Some of the tens of millions of shekels the Haifa Municipality and the Culture and Sport Ministry transfer each year to the Beit Ha'Gefen multicultural center in Haifa are being used to fund a festival that praises terrorists, Israel Hayom has learned.
The nonprofit Beit Ha'Gefen calls itself the Arab-Jewish Cultural Center and in a mission statement on its homepage declares that it believes in "creating shared egalitarian spaces that contain the variety of identities and culture in Haifa in particular and Israel in general."
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But despite expressions of peaceful coexistence and tolerance, Beit Ha'Gefen is currently hosting an Arab cultural festival in which Palestinians are referred to as the "third generation of the Nakba," and says that Israeli society is in the process of "becoming fascist."
The festival program calls to screen a film that presents terrorists and supporters of terrorism as cultural heroes, while the Intifada is characterized as a "key Palestinian event."
Rami Younis, artistic director of the festival and a supporter of the BDS movement, wrote in a Facebook post that "the Nazi Israelis shot Palestinians in the biggest ghetto in the world," referring to the Hamas-organized "marches of return" on the Gaza border.
According to a special report put out by the right-wing Zionist group Im Tirtzu, approximately 80% of the center's budget comes from taxpayer money. From 2012-2017, the Culture and Sport and Education ministries supplied Beit Ha'Gefen with a total of 11,540,387 shekels ($3,205,112). In those same years, the Haifa Municipality funded Beit Ha'Gefen to the tune of 50,265,000 shekels ($13,960,000).
Alon Schwartzer, head of the policy department for Im Tirtzu, said, "It's time for the Israeli government to stop being the only country in the world that forces its citizens to pay people to promote a boycott of their country.
"It is inconceivable that a city institution, which in recent years has received [millions of] shekels in taxpayer money, will hold a festival devoted to glorifying the culture of an entity hostile to Israel, in whose name terrorists have set out to murder thousands of Israelis," Schwartzer said.
The Treasury said it had been contacted over the matter and the complaint was under review by its legal counsel. Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon said he would "use his authority to cancel budgets to institutions that incite or act against the state."
Culture Minister Miri Regev said, "Unfortunately, the current legal situation does not allow me to cancel funds to institutions that undermine the existence and identity of the state of Israel."
The Education Ministry denied any link to funding for the festival.
No response was forthcoming from either the Haifa Municipality or Beit Ha'Gefen.
