Israel’s elections body to weigh barring ‘racist’ Jewish Power party

Israel’s Central Elections Committee will consider barring the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party from running in April’s election, “after a petition urging it to do so received the last of the necessary signatures on Tuesday”, reported Haaretz.

According to reports, “a disqualification petition requires the signatures of at least 12 committee members before it can be discussed. The committee is comprised of representatives of all the parties in the outgoing Knesset”.

The petition was filed by Meretz party representatives, who were joined by Labor Party and Joint List representatives. Yesh Atid subsequently agreed to support the petition.

Meretz thanked all the parties that supported its petition, saying, “A terrorist organisation has no place in the Knesset”.

The Central Elections Committee makes decisions “by majority vote rather than on a legal basis”, Haaretz noted, and “its decisions can be appealed to the Supreme Court”.

Otzma Yehudit said in response: “The cat is out of the bag. It turns out that [Benny] Gantz wants to set up a government with the votes of the terrorists’ representatives in the Knesset,” a reference to the Arab parties. “And he’s winking at them by joining the disqualification request. But it won’t help. The unification of the right-wing parties was the surprise of the election”.

READ: Support from Likud MKs for Netanyahu’s boosting of Jewish Power party