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On Friday, Sami Abu Shehadeh, head of the Balad party, withdrew from Israel’s upcoming elections, in a maneuver that will likely cost the left-wing party its relevancy in the Israeli parliament.

Israel’s Supreme Court heard appeals on Thursday against the decisions of Israel’s Central Elections Committee, which had voted last week to bar Palestinian parties and two individual candidates from running in Israel’s October 27 elections. The court advised Abu Shehadeh to withdraw.

The committee had voted to ban the two Palestinian-majority political lists: the United Arab List, also known as Ra’am, which represents the Islamic movement inside Israel, as well as the Joint List, which is a coalition of three parties: Hadash, or Jabha in Arabic, a left-wing Jewish and Palestinian party; Ta’al, an anti-Zionist Arab nationalist party; and Balad, a left-wing Palestinian party.

The committee had also voted to bar Ofer Cassif, a Jewish politician from the Hadash party, and Abu Shehadeh of Balad.

Israel’s Supreme Court will rule on Sunday on whether or not to push through with the bans of the parties and candidates. But it is the barring of Abu Shehadeh that is most likely to stick, Palestinian political analyst Diana Buttu told Truthout.

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Israel’s Supreme Court indicated that they are likely to ban Abu Shehadeh, Buttu explained, but first gave him the option to withdraw, which he eventually decided to take.

While the Central Elections Committee is heavily represented by the far right Likud Party, and is pushing for the barring of all of the Palestinian-majority parties from the Israeli elections,........

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