The Central Elections Committee will discuss on Thursday afternoon the request of the Ad Kan organization to disqualify the Ra'am Party from running for the Knesset.
The Meretz faction will vote against the requests to disqualify the Ra'am and Balad slates, while representatives of Yesh Atid will not participate in the disqualification debates. The Labor Party will also be absent from the debate, as will the parties of the right-wing bloc.
The disqualification request of Ad Kan states that the Ra'am Party is the political arm of the Islamic Movement, which elects the slate of Knesset candidates and makes the decisions for the party, and therefore it is necessary to examine the compliance of the entire Islamic Movement with the requirements of the Knesset Basic Law and not only the party itself.
Ad Kan further argues that the Islamic Movement owns a wide variety of non-profit organizations, public benefit companies and commercial companies, some of which were established after Ra'am entered the coalition, in order to absorb the budgets promised to the Arab sector in the coalition negotiations. The movement collects charity from its Muslim supporters in Israel amounting to tens of millions of shekels per year and transfers them its various institutions, allegedy for outlawed destinations.
MK Simcha Rothman of the Religious Zionism Party claimed that the discussion of the Central Elections Committee on the disqualification of the lists on Thursday will be a show for the media, as he put it.
"The Chairman of the Elections Committee, Judge Yitzhak Amit, decided in advance that each member of the committee could only speak for two minutes while the members of Ra’am could present their position in detail for at least 20 minutes,” said Rothman.
"This decision only emphasizes that this is a meaningless show. In the discussion of the most marginal regulations in the committee in the Knesset, a longer period of time is spent, than in the discussion tomorrow. If it was a serious discussion, about the denial of the right to run in the elections, such ridiculous periods of time would not have been set."
Rothman also noted that "in the past, the Supreme Court, despite clear, conclusive and unequivocal evidence, allowed supporters of terrorism to run, and there is no reason why we should give it the opportunity allow Ra’am and Balad to run this time as well."
"We will come to the discussion to respect the Ad Kan organization and the Choosing LIfe Forum, as well as to flood the important information contained in the disqualification requests that they submitted, however, we made a decision not to participate in the ritual ceremony where the Elections Committee disqualifies parties that support terrorism only for the Supreme Court to do as it wishes,” said Rothman.
The Ad Kan organization stated in advance of the debate, "There is no place in the Israeli Knesset for representatives of a movement that operates in an institutionalized manner to aid declared terrorist elements and for the benefit of elements in enemy countries in violation of the law. The Islamic Movement should be disqualified from running for the 25th Knesset. It is inconceivable that branches of the movement maintain connections and assist declared terrorist organizations and their political arm, the Ra'am Party, will simultaneously sit in the Israeli Knesset and establish and overthrow governments. Just yesterday, the chairman of the Islamic Movement published a notice of mourning for the death of Yusef al-Qaradawi, who was the religious authority that allowed Hamas to carry out suicide attacks and allowed the murder of every Israeli-Jewish within the framework of the Palestinian resistance. The Islamic Movement is a sister movement of Hamas, as defined by former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, and its has no place in the Knesset."