News Analysis: "Culture wars" hits a nerve with divides in Israeli society

What has become known as the "culture wars" in Israel has sparked controversy and debate in Israeli society one month into the rule of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's rightwing government.

They include heated exchanges between the government, particularly far-right culture minister Miri Regev, the Jewish left wing and Arab communities.

The exchanges revealed existing gaps between the right wing government and the left-wing cultural establishment, mainly located in liberal Tel Aviv and its metropolitan area.

The incidents point to divides in Israeli society between left and right, between art and politics and between Israelis and Arabs, observers say.

The so-called "culture wars" began with a debate over the funding of an Arab-Israeli play by an Arab theater group based in Haifa called Al-Midan. The play, "Parallel Time," explores the life of Walid Daka, a Palestinian who killed an Israeli soldier in 1984.

Naftali Bennett, education minister and head of the far right Jewish Home party, announced the cutting of his office's subsidies for the play, which was presented before Israeli high school pupils and received accolades from the ministry.

Minister Regev went even further and cut funding to the Haifa Theater group altogether.

"The government does not have to support culture," Regev said on an Israeli TV show recently. "I decide where the money goes. Artists do not dictate to me. If we agree on these principles, you have a partner, otherwise we have a problem."

Regev also said she will monitor artistic production and threatened to cut funding from "those who tarnish the image of Israel" or "de-legitimize it."

Though the Haifa theater show depicts the prisoner's decision to forego violence and devote himself to non-violent resistance against Israel, bereaved families in Israel, who lost their loved ones in militant attacks, supported the decision to cut the show's funding.

"This is not about stifling freedom of expression or any kind of censorship," Yossi Tzur, an activist in the Almagor group of bereaved families and a bereaved parent himself, told Xinhua.

Playwright Bashar Murkus told Xinhua the play was not supporting terrorism but rather "asked broader questions concerning prisoners' rights."

"We bring up important issues and ask tough questions, that's partly the role of art," he said, dismissing Regev and her ministry for "not checking to see the play content but rather choosing to spread hysteria and denouncing my work as exalting terrorism."

The Adalah non-governmental organization, a legal center advocating for Arab minority rights in Israel, sent an urgent letter to the culture minister demanding she retract her decision, declaring the decision "illegal," misinformed and "politically motivated."

"The decision to freeze the theater's support without hearing the director's side of the story confirms it was purely based on political grounds," Adalah wrote.

"This illegal intervention into the theater impinges upon the rights of the entire Palestinian Arab society in Israel, as they have a unique narrative, history and culture, which differs from that of the Israeli Jewish majority," Adalah said. "The decision hinders fundamental constitutional rights of artistic freedom of expression so as to suppress the Palestinian Arab cultural and historical narrative."

Another incident was refusing that Arab Israeli actor Norman Issa perform in a show in a West Bank Jewish settlement. Regev threatened to cut funds to the Elmina Arab-Israeli Theater, cofounded by Issa, forcing him to rescind his decision.

These incidents hit a nerve especially with the Arab minority in Israel, constituting 20 percent of the population, who have extensively complained about unfair and discriminatory treatment.

According to Adalah, out of 150 million U.S. dollars allocated for culture in Israel in 2014, only three million were earmarked for Arab-Israeli cultural institutions where there is a pressing need for increased cultural venues in Arab villages.

"These are public funds. The minister forgets that Palestinian Arabs constitute 20 percent of the taxpayers, who have the absolute right to express and enjoy their own culture," the center wrote in its letter to the minister.

Arab-Israeli actress and singer Mira Awad said that if the Israeli occupation did not constitute forms of apartheid, or is not perceived as such until now, then Miri Regev's actions are "definitely leading Israel towards apartheid."

"She says she will go against those who smear Israel's image but it's Regev and her actions, boycotting those who do not share her views and shutting them up, which fuels the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, giving it what it wants," she told Xinhua.

Following Regev's controversial statements and actions, Israeli artists held emergency meetings and signed a petition against what they labeled as Regev's "anti-democratic actions." The petition received thousands of signatures.

"Minister Regev seeks to restrict our contact with a complex situation," David Grossman, a successful Israeli author and a known left-wing pundit, told the Haaretz daily.

"If this process continues, and our isolation increases, Israel will become a militant, fundamentalist, inward-looking sect on the margins of history," he warned. Enditem