The Central Election Committee, led by Supreme Court justice Uzi Fogelman, voted Wednesday afternoon to reject a petition to disqualify the entire Joint Arab List from running in next month’s general election.
The petition to ban the Joint Arab List was submitted by Otzma Yehudit chief Itamar Ben-Gvir, along with a request to disqualify Ibtisam Mara'ana, number seven on the Labor Party’s Knesset slate, from the upcoming election.
While the Committee accepted the petition against Mara’ana, voting to bar her from participating in the election, the committee voted 15 to 3 to reject the request to bar the Joint Arab List, with two other Central Election Committee members abstaining from the vote, and the Likud party’s representatives absenting themselves from the vote.
“The Likud decided not to take part in the deliberation on whether to bar the Join Arab List since Israeli Arabs already know that the Joint Arab List doesn’t represent them and is ignoring them,” said MK Shlomo Karhi.
“Arab citizens of Israel have grown tired of these people [in the Joint Arab List] wo don’t care about them, and they understand that the Likud under Netanyahu is the one that will ensure the security and welfare of every citizen of Israel.”
The Likud released a statement after the vote in the Committee, saying: “The Joint Arab List and Abbas won’t be in our government and we won’t rely on them in any way since they are terror supporters.”
“In every election, the Likud votes against the Joint Arab List, then the Supreme Court reverses it and grants [the List] approval, and [the Joint Arab List] takes advantage of the vote to strengthen itself and bring in votes. This time we will take their votes, because Israeli Arabs are tired of wasting their votes on parties that don’t do anything for them.”