Where’s the beef?

The storm surrounding Oded Kotler and his controversial “cud-chewing” statement continues to rage, but no one seems to know what exactly is going on — at least not in the Hebrew press.

Kotler, a veteran of Israeli theater, spoke at an emergency cultural meeting Sunday in Jaffa called in response to Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev’s recent statements regarding removing financial support for art that is seen as “delegitimizing” Israel.

During his speech Kotler told Regev to imagine “a world with no instigator in it, no annoyance for the nation to celebrate 30 Knesset seats, which are followed by a herd of cattle, chewing straw and their cud.”

Regev and others took Kotler’s comments to mean that Likud voters are the “cud-chewers” in his analogy. But Kotler claims this was not his intention. In interviews with Israel Radio and Channel 2 news on Monday, Kotler said his statement was taken out of context. “The herd includes me,” he said.

And then the confusion.

“Kotler apologizes for ‘the cattle speech,'” Haaretz‘s headline reads on its front-page report.

Kotler explains in the newspaper. “I too am an ox. I was not referring to a specific fabric or specific type of people, I meant everyone.”

But Yedioth Ahronoth tells its readers the opposite: “Oded Kotler does not apologize,” as it refers readers to an extended interview with the theater director in the newspaper’s supplement.

“I stand behind that statement,” the director, playwright and actor tells the Israeli daily.

“I knew that I was saying difficult things,” he tells the paper. “The moment you attack the government establishment and enter into details personally and by name, you are asking for trouble.”

He knew it would be “annoying and upsetting,” Kotler says, “but that it would be to this extent, that I did not expect.”

However, Kotler insists that he never meant to attack a specific group. “I really do not have any interest in attacking Likud and Jewish Home voters,” he explains to Yedioth.

Israel Hayom also says Kotler apologized, but buries his attempts at explanation under denunciations from Knesset members from across the political spectrum. The article leads with quotes from Regev’s impassioned speech in the Knesset. “Are the 61 Knesset members sitting here cattle or sheep in your eyes?” the paper quotes Regev.

Kotler’s explanation is followed by the left-wing Yair Lapid calling his statements “stupid and uncultured.”

The newspaper then even quotes opposition leader Isaac Herzog saying, “‘Boo!’ to ugly words. ‘Boo!’ to those who thought they were appropriate and applauded.”

The free, right-leaning daily also does not hold back on the hyperbole, referring to Kotler’s statement as a “cultural terror attack” in Haim Shine’s opinion piece on the cultural brouhaha.

“His flexibility and contortion will not be able to cover up” his statements, Shine writes.

“Anyone who is planning a ‘cultural terror attack,'” he warns, “needs to be courageous enough to absorb the verbal barrages that come in response to slanderous and malicious statements.”