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Last update - 02:33 12/01/2009
Don't disqualify the Arab lists
By Haaretz Editorial
Tags: kadima, elections 

The Central Elections Committee will deliberate on three petitions today calling for the disqualification of Balad's candidate list (two of them filed by the far-right parties Yisrael Beiteinu and the National Union), and on a petition against United Arab List-Ta'al's election list (filed by the National Union). In recent years it has turned into an indecent ceremony on election eve: Right-wing parties try to ban Balad or United Arab List-Ta'al, as part of their efforts to get headlines. This time the "ceremony" will be acted out under the shadow of the caustic debate on the military operation in the Gaza Strip.

The degree to which these petitions are pointless is reflected in a letter by Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to the elections committee in which he asks that the petitions be rejected. Mazuz repeatedly notes that the evidence in the petitions is significantly weaker than the material presented to the High Court of Justice in 2003. In that instance, the court authorized Balad's election list and MK Ahmed Tibi's participation in the United Arab List-Ta'al election list. As such, it's not that the petitions' authors see a realistic chance that these two parties will be rejected; they want to declare that they believe these election lists should not be allowed in the Knesset.

This reflects a dangerous level of shortsightedness and narrow-mindedness. The state has a clear interest in having the Arab community's representatives - its genuine representatives - participate in the political game and serve in the Knesset. Israel has a clear interest in not pushing these representatives out, forcing them to create an independent political system.
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It is precisely the intense debates between the extreme right and Arab parties that exemplify Israeli democracy and its ability to include such disparate factions under one roof.

In the spirit of the High Court's past rulings, we can assume that even if the Central Elections Committee disqualifies the election lists of Balad and United Arab List-Ta'al, the Court will approve their participation. Nonetheless, the elections committee should spare us this unnecessary battle. The decision on which party lists can take part in elections is one of the committee's most important tasks. The committee should take its work seriously, exercise the necessary open-mindedness, and prove that Israeli democracy includes the Arab parties, even if it is sometimes very difficult for us to accept them.

It is especially in these days that such a decision is so important, when the Arab parties are conducting a legitimate struggle against Operation Cast Lead.
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  1.   Look at it another way 08:55  |  Bruce 12/01/09
  2.   Traitors have no place in the Knesset 13:46  |  rafael 12/01/09
  3.   #2 22:06  |  Chris Travers 12/01/09
  4.   Don`t Ban Them 23:00  |  Ray 12/01/09
  5.   Don`t Disqualify the Arab Lists 00:15  |  Irving Gertel 13/01/09
  6.   US is not Canada, Israel is not Palestine 02:37  |  Nathaniel 13/01/09
  7.   city of god 07:04  |  Huge Expectations 13/01/09
  8.   traitors... 07:15  |  susan 05/03/09
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