Baruch Marzel of Hevron will be allowed to run for Knesset in the upcoming election - unless the Supreme Court rules otherwise. The Central Elections Board, beginning its deliberations today on several requests to disqualify various Knesset lists and candidates from running, started with the Labor Party's request to nullify Marzel, #2 on Michael Kleiner's Herut list. Though both Attorney-General Elyakim Rubenstein and Elections Board Chairman Justice Michael Cheshin were in favor of disqualifying Marzel, the board voted by a narrow margin to reject the Labor request. The Elections Board is a 42-member body comprising at least one representative from each political party, with larger parties receiving more representatives.
The Labor Party had claimed that Baruch Marzel, a resident of Tel Romeida who runs several charity and social organizations, is a leading member of the outlawed Kach party founded by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. Marzel responded that Kach no longer exists - but he did not deny that he was Rabbi Kahane's student. He said there is no evidence that he is a member of Kach.
MK Michael Eitan (Likud) said after the vote that Hon. Cheshin "wanted us to vote in accordance with his opinion and that of the Attorney-General, the way they do in dictatorships. But we did not do that; we vote according to our own opinions, the way democracy is supposed to work." Today's decision was not the end of the story, however; Labor MK Effie Oshaya says he will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
The Arab parties are also the subject of requests to be disqualified. The Attorney-General is in favor of banning the Balad party and its leader Azmi Bishara, but not the other Arab parties.
In other legal news, the Supreme Court rejected today a suit by Meretz MK Mossi Raz and two left-wing organizations demanding that the government remove 100 settlement outposts in Yesha. The Yesha Council issued a statement saying that the decision finding no merit in the suit "proves that which we have long said, that Peace Now is motivated by 'groundless hatred' in its political persecution of the Yesha residents."
The Labor Party had claimed that Baruch Marzel, a resident of Tel Romeida who runs several charity and social organizations, is a leading member of the outlawed Kach party founded by the late Rabbi Meir Kahane. Marzel responded that Kach no longer exists - but he did not deny that he was Rabbi Kahane's student. He said there is no evidence that he is a member of Kach.
MK Michael Eitan (Likud) said after the vote that Hon. Cheshin "wanted us to vote in accordance with his opinion and that of the Attorney-General, the way they do in dictatorships. But we did not do that; we vote according to our own opinions, the way democracy is supposed to work." Today's decision was not the end of the story, however; Labor MK Effie Oshaya says he will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court.
The Arab parties are also the subject of requests to be disqualified. The Attorney-General is in favor of banning the Balad party and its leader Azmi Bishara, but not the other Arab parties.
In other legal news, the Supreme Court rejected today a suit by Meretz MK Mossi Raz and two left-wing organizations demanding that the government remove 100 settlement outposts in Yesha. The Yesha Council issued a statement saying that the decision finding no merit in the suit "proves that which we have long said, that Peace Now is motivated by 'groundless hatred' in its political persecution of the Yesha residents."