Arab Israeli parties are seen by political analysts as potential kingmakers in the October 27 election, with polls showing neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition nor the main opposition bloc on course for a majority.
Abu Shehadeh leads the left-wing Palestinian Balad party and served in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, from 2019 to 2022.
The Balad leader was withdrawing his candidacy, but the decision did not mark the end of his political struggle, his party said in a statement, adding that he would remain the party’s leader.
Last week, Israel’s Central Elections Committee voted to disqualify Abu Shehadeh at the request of far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.
The move came after an article in which Abu Shehadeh described Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack as an “important historical event”.
He has denied supporting the attack, but the remarks drew sharp criticism.
The Supreme Court convened on Thursday to hear Abu Shehadeh’s appeal against the disqualification.
Rather than issue a ruling, the court proposed that he voluntarily withdraw after signalling that most of its judges favoured excluding him from the election.
It gave him until Friday morning to decide.
Abu Shehadeh had little choice but to withdraw in order to avoid a formal disqualification that would have “grave consequences for the country’s political and parliamentary life”, Balad said.
– ‘Severe blow’ –
Disqualifying candidates is rare in Israel, where the Supreme Court has historically overturned most bans approved by the elections committee.
Under Israeli law, candidates can be barred only if they deny Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state or support armed struggle by an enemy state or a terrorist organisation against Israel.
Adalah, the Israeli rights group representing Abu Shehadeh, accused the Supreme Court of effectively disqualifying him by pressuring him to withdraw.
“A Palestinian leader has been forced out of the Israeli Knesset elections after the Supreme Court made clear it would remove him,” the group said in a statement to AFP.
Adalah said Abu Shehadeh’s decades of public life as a human rights activist, legislator and party leader demonstrated his “consistent and unequivocal opposition to violence of any kind”.
“It is a severe blow to the right of Palestinian citizens to be represented and to stand for election.”
Besides Abu Shehadeh, the elections committee last week barred two Arab electoral lists: the United Arab List and the Joint List, a three-party alliance that includes Balad.
The Supreme Court is due to continue hearing appeals from those parties on Friday.
Arab Israelis, also known as Palestinian citizens of Israel, account for about 20 percent of the country’s population. Most identify as Palestinians.
They are descendants of Palestinians who remained within Israel’s borders after the state’s creation in 1948 and have long complained of discrimination compared with Israel’s Jewish majority.
