Israel’s Central Elections Committee voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to disqualify Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh, the No. 3 candidate on the Joint List, from running in the October 27 Knesset election, with Supreme Court Justice Noam Sohlberg taking the highly unusual step of joining the vote. The Times of Israel reports that the committee approved the disqualification by a 30-4 vote.

The committee accepted both grounds raised in the petition: that Abu Shehadeh supported armed struggle by an enemy state or terrorist organization against Israel and that he negated Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state.

Sohlberg, who chairs the Central Elections Committee, broke with decades of practice under which the Supreme Court justice heading the panel refrained from participating in disqualification votes.

Sohlberg said Abu Shehadeh had failed to adequately answer allegations concerning an Arabic-language article he published on October 8, 2023, one day after the Hamas massacre. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara had also urged the committee to seriously consider barring him.

The move received unusually broad political support, including from opposition parties. Abu Shehadeh, however, has rejected allegations that he supported Hamas’s massacre or armed attacks against Israel.

The committee’s vote does not automatically settle Abu Shehadeh’s candidacy. The disqualification is subject to Supreme Court review under Israel’s election laws.

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