Israeli committee bans Arab candidate from elections

Israel's Central Elections Committee on Wednesday decided to ban the Israeli Labor Party candidate Ibtisam Mara'ana from running in the upcoming elections.

Mara'ana is on the party list as the seventh candidate who is expected to win one of the five to six seats in the 120-seat parliament.

The petition was filed against Mara'ana by the far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party under the claim that she made statements against Israel and anti-Zionist remarks few years ago.

The petition included a previous statement of Mara'ana -- where she called for the return of Jews to the US and Poland -- and included an accusation that she deliberately ignored an annual two minutes of silence held on Memorial Day which marks the Holocaust massacres by the Nazis in the course of World War II.

Israel's Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit issued an opinion Tuesday opposing a potential ban on Mara'ana where he said that she apologized for her remarks against the state.

The case will now be reviewed by the Supreme Court which refused in the past to disqualify candidates from elections.

Israel's general elections are scheduled for March 23, which will be the fourth in two years amid a political stalemate among the main Israeli parties.