Israel's Top Court Overturns Ban on Arab Parties for October Election

Israel's Supreme Court on Friday unanimously overturned a decision by the Central Elections Committee that would have barred two Arab electoral lists from contesting the country's October 27 parliamentary election. The ruling, delivered by a nine-justice panel, restores the Joint List and the United Arab List (Ra'am) to the ballot with just over three weeks until polling day.

Israel's Supreme Court in Jerusalem. A nine-justice panel unanimously overturned the Central Elections Committee's decision to bar two Arab electoral lists from the October 27 election.

The Ban That Started It All

On September 23, the Central Elections Committee voted 18-5 to disqualify the Joint List — an alliance of the Hadash, Ta'al and Balad factions — and the United Arab List from running in the Knesset election. The committee is made up of representatives of the parties in the outgoing Knesset and is chaired by Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg.

The disqualification petitions were filed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's Jewish Power party, and the Choosing Life forum. The challenges leaned on Section 7A of the Basic Law: The Knesset, the constitutional provision that allows a party to be barred from elections if it rejects Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, incites racism, or supports armed struggle against Israel by an enemy state or terrorist organization.

Supporters of the bans argued that the lists harmed IDF soldiers and refused to designate Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations. In the case of the United Arab List, the challengers pointed to alleged ties between affiliated organizations and Hamas-linked entities, and accused its leader, Mansour Abbas, of conveying contradictory messages to Hebrew- and Arabic-speaking audiences. The effort was widely read as an attempt by the right to shrink the Arab parties' parliamentary footprint before a tight election.

What the Court Decided

Hearing appeals on Thursday, the nine-justice panel found that the committee had not presented the clear, compelling evidence the law demands for disqualification. According to Channel 12, the judges unanimously decided to allow both the United Arab List and the Joint List to participate in the election.

Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara had opposed the exclusions, arguing that the evidence did not reach the required legal threshold — a position the court's ruling effectively endorsed. The lists were represented before the court by Adalah, which argued that the committee's decisions lacked the evidentiary basis Israeli law requires and noted that the committee had simultaneously permitted far-right lists to run.

The court also reversed the committee's disqualification of Ofer Cassif — the Joint List's sole Jewish Knesset member — by a majority, with two of the nine judges dissenting. In the one partial exception to the sweep, Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh withdrew his own candidacy on Thursday evening after the court advised him to do so; a majority of judges were said to favor disqualifying him. Shehadeh had previously described the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack as "an important historical event" in an opinion piece, though he later said he regretted the article and condemned the attack.

The Parties and the Players

The two restored lists represent the core of Arab political representation in Israel. The Joint List is led by Yusuf Jabareen and brings together Hadash — the Jewish-Arab socialist party backed by the Communist Party of Israel — alongside Ta'al and Balad. The United Arab List, known as Ra'am, is led by Mansour Abbas and is generally seen as the more pragmatic of the two blocs. Abbas's camp framed the disqualification drive as a political hit job, with the Ra'am leader arguing that Netanyahu was trying to disqualify his party and "steal the election."

Both lists described the committee's move as politically motivated — an attempt, in their words, to depress Arab turnout at a moment when every seat could matter. Centrist Israeli politicians were divided over the bans, according to reports, with some supporting individual disqualifications while expressing discomfort with excluding entire parties representing a substantial minority of the population.

Mansour Abbas, leader of the United Arab List (Ra'am), which was cleared to contest the October 27 Knesset election.

Why This Case Matters

Arab citizens make up roughly one-fifth of Israel's population of 10 million, and opinion polls project Arab lawmakers winning between 12 and 14 of the 120 Knesset seats. With neither the pro-Netanyahu nor the opposition blocs currently polling for an outright majority, those seats could prove decisive in the coalition arithmetic that follows the vote.

The ruling also reaffirms a long-standing institutional pattern in Israeli democracy: the Central Elections Committee may seek disqualifications, but the Supreme Court acts as the final check — and it has historically set the evidentiary bar for barring parties very high. That bar, the judges made clear, was not cleared here.

For the Arab minority, the case touches something deeper than one election cycle. The ban attempt, followed by its unanimous reversal, revives a decades-old debate about the boundaries of political participation in Israel: whether parties that sharply criticize state policy — including its military operations — can be pushed off the ballot, or whether the electorate itself must be the judge.

What Happens Next

With just over three weeks to polling day on October 27, the campaigns now shift back to the voters. Turnout in the Arab sector — widely seen as responsive to moments of perceived exclusion — will be closely watched, as will whether the ruling energizes the vote or fragments it across the two restored lists.

For Netanyahu and his allies, who sought to remove rivals from the ballot, the ruling is a clear legal defeat — and a reminder that the ballot box, not the committee room, will decide the fate of their opponents. The broader fight over Arab political representation, equality, and the direction of Israeli democracy now returns where the court says it belongs: to the voters.