BICOM

Israel’s Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit has said that there is sufficient evidence to disqualify Michael Ben Ari, the Chairman of the Jewish Power party, from standing as a candidate in the 9 April election.

Mandelblit submitted legal advice to the Central Elections Committee that is considering a number of motions to ban prospective Knesset candidates. The legal advice cited a number of statements by Ben Ari which Mandelblit said were incitement to racism. In a May 2018 speech Ben Ari said: “The Arabs of Haifa aren’t different in any way from the Arabs of Gaza. How are they different? In that they’re here, enemies from within. They’re waging war against us here, within the state. And this is called – it has a name – it’s called a fifth column. We need to call the dog by its name. They’re our enemies.”

Mandelblit said there was not sufficient evidence to disqualify Itamar Ben Gvir. Ben Ari is fifth on the combined United Right party list and Ben Gvir is eighth.

The United Right party said in response that: “Someone apparently has set a goal of overthrowing the right-wing government and is acting by all means at its disposal”. It said the Attorney General had demonstrated ‘hypocrisy’ by authorising the candidacy of “Arab Knesset members who support terror” while recommending that Ben Ari be disqualified. The United Right party is currently predicted to win 6 – 8 seats.

The Central Elections Committee will convene today to make a decision regarding the motion to disqualify Jewish Power candidates. The Committee is comprised of representatives of all the parties in the outgoing Knesset and the current governing coalition has a majority. Yisrael Beiteinu is expected to vote against the disqualification, while Kulanu may be absent. This would mean a small majority against disqualification.

If the Committee vote to ban the candidates from standing in the election then they will be able to appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn the decision. In 2015 the committee voted to disqualify Hanin Zoabi of Balad and Baruch Marzel of Yachad. Marzel who was accused of incitement to racism and Zoabi for supporting Hamas. They both successfully appealed to the Supreme Court and were able to stand in the 2015 election.