Arab Israeli Candidate Sami Abu Shehadeh Withdraws From Election Race

Arab Israeli politician Sami Abu Shehadeh withdrew his candidacy for next month’s parliamentary election on Thursday after Israel’s Supreme Court signaled that a majority of its judges supported barring him from the race.

Abu Shehadeh leads the left-wing Palestinian Balad party and served in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, from 2019 to 2022. Arab Israeli parties are viewed by political analysts as potential kingmakers in the October 27 election, with polling showing neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition nor the main opposition bloc on track for a majority.

His party said in a statement that the withdrawal does not mark the end of his political struggle, and that he would remain Balad’s leader. Last week, Israel’s Central Elections Committee voted to disqualify Abu Shehadeh at the request of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, following an article in which Abu Shehadeh described Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack as an important historical event. He has denied supporting the attack, though the remarks drew sharp criticism.

The Supreme Court convened Thursday to hear his appeal against the disqualification, but rather than issue a ruling, it proposed he voluntarily withdraw after indicating most judges favored excluding him, giving him until Friday morning to decide. Balad said Abu Shehadeh had little choice but to withdraw in order to avoid a formal disqualification that would have carried grave consequences for the country’s political and parliamentary life.

Disqualifying candidates is rare in Israel, where the Supreme Court has historically overturned most bans approved by the elections committee. Under Israeli law, candidates can only be barred if they deny Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state or support armed struggle by an enemy state or terrorist organization against Israel. Adalah, the Israeli rights group representing Abu Shehadeh, accused the Supreme Court of effectively disqualifying him by pressuring him into withdrawing, saying in a statement to AFP that a Palestinian leader has been forced out of the Israeli Knesset elections after the court made clear it would remove him. The group pointed to Abu Shehadeh’s decades of public life as a human rights activist, legislator and party leader as evidence of his consistent and unequivocal opposition to violence of any kind, calling the outcome a severe blow to the right of Palestinian citizens to be represented and to stand for election.

Beyond Abu Shehadeh, the elections committee last week also barred two Arab electoral lists, the United Arab List and the Joint List, a three-party alliance that includes Balad. The Supreme Court is scheduled to continue hearing appeals from those parties on Friday.

Arab Israelis, also known as Palestinian citizens of Israel, make up about 20 percent of the country’s population, with most identifying as Palestinian. They are descendants of Palestinians who remained within Israel’s borders after the state’s creation in 1948 and have long raised concerns about discrimination compared with Israel’s Jewish majority.

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