{"id":790022,"date":"2026-10-02T21:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T21:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/790022\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T21:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T21:16:09","slug":"arab-party-leader-forced-to-withdraw-from-israeli-elections-israel-election-2026-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/790022\/","title":{"rendered":"Arab party leader forced to withdraw from Israeli elections | Israel Election 2026 News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arab Israeli politician Sami Abu Shehadeh has withdrawn his candidacy for the upcoming Israeli elections after the Supreme Court<\/a> advised him to drop out.<\/p>\n

The leader of the left-wing Palestinian Balad party announced on Friday he was dropping his bid for election to the Knesset on October 27.<\/p>\n

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

His withdrawal, which came after the court threatened to disqualify him, comes amid recent efforts<\/a> by Israeli authorities to block Arab Israeli parties from taking part.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Friday, Abu Shehadeh said he withdrew because he \u201cdidn\u2019t have any other choices\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said the push to bar Arab parties in Israel was aimed at keeping Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir in power.<\/p>\n

\u201cNetanyahu and Ben Gvir know that if the Arab-Palestinian community participate in the next election, this will be the highest wall preventing them from returning to rule,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Of 38 lists running in the election, only two represent the Arab Palestinian minority, he noted. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to disqualify the two lists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Political analysts view Arab Israeli parties as potential kingmakers in the election, with polls showing neither Netanyahu\u2019s coalition nor the main opposition bloc on course for an outright majority.<\/p>\n

\"SamiSami Abu Shehadeh, leader of the Balad party, arrives at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem on October 1, 2026 [AFP]<\/p>\n

Abu Shehadeh\u2019s 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

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

A \u2018historical catastrophe\u2019 for democracy<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s elections committee voted to disqualify him at the request of far-right minister 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 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. But the Supreme Court overturned that decision on Friday.<\/p>\n

Adalah has questioned why 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

Although the Supreme Court restored the United Arab List, and another Arab party, to the ballot on Friday, Shehadeh\u00a0said the court\u2019s reversal did not make the original disqualifications acceptable.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end, what happened yesterday was a historical catastrophe for democracy, or the very narrow margins of democracy in the State of Israel,\u201d he said. \u201cI was disqualified because I think differently, because I have a different narrative on how to read history, the present, and the future in the place that we live today.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arab Israeli politician Sami Abu Shehadeh has withdrawn his candidacy for the upcoming Israeli elections after the Supreme…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,9084,260132,632,50,9086,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-790022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-israel","tag-israel-election-2026","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-palestine","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}