Gadi Eisenkot's Party Backs Disqualifying Arab Lawmaker Sami Abu Shehadeh

The "Yesh! Im Gadi Eisenkot" party announced on Tuesday its support for disqualifying Sami Abu Shehadeh, an Arab lawmaker, from running in the 26th Knesset elections. The party stated that Abu Shehadeh's remarks on October 8, 2023, the day after the Hamas massacre, cannot be erased by a later clarification.

On that day, with hundreds of Israelis already reported murdered and taken hostage, Abu Shehadeh described the Hamas attack as a "historically important event militarily, politically, and strategically." He added that if "little, besieged Gaza" could achieve this, others could do it more effectively and easily. The party emphasized that these statements were made when the scale of the atrocities was already known.

"Yesh! Im Gadi Eisenkot" believes Abu Shehadeh's statements crossed the legal threshold prohibiting support for armed struggle by a terror organization against Israel, as stipulated in Basic Law: The Knesset. The party acknowledged the right of Arab citizens to full political representation but asserted that support for terror cannot be legitimized on the path to the Knesset.

The party clarified that its announcement is purely declarative, as Eisenkot's party has no representatives on the Central Elections Committee, which makes the final decisions on candidate disqualifications.