Kahlon aligns with Regev with eye toward early Israeli elections

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and Culture Minister Miri Regev's joint Sept. 20 statement on amending the law that funds Israel’s culture and arts was not coincidental, nor was there anything ideological about it. The amendment will grant the Ministry of Culture the same authority that the Finance Ministry now has to withhold budgets from institutions considered offensive to the state’s values and symbols. 

The key question, of course, is the timing. Why did the finance minister decide just now to support Regev’s racist agenda against the country’s Arab citizens? Over the last few months, his office had effectively blocked all Regev’s requests to defund cultural institutions deemed subversive.

Kahlon is regarded as the most dovish member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line coalition, a guardian of the Supreme Court’s independence who at the beginning of his term in 2016 pushed for negotiations with the Palestinians and talked about a “window of opportunity.” What made him take part now in an initiative identified with Regev’s divisive and racist agenda, directed at Arab Israelis?

Kahlon himself explained in his joint announcement with Regev, “Freedom of expression is a worthy and important value but a democracy has the right to protect itself.” One cannot help but wonder why it took him so long to arrive at this conclusion.