To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the Supreme Court accepted the appeals of the Arab parties Ra'am-Ta'al and Balad against the decision of the Elections Board that had disqualified them from running in the upcoming elections.

The background is this. Basic Law: The Knesset makes quite explicit who is ineligible to run for the Knesset. Paragraph 7a states that any party (or candidate) that has among its aims (1) the negation of the Jewish and democratic character of the State, or (2) incitement to racism, or (3) support of an armed struggle against the State is ineligible. The Elections Law clarifies that the determination of in/eligibility is made by the Elections Committee (which consists of representatives of the parties, though not necessarily MKs).

Now, Balad, which was lead for many years by Azmi Bishara, who has fled the country amidst charges of spying for Hizbollah during the Lebanon war, would seem to be a prime candidate for disqualification on points (1) and (3) (and possibly (2) as well, even though that item is intended for Jews). Armed with plenty of evidence, Aviad B began pushing the case for disqualification. Yisrael Beiteinu, which knows a good thing when it sees one, quickly took over the case. Ichud Leumi jumped into the fray and sought disqualification of Ra'am-Ta'al (Ahmad Tibi's party) as well.

In the end, the committee voted 26-3 to disqualify Balad and 21-3 to disqualify Ra'am-Ta'al. (Representatives of the Labor party supported the disqualification of Balad but not that of Ra'am-Ta'al. BTW, this didn't stop Ofir Pines-Paz from attacking the decision as if his own party hadn't voted for it.)

According to Paragraphs 63-64 of the Elections Law, the determination of ineligibility with regard to an individual candidate requires confirmation by the Supreme Court (which means they can rule on substance), while determination of ineligibility of a party can be appealed to the Supreme Court (which sounds like they can only rule on procedural grounds). In any event, the Court over-ruled the disqualification, but has not yet given the grounds for their ruling.

Don't hold your breath that any legal grounds are forthcoming, since there aren't any. The Attorney General opined that the cases lacked evidence. This is a stretch to say the least. In the case of Balad, the party's response to the charges essentially confirmed them. The only argument that can be made in defense of Balad is that the Court holds that the law should say that a party is disqualified only if it advocates violent means to negate the Jewish and democratic character of the State. But, of course, the law does not actually say that.

The Court's over-reaching aside, I doubt that we stand to gain much by keeping marginal extremist parties out of the Knesset. It won't change the balance of power in the Knesset, nor will it diminish the dissemination of pernicious views. These views should be thoroughly discredited as vile, anti-Semitic and dangerous; outlawing the parties that promote them is one way to achieve that goal, but hardly the most effective one. Law is a poor substitute for substance.

In general, the law for disqualifying parties should be exceedingly difficult to invoke. The temptation for political parties to disqualify each other must be quite great and allowing them to disqualify on the basis of intentions is surely an invitation to mischief. And, if the religious parties ever get their act together and threaten the powers that be, you can bet that someone (probably Ofir Pines-Paz) will get the bright idea that they wish to negate the democratic character of the State.