The Likud announced Sunday evening that it will submit requests to disqualify the Joint List and UAL from participating in the upcoming elections. “In the Knesset of Israel, there is no place for anyone who harms IDF soldiers and is unable to say that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations. These supporters of terrorism are the natural partners of Gadi Eisenkot, with whom he wants to form a government together with Yair Golan and Lieberman. This must not be allowed to happen."
Last week, Otzma Yehudit submitted a request to the Central Elections Committee seeking to disqualify the UAL and its chairman, MK Mansour Abbas, from running in the elections. The petition claimed that UAL denies Israel’s existence as a Jewish state and supports the armed struggle of hostile states and terrorist organizations against Israel.
At the center of the material submitted by Otzma Yehudit is a report by the Registrar of Non-Profit Organizations concerning the “Aid '48" association. According to the petitioners, the organization is directly connected to UAL and the report “specifies transfers of funds and cooperation with terrorist entities."
The petition further alleges direct ties between UAL, the Southern Branch of the Islamic Movement and affiliated associations, as well as an ideological connection to the Muslim Brotherhood. Otzma Yehudit claims that “Aid '48" and other organizations operating under the banner of humanitarian activity transferred millions of shekels to Hamas and additional terrorist organizations.
Part of the petition addresses the legal standard established in previous rulings concerning the disqualification of candidates and political lists.
Otzma Yehudit argues that, according to Supreme Court precedent, “a Knesset member who would have been awakened on 7.10 and during the massacre would have expressed direct and explicit support for ‘Resistance’ would not have been disqualified from running for the Knesset due to the absence of that ‘critical mass’ of evidence."
The petition also cites the case of former MK Azmi Bishara as an example of what Otzma Yehudit describes as the previous application of the legal provisions governing candidate disqualification. The petitioners claim that Bishara repeatedly received Supreme Court protection that enabled him to run for and serve in the Knesset despite what they describe as evidence of support for an enemy and denial of Israel’s existence. Otzma Yehudit argues that this approach should no longer be maintained following the October 7 massacre.
“This is not a free market of ideas, but for someone who wants to blow up the market so that there will be neither ideas nor people who will express them," the party stated.