The various Arab parties in the Knesset have decided to run together on a joint list, according to Israel Channel 2 News.

The parties were concerned that separately they would not pass the minimal electoral threshold.

A joint Arab list is expected to get 11 seats according to the polls.

The name of the party will be “The Joint List” or in Arabic, Al Kaama Al Mushtraka

The Labor party (“The Zionist Camp”) reportedly talked to Ahmed Tibi at the beginning of the week about joining the coalition with them.

The Supreme Court is hearing Sunday morning an appeal from representatives of Arab parties who argue that the Knesset law raising the limit of the number of votes needed for a party to elect Knesset Members violates human rights.

The Basic Law on Human Rights gives the court power to overthrow Knesset laws it thinks don’t meet its standards of equality, which are totally subjective.

The Knesset this year raised the “threshold” from 2 percent to 3.25 percent for a party to be represented in the Knesset.

The law was sponsored by Yisrael Beitenu and hoped to do away with a lot of little parties vying to be in the coalition. The higher limit theoretically discourages tiny parties from running but it also could mean that the Arab parties, unless they unite, will not win enough votes to return to the Knesset.

In the 2013 elections, 32 parties ran, of which, 20 did not win enough votes to enter the Knesset.

Among them were Moreshet Avot, which won a grand total of 461 votes, the Pirate party, with 2,076 votes, the Greens and Youth, which garnered 8,117 votes, and the Green Leaf pro-marijuana party, with 43,734 votes but still only a little more than half the number needed for representation.

All told, approximately 240,000 votes., worth three Knesset seats, went to losers.

There are two Arab parties in the outgoing Knesset, one with four MKs and the other with three MKs. An Arab-Jewish party – Hadash – has three MKs.

Lawyers for the Arab parties argued that the higher limit violates their human rights and equality.

They didn’t mention it, but it also increases the extortion capabilities of the mid-sized parties that become far more important for their electoral size.

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein approved the law and told the court that it was not aimed at the Arab parties but was designed to make the elections and the government more manageable.

If the court overturns the law, it would make it easier for a third Sephardi party to enter the race and would increase the chances that the right-wing Otzma, headed by Michael Ben-Ari, will win Knesset representation.

If so, its seats would come at the expense of the Jewish Home party, making it harder for Binyamin Netanyahu to form a coalition if the Likud wins the election. Otzma is not likely to join a government that talks about “two states” and does not make it clear that all of Judea and Samaria is part of Israel.

Young Israeli Muslims who support ISIS may find themselves slapped with a travel ban, Channel 10 news reports. Minister of the Interior Gilad Erdan announced Thursday that ISIS supporters in Israel will not be allowed to leave the country, due to fears that they could join the terrorist group.

ISIS supporters sometimes out themselves while still in Israel by posting pro-ISIS messages on Facebook and other social media platforms. Dozens of Israeli Muslims are believed to have traveled to Iraq and Syria to fight.

Earlier this week Erdan froze the passport of a young Israeli Arab man who joined ISIS, and said he would consider revoking his citizenship. The man, 24-year-old Marwan Haldi, was critically injured while fighting with ISIS, and his family is waging a legal battle to return him to Israel for medical care.

So far ISIS has avoided direct confrontation with Israel. However, the group has been gaining power along Israel’s borders with Syria and Egypt, and its long-term strategy appears to include war against the Jewish state.

Israel has quietly reversed its stand and has handed over the bodies of the two Jerusalem-Arabs who carried out the brutal massacre in the Har Nof Synagogue last month. The families buried the terrorists in a ceremony replete with Palestinian Authority flags.

The massacre left four American-Israeli and British-Israeli rabbis dead, as well as a Druze policeman who came to their rescue. Seven more people were wounded.

Police remove casualties from a Har Nof synagogue after two Jerusalem Arabs butchered four Jews to death.

The Bethlehem-based Ma’an News Agency reported that the families’ lawyer issued a statement after midnight confirming the release of the bodies, a month after Israel held them pending further consideration.

Chief Police Inspector Yigal Elmaliach told the Israeli court system, as reported here.

“The State of Israel is trying to cope with the recent wave of attacks. One possibility being considered is not to return the bodies to the families, but [for the state] to bury them. The issue is being examined at the highest levels.”

The families of the terrorists, Ghassan and Uday Abu al Jamal, who were cousins, went to court to demand the release of the bodies. Ma’an said that Israel agreed to return the bodies after ”the intervention of the lawyer.”

Israel’s reversal means either that it learned that it would lose the case in court, or that officials at the ”highest levels” now think that holding the bodies for five weeks was enough to help cope with the recent wave of attacks.”

The “wave” has subsided” if one follows Israel’s major media that play down or completely ignore attacks such as this week’s ambush of a vehicle that came under an attack of cinder blocks that nearly killed the driver, Jeff Seidel, and two passengers, as The Jewish Press first reported here.

The “wave” has subsided unless it washes ashore again with more murders and attempted murders of Jews. Then, if the terrorists are killed, perhaps the government will again decide to hold the bodies to help cope with the attacks.

The Har Nof savages were given an honorable burial before dawn Thursday in eastern Jerusalem in the presence of no more than 40 relatives, according to the lawyer who spoke with Ma’an.

A Palestinian Authority flag was held during the ceremony.

Below is the video of one of the funerals.

With the increase in the minimum threshold number of votes required for entering the Knesset, the Arab parties have been talking unification to ensure that no Arab party gets doesn’t miss the threshold.

A Channel 1 poll shows that a unified Arab party would receive 13-14 seats. The increase in Arab seats would affect the distribution of the votes to all the parties.

The primary reason a single merged Arab party would get more seats is that until now voter turnout in the Arab sector has been low – but a unified party appears to be enough to excite the Arab population.

It could also mean that any left-wing government would be required to include the Arab party in their coalition, something they haven’t done yet, or simply be enough to block the formation of a right-wing government.

Jerusalem Arabs attacked a busload of Jews in the area of the Mount of Olives Monday morning, causing damage to the bus but no injuries to the driver and passengers.

As usual, the stone thrower escaped, and as usual, the police were not around.

Why don’t the police escort Jews as the army used to do when terrorists attacked them every day in Judea and Samaria?

A 21-year-old Arab with Israeli citizenship from the city of Taybe, near Netanya, was indicted Thursday for involvement in an attempt to burn a Jewish man alive a month ago

Police said Mohamed Haj Yehia incited violence during the riots last month in Kfar Kana, where a police officer had shot and killed Hir Alhamdan after he tried to attack officers. An edited video purported to show that police shot him in cold blood.

Haj Yahia joined the rioters, who had blocked a road where 47-year-old Moshe German was driving and was forced to stop. Rioters smashed the windows of his car, and Haj Yahia lit fireworks and threw them inside German’s car, igniting the vehicle.

Another Arab, Taybe resident Majdi Baloum, came to his rescue and hustled German into his jeep and sped away, leaving German’s car destroyed by fire.