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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.
