Israel's election panel bars Arab parties, then a leader quits the race under court pressure

Palestinians in Israel are asking whether they will get a fair say in the October 27 parliamentary election - after the country's Central Elections Committee voted late last month to bar the two main Arab-led lists from running.

The committee, by 18 votes to 5, disqualified the Joint List - an alliance of Hadash, Balad and Ta'al - and Ra'am, the United Arab List, following petitions from Likud and the far-right Otzma Yehudit accusing them of denying Israel's Jewish and democratic character. It also barred Ofer Cassif, a Jewish lawmaker from the Arab-Jewish Hadash party, and Sami Abu Shehadeh, the leader of the Palestinian nationalist Balad party.

On Friday the Supreme Court overturned the bans on Cassif and the four parties. Shehadeh, however, withdrew his own candidacy - his lawyers at the Adalah legal centre said the move was to avert a 'dangerous legal precedent' after the court signalled it might uphold his disqualification over a single sentence in an October 2023 article.

'In the Jewish state, there are two different laws for citizens according to their identity,' Shehadeh told Reuters, pointing out that the same committee refused to disqualify far-right ministers - some under international sanctions - who advocate the displacement of Palestinians.

Palestinian citizens make up about a fifth of Israel's population and hold 10 seats in the 120-member Knesset. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara had opposed the disqualifications, arguing the evidence did not meet the legal threshold. Had the bans stood, a fifth of the electorate would have lost its principal parliamentary voice weeks before polling day.