Israeli right wing parties seek to bar Zoabi from elections

Israeli right wing parties have submitted a request to the Central Election Committee demanding to ban Arab lawmaker Haneen Zoabi from running in the upcoming general elections scheduled for March.

Alex Miller, the deputy chairman of the elections committee and member of the right wing Yisrael Beitenu party, claimed that barring Zoabi is in accordance with the Israeli constitution,  which prohibits any parliamentary candidate who opposes the existence of Israel as a Jewish state or “promotes terrorism” from running for election.

Miller’s request was supported by all members of his party, along with and the Likud and Shas parties, who are working together to prevent Zoabi from running.

Zoabi’s statements regarding the abduction of three Israeli settlers in the West Bank last summer, along with her objection to describing Palestinian resistance fighters as “terrorists”, was met with intense criticism among Israeli politicians that led to a ban on her participation in the Knesset for six months.

Zoabi, a member of the Balad party and now running with the newly unified Arab party, remarked on the right wing parties’ efforts to prevent her from running, saying: “I will not respond to members of the Knesset from rampant corrupt parties, which will hopefully disappear from the political map in the coming elections.”