Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev called Israel's artists "tight-assed, hypocritical and ungrateful" on Thursday, in yet another incident adding fuel to the fire between her and the artistic community. Her comments, revealed in a Channel 2 segment featuring her interview with the women's magazine You, follow a scandal last week in which actor Oded Kotler called right-wing voters "straw-munching cattle" at an artists' protest against Regev's plans to cut funding to anti-Israel cultural projects. In excerpts from the in-depth interview that were aired on Thursday, Regev said, "I knew the cultural world is ungrateful and I don't want to work for ungrateful, tight-assed hypocrites. "There is no appreciation in the cultural world. For whom do I go to work? For a bunch of hypocritical ingrates who think they know everything. "I won't say that I didn't want to get back at [actor] Gavri [Banai], who called me an animal, or [singer] Shalom Hanoch [who did not want to share a stage with Regev at a music festival], but I decided that I wouldn't play that dirty game. Shalom Hanoch is here thanks to me funding that festival. Can he really tell me where to speak and where not to-" Regev added, "I made my stance clear so that artists, editors, authors and screenwriters will know what will get them support and what won't." She also addressed her recent confrontation with Senior Citizens Minister Gila Gamliel, who opposes Regev's decisions about cultural funding cuts. "I'm sure she is sorry about what she said -- I think every minister should deal with their own ministry," Regev said. She said "the prime minister is very happy about [the funding decision]. He is glad that we're drawing red lines." Later, Regev clarified her comments about the artistic community, saying she was referring only to "artists like Oded Kotler and Yair Garbuz, who call entire sectors of the population 'cattle' [and] 'amulet-kissers' ... while I work to increase the culture budget -- that is ungrateful."
Culture minister: Israeli culture is filled with 'tight-assed ingrates'
"There is no appreciation in the cultural world. For whom do I go to work? For a bunch of hypocritical ingrates who think they know everything," Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev says in an interview with women's magazine, aired on Channel 2.
Load more...