In early February, a special expanded nine justice panel of the High Court of Justice, green-lighted Heba Yazbak, by a narrow 5-4 vote, to run for the Knesset with the Israeli-Arab Joint List despite her statements against Israel and the IDF.While normally only three justices hear a case, nine justices are reserved for issues of major constitutional importance.In February, Likud lawyer Avi Halevi told the High Court that Yazbak had more than crossed the line with her public statements and posts supporting terrorists Samir Kuntar and Dalal Mughrabi and refusing to repudiate physical resistance against the IDF.In addition, a number of Israeli-Arabs have been indicted and convicted for statements or actions against Israel, but these politicians do not get to the point of running. While her statements were condemned as highly problematic by Attorney-General Avichai Mandelblit, a state attorney told the High Court that her statements could be interpreted in different ways.As long as one of the ways that her statements could be interpreted was directed at a more general support for the idea of Israel as “a state of its citizens” instead of having certain Jewish values trump certain secular democratic values, the state lawyer said she could not be disqualified.Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this articleהרשימה המשותפת היא הקול שלי והקול שלכם - נגד ההסתה, בעד שוויון לאומי אזרחי ומגדרי לכולם. זה השמאל האמיתי היחיד כאן והתשובה לכל מי שמעוניין בחיים משותפים באמת. 16 מנדטים למשותפת - כוח גדול נגד הגזענות. pic.twitter.com/RF1H7J8Mnf
— MK Heba Yazbak (@hebayazbak) March 2, 2020