Minister proposes requiring culture halls to fly blue and white

Culture Minister Miri Regev is pushing forward a plan to force any cultural or sports facility built with state funds to fly the Israeli flag, and is taking some heat for it.

Regev’s plan, first reported in Ynet, would fall on any building getting state funding, including money from the state lottery, and would also be enforced in Arab towns, some of which have taboos on displaying the blue and white.

The flag will fly “at Teddy Stadium and at Doha Stadium,” Regev says in an official announcement, referring to soccer fields in Jerusalem and in Bnei Sakhnin, both of which have seen Israeli-Arab tensions flare.

“It’s not just our obligation, but our privilege and pride to fly the Israeli flag from every state institution,” Regev writes on Facebook, heralding the plan.

In the Knesset, Meretz leader Zehava Galon takes the government to task for the idea.

“This is a government that is oppositional to its state and its public, a government lacking all responsibility,” she says. “The most important thing is flying a flag from every culture hall?”