Supreme Court<\/a> advised him to drop out.<\/p>\nThe leader of the left-wing Palestinian Balad party announced on Friday he was dropping his bid for election to the Knesset on October 27. His withdrawal, which came after the court threatened to disqualify him, comes amid increased efforts by Israeli authorities to block Arab Israeli parties from taking part.<\/p>\n
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Political analysts view Arab Israeli parties as potential kingmakers in the election, with polls showing neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s coalition nor the main opposition bloc on course for an outright majority.<\/p>\n
The withdrawal came after the Supreme Court indicated that a majority of its judges agreed with a September 23 decision from Israel\u2019s Central Elections Committee to oust him from the race after nationalist political rivals accused him of supporting Hamas\u2019s attack on October 7, 2023.<\/p>\n
Adalah, a rights organisation representing Abu Shehadeh, condemned the court, saying the evidence it presented had no legal basis.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe court has effectively decided to remove a Palestinian leader, a citizen of Israel, from the Knesset,\u201d Adalah said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe court\u2019s clear intention to disqualify him,\u201d it added, was \u201ca direction that would have set a dangerous legal precedent with devastating consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Sami](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/1790951294_272_afp_6abe81d70b9e-1790869975.jpg\")
Sami Abu Shehadeh, leader of the Balad party, arrives at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem on October 1, 2026 [AFP]<\/p>\n
Abu Shehadeh served in the Knesset from 2019 to 2022. Balad confirmed he was withdrawing his candidacy but stressed that the decision did not mark the end of his political struggle and that he would remain party leader.<\/p>\n
The elections committee voted to disqualify him at the request of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who accused him of supporting the Hamas attack due to an article issued the following day in which Abu Shehadeh called it an \u201cimportant historical event\u201d.<\/p>\n
Speaking to the Supreme Court on Thursday, Abu Shehadeh said he did not support \u201carmed struggle\u201d but acknowledged that a paragraph in the article had been incorrectly worded. He said his intention was to call for moving the conflict towards a political process.<\/p>\n
Adalah labelled his withdrawal from the election \u201ca severe blow to the right of Palestinian citizens to be represented and to stand for election\u201d.<\/p>\n
The elections committee has also barred two Arab electoral lists: the United Arab List and the Joint List, a three-party alliance that includes Abu Shehadeh\u2019s party Balad. The Supreme Court is due to continue hearing appeals from the parties on Friday.<\/p>\n
Adalah has questioned why the Palestinian candidates are being disqualified but far-right Israeli candidates were \u201ccleared to run\u201d despite openly calling for violence against Palestinians and making statements \u201camounting to incitement to genocide\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Palestinian participation in upcoming Knesset vote continues to shrink with withdrawal of Sami Abu Shehadeh. Published On 2…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,286552,47,43,48],"class_list":["post-634280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-israel-election-2026","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-palestine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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