You've surely read that the European Union has offered millions of euros worth of support for art and culture in Israel as part of the Creative Europe program, a significant addition to culture in Israel.
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We know that other than a few lucky ones, artists in Israel live hand to mouth, struggling to make it to the end of the month, some take a step down to become art teachers and others despair and leave the art world for something more secure that will allow them to put food on the table and pay bills.
But there's a catch – the Europeans had one small condition, that the money would go to support straight, Ashkenazi artists – not half-Ashkenazi, and not half-straight. The Israeli government swallowed the toad and agreed to accept the conditional aid, and promised it would compensate LGBTQ Sephardic artists with grants of its own.
Barely two seconds passed before cries of outrage reached the heavens. Yael Dan interviewed an angry transgender installation artist, and a medium-sized demonstration was organized, led by Eden Ben Zaken, Dudu Tassa, and Dana Berger, who showed solidarity and happened to have an afternoon free. Anyone who went on the air that day, and it wasn't hard to find people to voice objection, began with the words "It's unacceptable" or "It's inconceivable that…"
And it really is infuriating, discriminating between people of different persuasions. And if the Europeans opt to be racist or homophobic, that's their perverted choice, but Israel must not accept these conditions under any circumstances. And even if the government offers a form of affirmative action, first of all, there's no way of knowing what the next government will do, and second, the very acceptance of the conditions makes them into something legitimate. In other words – inconceivable and unacceptable.
Of course, most of what has been written above is inaccurate. Yes, the Europeans offered support, but calm down – it doesn't discriminate based on sexual orientation, it merely screws the settlers. Yael Dan should look for a different item, and Dana Berger has an afternoon free, after all.
There were not and won't be demonstrations, certainly not of solidarity. No artist will go on the air, and the country will be silent. Because discrimination against settlers isn't really a story, and they probably deserve it.
The slow encroachment of this worldview – which claims that people who live on the other side of the Green Line are illegitimate and their voices and their art aren't worthy of being heard – is inconceivable, and must not be allowed to take hold.
Again, the criticism isn't aimed at the foreigners, because we expect nothing from them, and they've already proven a million times that their interests don't align with ours, to say the least. Instead, the criticism is of the government that accepted these discriminatory conditions and the media, which didn't raise an outcry, and artists from the "right" side of the Green Line who didn't bother showing solidarity. Maybe because they don't feel it, maybe because it's not important to them, maybe because they were bought off.
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