‘Israeli’ AG Urges High Court to Disqualify Ben Ari from Elections

By Staff, Agencies

‘Israeli’ Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit urged the so-called High Court of Justice to disqualify the head of a far-right party from running in the general elections, citing his long history of “severe and extreme” racism.

Michael Ben Ari, party leader of Otzma Yehudit [meaning the Jewish Power], faced multiple appeals to outlaw his candidacy under Article 7A of the Basic Law: The Knesset, which lists “incitement to racism” as one of three actions that disqualify a candidate from running for Knesset.

Ben Ari, for his part, insisted he is not a racist and that recent remarks highlighted in a High Court of Justice petition against him — and by Mandelblit — were taken out of context.

But in an opinion submitted Wednesday to the High Court, Mandelblit argued that a decision on Ben Ari’s candidacy was an open-and-shut case, according to a summary of the opinion publicized by the Justice Ministry.

“Most if not all” of Ben Ari’s political statements constitute incitement to racism and “relate to the Arab public in its entirety, and not [as Ben Ari has claimed] only to those who were involved in terrorism,” wrote the attorney general.