JERUSALEM (JTA) — Arab-Israeli lawmaker Hanin Zoabi and far-right Jewish activist Baruch Marzel were disqualified from running in Israel’s March 17 elections.
At hearings Thursday, the Central Elections Committee voted 27-6 to ban Zoabi, a Knesset member from the Arab-Israeli Balad party since 2009. The vote on Marzel, of the Yachad party, was 17-16.
Both bans will be automatically appealed to the Supreme Court.
Zoabi and Marzel previously have been banned from running in elections, most recently Zoabi in January 2013. The Supreme Court overturned those decisions.
Zoabi, who participated in the 2010 flotilla sail to Gaza to bust Israel’s blockade organized by the Islamic IHH group in Turkey, has been censured before for anti-Israel statements. Most recently she was suspended from the Knesset for statements she made encouraging Palestinian “popular resistance” and saying that the kidnappers of three Israeli teens, who later were murdered, were not terrorists.
Marzel, who headed the outlawed Kach movement after the death of Rabbi Meir Kahane, has previously run for Knesset.
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