Israel’s Central Elections Committee (CEC), on Wednesday (September 23, 2026), voted to bar the country’s main Arab parties from contesting next month’s elections to Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. There have been a series of attempts for decades to disqualify Arab parties from contesting elections, and the latest move comes at a time when these parties have a chance to play a crucial role in the upcoming government.
Recent polls by media outlets have suggested that neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition nor the Zionist opposition bloc will be able to secure the 61 seats required for a parliamentary majority in the 120-member Knesset, and projected that the Arab parties could win up to 12 seats. The CEC’s move to disqualify the Ra’am party and the Joint List (an alliance of Arab parties Balad, Hadash and Ta’al) comes at this juncture. The panel has also voted to disqualify Joint List individual candidate Ofer Cassif and Balad leader Sami Abu Shehadeh.
However, the panel’s decision is not final. It requires the approval of the Supreme Court of Justice for disqualifying individual candidates, and the disqualified political party has the right to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Reason for the ban
The CEC, responding to petitions filed by Likud and Jewish Power parties as well as the Choose Life Forum, a non-government organisation, voted 18-5 with one abstention to disqualify the Ra’am party led by M.K. Mansour Abbas on grounds of supporting the armed struggle of a terrorist organisation/enemy state, inciting racism and rejecting Israel’s existence. However, as per Adalah, the legal centre for Arab rights in Israel, no supporting evidence was presented.
The move to bar the Joint List relied on bills and actions from previous Knessets, some of which have already been examined and dismissed by the Supreme Court. Mr. Cassif’s dismissal rested on his criticism of the army and the government for committing war crimes against Palestinians. Mr. Shehadeh’s disqualification rested on the claim that he expressed support for armed struggle.
Adalah, which represented the now-banned political partiesand individual candidates before the CEC, in its site referred to the hearings and the motions as “an arbitrary, inciting and racist process” aimed at “persecuting ideas the majority does not accept” which ended with disqualification of all Palestinian representations in the Israeli Knesset. The organisation is also representing them before the Supreme Court this week.
Previous attempts
The attempt is, however, not new. As per information published by Adalah on its site, the CEC has filed disqualification motions against Arab political parties and candidates in every election cycle for the past 20+ years. But the Supreme Court has cancelled the CEC’s decision and reinstated candidacy in each of these instances.
For instance, the CEC voted to disqualify the Balad party and its key founder Azmi Bishara from contesting the 2003 elections. In the 2013 elections, there was an attempt to bar Balad, Ra’am-Ta’al and Arab List candidate M.K. Zoabi. Less than two years later, the CEC approved the disqualification of Mr. Zoabi. In the 2020 election, motions were filed to disqualify Joint List’s Heba Yazbak and in 2022, it voted to disqualify the Balad party.
Arbitrary provisions
These processes are valid under the existing Knesset Elections Law as per which any political party or any citizen aged 18 years and over or the attorney general can file a disqualification motion to the Knesset’s Central Elections Committee (CEC) requesting the barring of a political party or an individual from contesting elections. The motion is approved if it receives a majority approval of 51% from CEC members.
Under Article 7A of the Basic Law, the Knesset has the right to disqualify any party or individual if their goals or actions (including speech) either deny the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state or incite racism or offer support to armed struggle to an enemy state or to a terrorist organisation against the State of Israel.
But, this law has several shortcomings. Firstly, the CEC which is established to carry out election processes, is itself a politicised body comprising roughly 30-35 representatives of outgoing members of the Knesset and is chaired by a Supreme Court Justice. In a Knesset where Arab parties have only been able to secure a smaller share of seats, and where blocs are not inclined to join hands with Arab parties, the chances of arbitrary disqualification from outgoing Knesset members remains a looming crisis.
Secondly, the provisions of Article 7A are pretty vague. There is no definition for what constitutes a “terror organisation” or what “offering support” means. Further, even a political position like a “State for all its citizens” could be implied as denial of the nature of Jewish state.
Arab representation
The disqualification that effectively bars all Arab parties is a blow to the country’s already underrepresented Arab population.
According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, around 2.157 million Arabs live in the country and account for 21% of the country’s population. The parties representing the Arab population have never held more than 15 seats in the 120-member Knesset. For instance, the Joint List, which included Ra’am, till 2021 secured 13, 13, and 15 seats in the 2015, 2019 and 2020 Knesset elections respectively and was part of the opposition.
It was in 2021 that Ra’am, which broke away from the Joint List, became the first Arab party in more than 50 years to be part of the coalition government. It returned to being part of the opposition the next year with Mr. Netanyahu’s return to power.
This time the disqualifications, if upheld, could have electoral implications beyond Arab representation. With neither of the present ruling and the opposition blocs showing any inclination to include Arab parties in the future government and polls predicting no clear winner, the move constrains the chances of the Arab parties to be part of the ruling coalition.
Published – September 28, 2026 10:52 pm IST
