The Knesset on Wednesday advanced a bill aimed at widening the power of the coalition to prevent candidates or parties from running in elections due to expressions of support for acts of terror.
The quasi-constitutional Basic Law: The Knesset states that individuals or parties cannot run in the nation’s parliamentary election if in its actions, objectives, or words it expressed denial of the existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, incitement to racism, or support for armed struggle by an enemy state or terrorist organization against the State of Israel.
The decision to disqualify candidates is made by the Central Elections Committee, in which the outgoing coalition has a majority. The decision must be approved by the Supreme Court.
Over the years, the court has rejected most of the committee’s decisions, on the grounds that when it comes to speech, a “critical mass” of statements are necessary in order to disqualify a candidate.
The bill, sponsored by coalition whip MK Ofir Katz (Likud), amends the law by stating that the disqualification applies even when the statements in question were not “continuous.”
More importantly, the bill amends the process so that the Supreme Court does not have a priori veto power over disqualifications; rather, the power to disqualify candidates belongs solely to the Central Elections Committee, and a person or party who was disqualified may appeal to the High Court.
Katz and other proponents of the bill have argued that the court was too lenient in its disqualifications and allowed Arab Israeli MKs to participate in elections despite statements that the bill’s proponents view as violating the law.
However, detractors of the law have argued that it is at base to ban all of the country’s Arab parties from participating in the election, as well as weaken the Supreme Court’s power to overturn the decision.
Furthermore, since Arab party voters do not belong to the right-wing camp, blocking participation of Arab parties will also benefit the current governing coalition electorally and increase its chances to win the next election.
Vote passes with opposition support
The vote passed 61-35, with support from the coalition’s parties and the opposition party Yisrael Beytenu. The National Unity Party was absent, and members of the rest of the opposition opposed the bill.
Katz said during the debate that preceded the vote, “There is no other country in the world that would enable terror supporters to serve as members of parliament.”
Opposition leader MK Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid) responded, “Call this bill by its true name – the bill to cancel the opposition… You want to fight the idea that there will be democratic elections here, and you will lose.”