Attorney-General Gali Baharav-Miara has asked the Supreme Court to approve the disqualification of Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh from the upcoming election, according to a position filed on Tuesday.
The Justice Ministry announced the position in the names of Baharav-Miara and chief prosecutor Amit Aisman.
In the filing, submitted ahead of Thursday’s hearings on candidate and party disqualifications, the attorney-general asserted that Abu Shehadeh meets the legal threshold for disqualification, specifically on the grounds that he supported an armed struggle by a terrorist organization against the State of Israel.
The Supreme Court is reviewing the Central Elections Committee’s September 23 decision to disqualify Abu Shehadeh, as required before the disqualification of an individual candidate can become final.
Disqualification of Abu Shehadeh on the grounds of Basic Law
At the heart of the matter is Section 7A of Basic Law: The Knesset. It establishes three grounds for disqualifying a candidate or electoral list: negating Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state; incitement to racism; and supporting an armed struggle by an enemy state or terrorist organization against Israel.
The Elections Committee disqualified Abu Shehadeh on the first and third grounds. Baharav-Miara, however, asked the court to approve his disqualification only on the armed-struggle ground and to overturn the committee’s decision concerning Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state.
The filing centered on an Arabic-language article Abu Shehadeh published on two news sites on October 8, 2023, while the Hamas-led attack was still underway.
“The article Abu Shehadeh published on October 8, 2023 - one day after the murderous terrorist attack began, and while it was still underway - expresses a position of support for the armed struggle of the Hamas terrorist organization against the State of Israel,” reads a statement on behalf of Baharav-Miara and Aisman.
According to the filing, the article described the attack as a historic military, political and strategic event and argued that, if the small and besieged Gaza Strip could achieve intelligence concealment and operational surprise, others could do so.
The attorney-general argued that, because of its content, context and timing, the article constituted an exceptionally grave piece of evidence that could independently satisfy the normally stringent legal threshold for disqualification.
The filing also cited a social-media post showing three men whom the disqualification application identified as terrorists, accompanied by words of respect and appreciation.
Abu Shehadeh denied supporting armed struggle when he appeared by video at the Elections Committee hearing. He condemned the October 7 attack and said his political path was democratic and nonviolent. He argued that the article was intended as political analysis and as a call to move the struggle from the military arena to the political and diplomatic arenas.
He also acknowledged that the article should not have been written in the form in which it appeared.
A-G says explanations 'unconvincing'
The attorney-general’s filing said those subsequent explanations were partial and unconvincing and did not address the central allegations, including the article’s timing, its failure to condemn the attack and its discussion of the operational lessons others could draw from it.
The new position goes further than Baharav-Miara’s submission before the Elections Committee hearing. At that stage, representatives of her office said the article appeared to provide a basis for the armed-struggle allegation and that the committee should consider the request seriously after hearing Abu Shehadeh’s response, but stopped short of expressly recommending his disqualification.
During the committee hearing, a representative of the attorney-general said there was a basis for the request. After considering Abu Shehadeh’s affidavit and oral explanations, the attorney-general is now explicitly asking the Supreme Court to approve the disqualification on that ground.
Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which represents Abu Shehadeh, said in response: “The Attorney General is engaging in blatant discrimination between Jewish and Arab political candidates.”
It continued, “By her logic, those who called for genocide in Gaza and incited hate crimes and pogroms in the West Bank are free to run in the elections, while an Arab candidate is barred over a single article, which did not include any call for violence.”
Adalah noted that Abu Shehadeh cited his “repeated, explicit condemnations” of the October 7 attack, and that he “stated unequivocally that he opposes violence and armed struggle.”
The application was filed by Otzma Yehudit and its chairman, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Abu Shehadeh is running in third place on the Joint List.
Ben-Gvir welcomed the position, saying, “Even the attorney-general and the state attorney cannot deny the evidence we presented against Sami Abu Shehadeh.” He criticized the attorney-general’s office for not gathering the material itself and credited attorney David Bavli, No. 11 on Otzma Yehudit’s electoral list, with compiling it.
Committee representatives voted 30-4 to disqualify him. Committee chairman Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg also voted on the armed-struggle ground, bringing the tally on that ground to 31-4.
The court will review Abu Shehadeh’s disqualification before the same nine-justice panel that will subsequently hear challenges concerning the disqualifications of MK Ofer Cassif and the Joint List.