Following Bennett's appeal: Lapid will suspend the cultural agreement with the European Union Israel today

Acting Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke yesterday (Wednesday) with Prime Minister Yair Lapid Lapid, and asked him not to approve the cultural agreement with the European Union Europe Creative in the government at this stage.

The appeal follows the publication in "Israel Today" and the claims of organizations on the right that the meaning of the agreement is the acceptance of the policy of the European Union, according to which the expanded Jerusalem, the Golan, Judea and Samaria are not part of Israel.

Bennett turned to Lapid after the Minister of the Interior, Ayelet Shaked, presented the problem to him and convinced him that approving the agreement at the current timing would be wrong.

In the conversation that took place between the two yesterday, Bennett told Lapid that since this is a transitional government, such an issue should not be brought up for approval now.

"Israel Hayom" learned that Lapid accepted Bennett's position, and agreed not to submit the agreement for approval in the government at this stage.

A week ago, an agreement regarding Israel's participation in the European Union program for cultural cooperation, "Creative Europe", was placed on the Knesset table.

The agreement states that Israel will pay NIS 33 million over the next five years to be included in the program, whose total budget is 2 billion euros.

The Ministry of Culture estimates that the profit for the Israeli cultural system will be tens of millions of shekels.

Five years ago, the Minister of Culture at the time, Miri Regev, refused to approve the agreement, because of the political and discriminatory meaning arising from it.

One of the conditions included in the agreement, according to the demand of the Europeans, is that it will not apply to the areas that Israel liberated in the Six Day War: the expanded Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, the Jordan Valley and the Golan Heights.

The meaning of the condition is that the Union will not finance creators and cultural institutions that operate in these areas, and projects in the field of culture, which will be financially supported by the Union, will not be able to be presented in the excluded areas.

Thus, for example, it will not be possible to present a show that the Union will be a partner in budgeting for in the cultural halls of Katzrin, Ariel and Kiryat Arba.

The Kohalat Forum, which examined the agreement, emphasizes that it also creates discrimination among Israeli citizens, and not only among many creators.

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According to Attorney Ariel Ehrlich, head of the litigation department at the Kohalat Forum: "This is Israeli consent to wholesale discrimination of hundreds of thousands of citizens.

Any cultural project, show, exhibition, performance or festival that receives or wishes to receive support from the European Fund - will be forced to declare that it will not appear in Katsrin, the Dead Sea, and also in the Old City of Jerusalem."

"Spirit for BDS"

Ehrlich added that the European program in the field of culture should not be compared to the science program "Horizon 2000", which Israel joined under the same conditions.

"In the Horizon program, Israel agreed to pay the political price because the benefit was enormous - partnership in a capital-intensive project, which allows Israel to be at the forefront of research and science.

According to him, after the American recognition of the Golan and the establishment of an embassy in Jerusalem, "signing the current agreement gives a boost to the BDS elements, who seek to boycott Israel."

The Ministry of Culture responded: "There is no change between the wording of the territorial clause stipulated in the Creative Europe Agreement and its implementation and the territorial clauses in the agreements signed between Israel and the European Union in the last decade, chief among them the Horizon Agreement from 2014 and the CBC Agreement from 2017, as well as Horizon 2021. In this context It should be noted that the section includes an explicit statement that this does not harm Israel's principled position regarding the status of the areas that were brought under the administration of the State of Israel after June 5, 1967. As in the previous European programs, the agreement is only relevant to European funding resulting from the program, and does not deal with any other activity of Israeli entities .

European Union building.

"Discriminatory policy", photo: Reuters

"Therefore, the agreement does not prevent cultural institutions or artists who will receive grants under the program from carrying out activities in the territories of Judea and Samaria and the Golan Heights (to the extent that this is not financed under the program). Regarding those cultural institutions or artists who will not be able to benefit from grants in the program due to the territorial clause, it will be emphasized that in accordance with the government's decision 1607 of June 12, 22, the government directed the Ministry of Culture and Sports to formulate a mechanism for supporting cultural institutions that are not eligible for international grants due to their geographic location, similar to Horizon.

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