Haifa 04/11/14. On November 3rd 2014 the Israeli parliamentary committee on Education and culture met to discuss the situation of Arab culture. During which Minister of culture Limor Livnat was criticized for her policies toward Arab culture. A report submitted by the Mossawa Center to the committee pointed out the lack of a suitable cinema, cultural center, gallery, museum or conservatory. Mossawa argued that the ministries of housing and culture cut off investment in cultural infrastructure and caused gaps in the funding of cultural activities, which are already divided among organizations and local authorities.

According to data presented by the Mossawa Center which was included in a petition filed by Mossawa, only 4% of the Ministry of Culture's budget of 630 million shekels is invested in culture activities in the Arab community. Following a petition submitted by Mossawa and the committee of Arab Mayors in 2013 the Supreme Court ordered the Ministry of Culture to perform a needs assessment of culture in the Arab community within six months. Six months later, the ministry asked the High Court for an additional six months to carry out the survey. Representatives of the Ministry of Culture announced in the Knesset that in the coming days they will perform the survey. The state comptroller already requested a survey such as this one in 2008, but Minister Limor Livnat ordered the stop of the execution and prevented the implementation of recommendations for communities where the survey has been carried out.

Ministry of Culture representative, Lubna Zoabi stated at the meeting, "We have built a program, in cooperation with the High Court at the request of the petitioners and Mossawa, which included the mayors and department heads. We created a process in which we are supposed to spend a hundred thousand shekels to prepare the mapping of Arab culture." The Ministry of Culture officials claimed that support for Arab culture institutions made up 75% of their budget, since it is more difficult for them to raise their own resources.

Committee Chairman MK Mitzna announced that he will hold a special meeting with the Minister of Culture, and called on her to take advantage of the supplement of 120 million NIS granted in 2015 to significantly increase the amount of funds designated for Arab culture programming. Mitzna said, "This is an opportunity to right a wrong," adding, "It's true that consumption of classical culture is relatively low in the Arab community when compared to Western populations. The Ministries of Education and Culture must give priority to actions which encourage the consumption of Arab culture in order to make it an integral part of life."

During the meeting MK Mitzna said, "We call on the Ministries of Finance and Culture to increase the budget regulations and give priority to institutions of Arab culture. This also needs the attention of Arab local authorities; Arab authorities should give it [culture] priority."

MK Mohammad Barakeh brought up the issue of a lack of physical infrastructure for culture in Arab localities. MK Barakeh said, "Where there is no cultural center to serve the 150,000 residents of metropolitan Nazareth it is clear that the activities will suffer and the funds will run short."

MK Barakeh called on the Committee to set a threshold of 10% from the budget of the Ministry of Culture to be allocated to Arab communities. MK Esawi Frij, announced the new Broadcasting Authority Law which allocated 20 million NIS for Arabic-language television productions. He said, "I hope that this money actually reaches its destination." Representative of the Forum of Arab culture organizations Alber Andrawas called for an expansion of Arab towns included in the national culture fund. He stated, "Only 19 Arab communities are now included in the national cultural fund because of the matching funds required from the local authorities, most of which are located in low socio-economic areas and have low budgets themselves"

Mossawa calls for a change in priorities in allocating culture funds and for the Israeli government to respect and uphold the international standards set by the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity.