On Monday, September 19th, the Ministry of Culture announced plans to increase their financial support for Arab cultural activities from 20 million to 34 million shekels. The Ministry made the announcement at a Supreme Court hearing regarding a case brought by the Mossawa Center and the National Committee of the Heads of Arab Localities. The case calls for the Ministry to provide equitable financial support for Arab culture.

The Ministry also announced that it will provide 15 million shekels to support the construction a new Arab museum in the city of Umm al-Fahm. Additionally, the Ministry of Culture promised to construct one new cultural hub in an Arab locality and to guarantee that at least 20 percent of the culture budget for periphery regions will go to Arab localities.

The Ministry’s announcement does not, however, come close to meeting the needs of the Arab community as outlined by the Mossawa Center’s court case. As the Ministry’s total budget for 2016 is over 823 million shekels, the 34 million shekel annual budget and the 15 million budget for the new Arab museum combined will only amount to approximately 6 percent of the Ministry’s budget.

“We will not accept the Ministry of Culture’s continued discrimination against Arab and Palestinian culture,” said Mossawa Center Director Jafar Farah on Monday. “We are calling for them to allocate at least 100 million shekels for Arab culture.”

The Ministry’s 2016 budget of 20 million shekels already represented a significant improvement from the 11.8 million shekel budget in 2012, when Mossawa filed its original legal petition. This is far from an equitable share of the Ministry’s budget and far from enough to close existing gaps produced by discriminatory budget allocations.

“The Arab community – our people, our artists and our institutions – we have a right to equitable funding,” says Mossawa Center Director Jafar Farah. “We pay the taxes that fund the Ministry of Culture’s budget, the same as any citizens. We have a right to build theaters, cinematheques, a film school or a dance school.”

According to Supreme Court-mandated mapping of cultural activities in the Arab community, there are no Arab heritage museums, arts centers or cinematheques. The only existing Arab school of art is minimally funded. In addition, the government has often revoked funding from theater performances and films based on the content of the productions.