{"id":660071,"date":"2026-10-28T23:52:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T23:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/660071\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T23:52:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T23:52:11","slug":"balad-leader-blasts-racist-exclusion-of-arab-parties-in-israel-israel-election-2026-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/660071\/","title":{"rendered":"Balad leader blasts \u2018racist\u2019 exclusion of Arab parties in Israel | Israel Election 2026 News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The leader of Israel\u2019s Balad party has condemned the country\u2019s main political leaders for refusing to form a coalition with Arab parties, even after a record showing in polls could make them kingmakers for the next parliament after no clear winner emerged.<\/p>\n

Sami Abu Shehadeh told Al Jazeera that Palestinian citizens of Israel, who make up about a fifth of the population, are being treated as illegitimate partners despite their turnout.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is racism,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are a legitimate elected leadership of the national minority. The vast majority of our people decided that we are their leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arab parties are on course to win a record<\/a> 19 seats, giving them potentially decisive leverage over the main political blocs. With 85 percent of the vote counted, Israel\u2019s Central Elections Committee has Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s bloc ahead with at least 53 seats, and the opposition bloc led by Gadi Eisenkot<\/a> on 48.<\/p>\n

Both are short of the 61 needed to govern. Netanyahu says Israelis chose a strong right-wing government, while Eisenkot says they voted for change.<\/p>\n

Abu Shehadeh, who leads Balad, one of the Joint List\u2019s three parties, was not a candidate.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s elections committee voted to disqualify him at the request of far-right Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who accused him of supporting the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack due to an article issued the following day in which Abu Shehadeh called it an \u201cimportant historical event\u201d.<\/p>\n

Abu Shehadeh subsequently told the Supreme Court 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

He withdrew in October after a majority of the Supreme Court panel appeared willing to approve the disqualification. He rejects the grounds and said the court had made clear<\/a> that Israel has \u201ctwo different judicial systems, one for the Jews and one for the Arabs\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very proud of the Arab Palestinian minority in Israel that went in this very high percentage of voting,\u201d he told Al Jazeera. The community\u2019s first promise to voters, he said, was to prevent \u201cthis gang of criminals\u201d from returning to power, naming Netanyahu and far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. \u201cSo our first promise, we can keep it from now .\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BaladBalad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh speaks at a news conference [File: Ammar Awad\/Reuters]Numbers point to Arab parties but opposition bloc resistant<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera\u2019s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said Netanyahu \u201chas scared off everybody from talking to the Palestinian Israeli parties\u201d, leaving him best placed to \u201ccall the shots\u201d. She said that Eisenkot and his allies have indicated that they want a Zionist government and \u201cdo not want to form a government\u201d with the Arab parties, leaving them few options.<\/p>\n

Danny Ayalon, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, told Al Jazeera that turnout among Palestinian citizens of Israel came in \u201creally unprecedented numbers\u201d and that the parties \u201care going to have some significant clout\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mathematically, he said, Eisenkot\u2019s bloc could join forces with the two Arab parties and pass the threshold, though it would take \u201cpolitical wizardry\u201d. Yousef Jabareen, who leads the Joint List, has said his alliance\u2019s \u201chands are extended\u201d to oust Netanyahu.<\/p>\n

Abu Shehadeh set out what Palestinian citizens want from the next government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are against genocide and we are against apartheid. We want to promote a different political alternative, one which is based on the values of freedom, justice and equality for both people who are living between the river and the sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of Netanyahu, he said:\u00a0\u201cOur problem \u2026 is that he is a war criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n

A UN commission said in a report published on Monday that Israel has continued to commit genocide<\/a> in Gaza after last October\u2019s US-brokered ceasefire in the enclave.<\/p>\n

The Hague-based International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu in 2024 for war crimes during the Gaza war.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The leader of Israel\u2019s Balad party has condemned the country\u2019s main political leaders for refusing to form a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[4410,42,46,286552,47,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-660071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-elections","tag-headlines","tag-israel","tag-israel-election-2026","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660071","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=660071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}