The Israeli Supreme Court held a hearing after an appeal by Arab parties and candidates barred from running in this month’s general election. Sami Abu Shehadeh and Ofer Cassif were disqualified by the Israeli Election Commission, which also voted to bar the two main Arab parties representing Palestinian citizens of Israel. The original requests to bar them were made by Israeli right-wing parties, including Otzma Yehudit. Mohammad Dahleh, a lawyer who has practised in the Israeli and Palestinian legal systems since 1993, told Al Jazeera that the disqualifications amount to institutional discrimination. He said Israeli law allows parties and candidates to be barred for denying Israel as a Jewish and democratic state or supporting armed struggle. Dahleh said the case of Sami Abu Shehadeh is the most complicated, partly because of an article he published after October 7, 2023. He said the Supreme Court has changed, with five of the nine justices considered part of a conservative bloc, and argued that Arab parties and Palestinian citizens of Israel remain on the margins of Israeli politics.
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