Israel’s supreme court bars extreme-right election candidate Michael Ben-Ari after comments made about Israeli Arabs
- Ben-Ari has been accused of ‘calling for a violent renunciation of the Arab population’s rights’
Israel’s supreme court on Sunday disqualified the controversial leader of the extreme-right Jewish Power party, Michael Ben-Ari, from running in next month’s elections.
Ben-Ari has come under fire for comments he made about Israeli Arabs, which Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit said earlier this month amount to “incitement to racism”.
The elections committee had approved Ben-Ari to run in the April polls, but the opposition left-wing Meretz party successfully appealed the decision to the supreme court.
“The place of people who believe in the superiority of race is behind bars not in parliament,” said Meretz leader Tamar Zandberg in a statement.
The attorney general previously accused Ben-Ari of “inciting on an ethnic-nationalistic basis against the Arab population” and “calling for a violent renunciation of the Arab population’s rights”.
According to Jewish Power, his disqualification marks the first time a candidate approved by the committee has been banned from standing in elections.