounds for disqualification under Section 7A of Basic Law: The Knesset.
They cited alleged connections between Ra’am, the Southern Branch of the Islamic Movement and charitable organizations that the applicants claimed had transferred assistance to bodies linked to Hamas. They also cited statements by Abbas that they argued showed the party presented different positions to Hebrew- and Arabic-speaking audiences.
Ra’am denied the allegations, arguing that the petitions failed to provide clear and convincing evidence connecting the party to support for terrorism or any other prohibited objective.
Adalah attorney Suhad Bishara, representing Ra’am, told the committee that the applicants had not presented evidence capable of establishing the unequivocal factual record required for disqualification. She also pointed to Abbas’s condemnation of the October 7 massacre and his efforts on behalf of hostages held in Gaza.
Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara and State Attorney Amit Aisman opposed barring Ra’am, finding that the evidence did not establish any of the statutory grounds required to exclude it from the election.
The Supreme Court has interpreted Section 7A narrowly, requiring clear, convincing and unequivocal evidence that a prohibited objective is central to a party’s activity. The evidence must demonstrate that the objective is a dominant feature of the list’s conduct rather than a marginal or isolated one.
In 2019, the committee voted to disqualify a joint Ra’am-Balad slate, but the Supreme Court overturned the decision and allowed it to compete.
Wednesday’s decision marked the third disqualification approved by the committee during its first day of hearings. The decisions concerning Cassif and Abu Shehadeh involve individual candidates and therefore require Supreme Court approval before taking effect.