Israel’s Supreme Court advises Arab party leader to drop election bid

Israel’s Supreme Court has advised Balad party leader Sami Abu Shehadeh to withdraw from the October 27 Knesset election, warning that it could otherwise issue a ruling disqualifying him. The development came as the court on Thursday began hearing appeals against decisions by Israel’s Central Elections Committee to disqualify Arab electoral lists and candidates from the parliamentary election. Last week, the elections committee voted to disqualify the country’s two main Arab-majority political lists – Ra’am and the Joint List, which is an alliance of Hadash, Ta’al and Balad. Separately, it moved to disqualify Abu Shehadeh and parliament member Ofer Cassif, a Jewish politician from the Arab-Jewish Hadash party.