{"id":34465,"date":"2019-03-07T02:23:47","date_gmt":"2019-03-07T02:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=34465"},"modified":"2019-03-07T02:23:47","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T02:23:47","slug":"racist-candidate-should-be-barred-from-israel-polls-attorney-general-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=34465","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Racist\u2019 candidate should be barred from Israel polls: Attorney general"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nJERUSALEM:\u00a0A candidate for an extreme-right party that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to boost ahead of April elections should be disqualified over \u201cracist\u201d remarks, the attorney general has said.<\/p>\n

\nIsrael\u2019s elections committee will begin discussing petitions to bar candidates on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\nAttorney General Avichai Mandelblit said late Tuesday that recent remarks by Michael Ben-Ari of the Jewish Power party amount to \u201cincitement to racism\u201d against Israeli Arabs, who constitute around 17.5 percent of the population.<\/p>\n

\nBen-Ari has described Israeli Arabs as \u201ctreacherous and murderous,\u201d Mandelblit said.<\/p>\n

\nA decision to disqualify him would be appealed to the country\u2019s supreme court, which would have the final word.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cBen-Ari is inciting on an ethnic-nationalistic basis against the Arab population\u201d and \u201ccalling for a violent renunciation of the Arab population\u2019s rights,\u201d Mandelblit said.<\/p>\n

\nMandelblit\u2019s position was submitted to the central elections committee in response to a petition to have Jewish Power candidates disqualified from taking part in the April 9 vote.<\/p>\n

\nThe committee will discuss requests to disqualify candidates from Wednesday to Sunday.<\/p>\n

\nBen-Ari and others are also calling for the disqualification of lists from Arab parties over their alleged lack of loyalty to Israel and support of \u201cterror\u201d against it.<\/p>\n

\nJewish Power are followers of late racist rabbi Meir Kahane, whose Kach movement was labelled a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and the EU.<\/p>\n

\nHoping to secure as many right-wing seats as possible in the next parliament, Netanyahu brokered a deal that saw Jewish Power join with two far-right parties to create a single electoral list.<\/p>\n

\nBen-Ari, who was a member of Parliament from 2009-2013, was given fifth place on the list.<\/p>\n

\nNetanyahu has faced harsh criticism over the deal, with many accusing him of easing the path for \u201cracists\u201d to make it into Parliament.<\/p>\n

\nThere is also a bid to disqualify the second Jewish Power candidate, Itamar Ben-Gvir over \u201cracist\u201d comments but Mandelblit said his statements were not sufficient to bar him.<\/p>\n

\nJewish Power lashed out at Mandelblit\u2019s recommendation against Ben-Ari, accusing him of \u201chypocrisy\u201d for not recommending to disqualify the Arab lists and claiming he was attempting to \u201crun Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nJewish Power expressed hope the committee would not accept Mandelblit\u2019s position, saying the attorney general had been misled \u201cwith partial recordings and distortions of interviews.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JERUSALEM:\u00a0A candidate for an extreme-right party that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has sought to boost ahead of April elections should be disqualified over \u201cracist\u201d remarks, the attorney general has said. Israel\u2019s elections committee will begin discussing petitions to bar candidates on Wednesday. Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit said late Tuesday that recent remarks by Michael…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34465\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}