A significant dispute has emerged within Israel’s State Attorney’s Office over the position the state should take regarding the petition to disqualify Balad chairman Sami Abu Shehadeh, i24NEWS reported.
According to the report, the Deputy Attorney General and the Head of the High Court of Justice Department support disqualifying Abu Shehadeh. However, the Deputy State Attorney believes the evidence presented does not constitute sufficiently clear grounds for disqualification. Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has decided to review Abu Shehadeh’s response before taking a formal stance.
At the center of the dispute is a disqualification petition filed by Otzma Yehudit and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. The petition seeks to prevent Abu Shehadeh from running in the upcoming 26th Knesset elections under Section 7A of Basic Law: The Knesset, citing - among other grounds - his alleged support for the armed struggle of a terrorist organization against the State of Israel.
Key evidence presented by Otzma Yehudit includes an article published by Abu Shehadeh on October 8, 2023 - one day after the Hamas attack, while fighting was still ongoing inside Israel. The article appeared on Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, a website owned by former Knesset member Azmi Bishara, who fled to Qatar after being accused of passing intelligence to Hezbollah during the 2006 Second Lebanon War.
In the piece, Abu Shehadeh described the Hamas attack as "an important historic event from a military, political, and strategic perspective." Addressing Israel's intelligence failure, he wrote that Israel and its security services "do not know everything," adding that they can be thwarted through proper organization: "If the small and besieged Gaza was able to do this, and at this level, others can do it more effectively and simply."
Otzma Yehudit argues in its petition that these remarks constitute explicit support for terrorism against the State of Israel, rendering Abu Shehadeh's candidacy unlawful.
Responding to the report, Ben Gvir criticized the judicial system: "The person responsible for the fact that someone like this is running for the Knesset is [former Supreme Court President] Aharon Barak, who granted immunity to his spiritual mentor Azmi Bishara despite his activities against the State of Israel. That same Bishara passed information and coordinates to Hezbollah during the Second Lebanon War and called for the establishment of a Palestinian state on the ruins of the State of Israel. The legal lawlessness is providing cover for terrorism."