In its editorial entitled, “Don't disqualify the Arab lists,” Haaretz said that the Israeli Central Elections Committee will deliberate on three petitions calling for the disqualification of Balad's candidate list, two of them filed by the far-right parties Yisrael Beiteinu and the National Union, and on a petition against United Arab List-Ta'al's election list, filed by the National Union.

In recent years it has turned into an indecent ceremony on election eve: Right-wing parties try to ban Balad or United Arab List-Ta'al, as part of their efforts to get headlines. This time the 'ceremony' will be acted out under the shadow of the caustic debate on the military operation in the Gaza Strip, the Daily added.

The Paper considered these petitions are pointless, to a degree reflected in a letter by Attorney General Menachem Mazuz to the Israeli elections committee in which he asks that the petitions be rejected.

Mazuz repeatedly notes that the evidence in the petitions is significantly weaker than the material presented to the Israeli High Court in 2003. In that instance, the court authorized Balad's election list and Member of the Knesset Ahmed Tibi's participation in the United Arab List-Ta'al election list. As such, it's not that the petitions' authors see a realistic chance that these two parties will be rejected; they want to declare that they believe these election lists should not be allowed in the Knesset.