JERUSALEM, Aug. 25 (Xinhua) -- Israel's Supreme Court barred on Sunday two far-right politicians from running in September's parliamentary elections, citing their anti-Arab racism.
The court said in its decision that Baruch Marzel and Bentzi Gopstein of the Otzma Yehudit party were disqualified from running in elections for inciting violence and racism against Palestinians.
Marzel, 60, and Gopstein, 49, both live in settlements in the Israel-occupied West Bank and are former followers of the late right-wing extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the ultranationalist Kach party which was outlawed in Israel and in the United States in 1988 as a terrorist organization.
Gopstein, also the leader of Lehava, an ultra-nationalist group that struggles against interfaith marriage, has "systematically incited against the Arab public," the court noted.
"Gopstein categorically presents the Arab public as an enemy and as persons who must not be contacted," read the decision.
Marzel "advocates a notion that this country belongs to the Jews only and that Arabs, who are enemies in his opinion, should belong in Arab countries," it added.
Israel will hold general elections on Sept. 17, fewer than six months after the previous round of elections.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who won the April elections with a narrow victory, called for the snap elections after he failed to form a governing coalition.
