Israeli artists mobilize to counter government's threat of sanctions of two Israeli-Arab theaters

The organization representing Israeli cultural institutions has decided to hold an urgent meeting Thursday in light of sanctions or threat of sanctions by the new right-wing government against two Israeli-Arab theaters.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett, chairman of Bayit Yehudi, said Tuesday he had decided to withdraw public funding for a play produced by an Arab theater group about an Israeli-Arab who participated in the murder of an Israeli soldier.

The same day, Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev (Likud), threatened to stop funding an Arab-Jewish theater in Jaffa, if its co-manager, an Israeli Arab, maintained his refusal to appear, as an actor, in a play performed in the Jordan Valley in the West Bank.