Ruling party says Ra’am and Joint List ‘harm IDF soldiers’ and won’t call Hamas, Hezbollah terror groups; request unlikely to pass High Court, which has nixed previous efforts
Ra’am party leader Mansour Abbas (left) and Ta’al chief Ahmad Tibi walk outside the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Knesset, June 3, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party said Sunday that it would file a request with the Central Elections Committee (CEC) to ban the Arab-majority Ra’am and Joint List parties from running in the October 27 election.
Such a ban is unlikely to hold up in court even if passed by the CEC.
“There is no room in the Knesset for those who harm IDF soldiers and are unable to say that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations,” Likud claimed in a statement, repeating a campaign talking point that premiership rival Gadi Eisenkot wants to ally with them.
Polls indicate that neither Netanyahu’s supporters nor his Zionist opponents, led by Eisenkot’s centrist Yashar, will secure a clear majority in parliament.
Without defectors from Netanyahu’s bloc, the Zionist anti-Netanyahu parties will likely need the support of at least one Arab-majority party to govern.
Ra’am, which is more traditionalist and more open to such a collaboration than the Joint List, was a member of the anti-Netanyahu government that briefly held power in 2021-2022, but several of the premier’s Zionist opponents have since said they would not form a government with any Arab party.
That government came after Likud itself had attempted to court Ra’am as a coalition ally and ran a public campaign promoting such a possibility, with Ra’am chief Mansour Abbas saying later that Netanyahu had hosted him at the prime minister’s official residence and read him a speech he would purportedly deliver upon reaching a partnership.
Netanyahu’s far-right ally Bezalel Smotrich vetoed that scenario, withstanding considerable pressure to allow it. Smotrich has in the past accused Netanyahu of “lying through his teeth” for denying ever seeking to ally with Ra’am, saying he “desperately” wanted to.
Advertisement
Last week, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party petitioned the CEC to bar Ra’am, alleging the Arab party supported armed struggle against Israel.
The petitions will be put to a vote among CEC members, who are apportioned to each party according to its size in parliament.
However, the High Court has overturned all previous votes by the CEC to ban various formations of Ra’am and the Joint List’s three constituent factions, including a vote to ban the nationalist Balad faction ahead of the last election, in 2022.
Reference Link:- https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahus-party-says-it-will-petition-election-panel-to-ban-arab-majority-parties/