Meretz chair: Ariel boycotters are worthy of support; Yisrael Beiteinu are a “bunch of thugs”

Meretz party chair, Haim Oron, this week lashed out at the anti-democratic voices in the Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu parties who have called for action against the performing artists who refuse to appear in the West Bank.

Responding to Culture Minister Limor Livnat’s plan to deny state funding to any cultural institution that fails to commit to performing on the other side of the Green Line, Oron stated that the performers’ action was “legitimate … and an act of conscience. They’re not boycotting the residents of Ariel – they’re refusing to perform at a location that’s in dispute.”

Oron also condemned Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party, which, like Livnat, threatened to defund institutions not accepting the government’s line. The party’s leaders, he said, are practicing “McCarthyism, intimidating the artists only because of their views.” The party, he added, was behaving, “like a bunch of thugs who can’t tell the difference between art and rule by Commissars.”

Oron offered his backing to the performers, whom he described as, “worthy of appreciation and support”. Their action, he said, “is important evidence that Israeli democracy still has life, and that the settlement enterprise remains contested.” Oron decried the use of violence and threats against the performers, who were standing up for liberty and freedom of dissent. Without their spirit, Oron warned, “we will end up with [only] propaganda, which is the opposite of art”.

For Oron’s full statement in Hebrew, click here.