Culture and Sports Minister Miri Regev attends a Culture, Sports and Education Committee meeting at the Knesset, July 2, 2018. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)
The mayor of Haifa rejected a Friday request by Culture Minister Miri Regev to shut down a conference organized by the socialist, Arab-Jewish Hadash Party.
The appeal followed pressure from various right-wing activists in the northern Israeli city, which Hadash members claim were part of a racist effort to silence them.
In an urgent letter to Mayor Yona Yahav, Regev claimed the community center hosting the event was not permitted to take part in overtly political activity and said she was planning on reaching out to the attorney general to act as well.
However, Yahav responded in a letter of his own that he had looked into the claims and found that “there was no reason to intervene.” He explained that the Beit Hagefen Arab-Jewish community center was not sponsoring the event, rather simply renting out its space to Hadash, which is one of three factions in the Joint (Arab) List party.
Haifa mayor Yona Yahav seen at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem as he arrives for a court hearing about the closure of the ammonia tank in Haifa, April 4, 2017. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Beit Hagefen CEO Assaf Ron told the Walla news site that the community center has been rented out by a number of other parties, including most recently for an event organized by the Zionist Union’s Yael Cohen-Paran.
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Hadash MK Aida Touma-Sliman slammed Regev for meddling in her party’s event, claiming the culture minister “gets up every morning and looks for activities and conferences that do not align with her politics and pushes to cancel them.”
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