Will Israel's two Arab parties be allowed in election?

Israel's High Court of Justice is to rule next week on a controversial decision by the country's Central Elections Committee to ban Israel's two Arab political parties from running in next month's parliamentary election.

Monday's ruling reflects the heightened tensions between Israel's Jewish majority and Arab minority caused by Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Arabs have held a number of demonstrations protesting against the conflict.

The 37-member committee includes representatives from Israel's major political parties. The motion, accusing the United Arab List and the National Democratic Alliance (Balad) of incitement, supporting terrorist groups and refusing to recognize Israel's right to exist, was proposed by two ultranationalist parties, the National Union and Yisrael Beitenu, but received widespread support. The two Arab parties each won three seats in the last election.

Knesset members Ahmad Tibi and Jamal Zahalka, political rivals who head the two Arab blocs, condemned the decision.

"It was a political trial led by a group of fascists and racists who are willing to see the Knesset without Arabs and want to see the country without Arabs," Tibi said.

"If the members of the panel had weapons, they would have shot us in the head," he said.

But Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who heads the Likud party and is favored to win the Feb. 10 vote, supported the decision yesterday.

"Israeli democracy has every right to defend itself against those who don't accept the existence of the state or the grounds by which Israeli democracy operates," Mr. Netanyahu said.

Israel is a Jewish state, Mr. Netanyahu said. "If you don't buy (into) the rules of the Jewish state, then don't play."

Tibi dismissed that argument. "We are an opposition that is opposed to policy, not to the state," said Tibi, who has been a member of the Knesset since 1999. "But we had no chance yesterday. This was a battle we were doomed to lose from the outset because of the war. During war, there is no chance for those who are different, mainly if they're different for national reasons, mainly if they're Arab."

Avigdor Lieberman, whose Yisrael Beitenu party spearheaded the move to ban the Arab parties, celebrated the ruling. "The next step is to declare Balad illegal because it's a terror organization that seeks to hurt Israel."

A furious Zahalka said it was Israeli democracy that was on trial, not his Balad party. "We are not Zionists and we never will be," he said. "Balad is a democratic and progressive party and we believe in the basic principle of equality for all people."

In 2004, Lieberman, then transportation minister, proposed that the citizenship of "disloyal" Israeli Arabs be revoked and that they should be considered citizens of the Palestinian Authority. Then-prime-minister Ariel Sharon denounced the statements. "We regard (the Israeli Arabs) as part of the state of Israel," he said.

The ruling has been appealed to Israel's High Court of Justice, which promises to decide the matter by Jan. 22. In 2003, at the height of the second intifada, the High Court overturned a similar ban against Balad.

Prior to Monday's committee vote, a representative of the country's Attorney-General said there was not sufficient evidence to disqualify either of the parties from running.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)

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