Central Elections Committee Votes against Attempt to Disqualify Leader of United Arab List from Upcoming Israeli Parliamentary Elections

On 28 February 2006, the Central Elections Committee (CEC) voted 18 to 16 against motions to disqualify Sheikh Ibrahim Sarsour as well as the United Arab List (UAL) – the Arab Movement for Renewal (Ta'al), which he heads, from running in the forthcoming elections to the Israeli Knesset to be held on 28 March 2006. Adalah Attorney Marwan Dalal represented both Sheikh Sarsour and the list.

On 16 February 2006, the Likud party, right-wing activist Baruch Marzel, the nationalist-religious Ihud Leumi party, and the “Zionist Border” group submitted the motions for disqualification pursuant to Section 7A of the Basic Law: The Knesset (as amended in 2002) alleging that Sheikh Sarsour and the UAL-Ta'al had denied “the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state” and made statements in “support of armed struggle of an enemy state or of a terrorist organization against the State of Israel.” In particular, the motion accused Sheikh Sarsour of seeking to establish an Islamic Caliphate in Israel and making statements in support of Hamas. The statements in question were attributed to comments made by Sheikh Sarsour during a recent press conference in Nazareth.

At a hearing before the CEC held on 28 February 2006, Adalah presented the response on behalf of Sheikh Sarsour and the UAL – Ta'al, arguing that the motions to disqualify should be rejected as they lacked both a legal and factual basis.

Adalah contended that the motions relied on an inaccurate report from one Hebrew-language media source, which misrepresented Sheikh Sarsour's position by misquoting comments that he made during the press conference. Adalah noted the results of a survey undertaken in 2005, which revealed that as many as 30% of the Israeli journalists interviewed confirmed that misquotation is a common and growing phenomenon in the Israeli media.

During the press conference, Sheikh Sarsour emphasized the importance of unity between the different Arab movements in Israel, Adalah clarified. In doing so, he cited as an example how Arab unity flourished in Arab countries under the protection of the Islamic Caliphate. Adalah added that Sheikh Sarsour's position is unambiguously against Israel's occupation of the Palestinian Territories, noting that the occupation is a major source of violence, human rights violations and instability in the Middle East. Sheikh Sarsour stressed that the Israeli government is duty-bound to respect the choices of Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories, including their election of a majority of Hamas representatives to the Palestinian Legislative Council. He went on to state that Israel's policy of starving the Palestinian people as punishment for their decision would result in damaging repercussions for Israelis, and as well as for Palestinians.

Adalah argued that the motions submitted to prevent Sheikh Sarsour from running in the Knesset elections failed to meet the minimum legal standards demanded by law, and even contradicted them. In particular, they amounted to seeking to annul two basic rights: the right to run for political office and the right to vote, without legal basis. Adalah also highlighted the motions' numerous legal errors, both substantive and procedural.