Regev booed at awards show over bill conditioning arts funding on ‘loyalty’
Audience members push back after culture minister says controversial legislation is misunderstood and tells critics to go ‘drink some water and calm down’
Culture Minister Miri Regev was booed at awards ceremony in Petah Tikvah Tuesday night by audience members protesting her controversial legislation that aims to mandate “loyalty” to the state in the arts.
“There is a limit to free expression,” she said in her remarks at the Israel Artists’ Association’s Lifetime Achievement Awards. “Yes to art and free expression, but no to freedom to incite.”
Regev went on to say she believed that much of the audience misunderstood her so-called culture loyalty law, explaining that its scope applies to “something very specific.”
Boos and shouts of “No politics!” were heard throughout the auditorium, while actor Yussuf Abu-Warda, the recipient of the IAA’s 2018 award, walked out during Regev’s remarks in protest.
“It has nothing to do with art or criticism,” she said. “To finance a play about a soldier’s murderer — no and no.”
“This is what the law is about — don’t be confused. I suggest you drink some water and calm down. Everyone who is trying to tell you stories is fake news.”
Regev has clashed with Israel’s artistic community over accusations of censorship since her appointment as culture minister in 2015.
רגב על חוק הנאמנות בתרבות: "כל אלה שבהיסטריה – אני מציעה לכם לשתות מים ולהירגע". צפו בקטע מדבריה של השרה בטקס פרסי אמ"י והמהומה בקהל pic.twitter.com/gvWfkjq8pc
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) November 20, 2018
She has been at a number of cultural events since then for threatening to defund theaters, including one that featured nudity and another that produced a play about the life of an Arab Israeli terrorist.
Most recently, she proposed a bill that would cut public subsidies to cultural organizations “that are working against the principles of the state.”
The bill would allow the government to pull funds from organizations or events that feature any of five topics or themes: denial that the State of Israel is a Jewish, democratic country; incitement of racism, violence, or terror; support for the armed struggle or acts of terror against Israel by an enemy state or a terror group; marking Israel’s Independence Day as a day of mourning; or any act of destruction or physical degradation of the flag or any state symbol.
It cleared its first Knesset vote on Monday night after an hours-long, furious parliamentary debate.
Critics say the law will essentially enshrine state censorship over the arts.
Earlier this month, a life-size statue of Regev was found in downtown Tel Aviv in apparent protest of her loyalty law.
The display outside Habima square had Regev in a white dress, staring at herself in an oversized mirror. A small plaque reads “#InTheHeartOfTheNation.”
Regev said in response that she had indeed “held up a mirror to Israel’s culture world, a mirror that has revealed the exclusion of entire groups and the arrogance of those who saw themselves as ‘the heart of the nation.’”
Earlier on Tuesday, Regev drew harsh criticism from opposition lawmakers after criticizing former IDF chief of Staff Benny Gantz’s handling of the 2014 war with Hamas.
The culture minister told Hadashot news that Gantz was not fit to serve as defense minister, citing a 2014 speech he made declaring Gaza-adjacent areas safe hours before a mortar shell fired from the Strip hit a home in southern Israel, killing 4-year-old Daniel Tragerman.
“The final chord of his tenure as chief of staff was when he told Israelis ‘go out to pick anemones’ and Daniel Tregerman was killed,” Regev said. “The only ones who can lead the security policy are the Likud Party and [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu.”
Opposition leader Tzipi Livni accused Regev of cynically making “terrible” claims linking Gantz to Tregerman’s death for her own political gain.
Regev hit back at the criticism, telling “those with short-term memories” that she did not directly accuse Gantz of being responsible for the boy’s death, and she had simply “laid out the facts as they were.”
The Times of Israel Community.