JERUSALEM: Leading lights of the Israeli theatre world have vowed to boycott Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, drawing threats from right-wingers who say the rebels risk losing public funding.
A petition signed by 53 performers, writers and directors, including Yehoshua Sobol, Yossi Pollak, Yousef Sweid, Anat Gov and Savyon Liebrecht, said they would not take part in a planned performance at a new cultural centre in the northern West Bank settlement of Ariel.
"Ariel is in occupied territory and no Israeli artist should have to take part in a production in occupied territory, not in Ariel nor in any other settlement when it is against international law," Sobol, a renowned playwright and satirist, told Israeli public radio on Sunday.
The managements of the principal companies, the state-subsidized Cameri, Habima, Beit Lessin and Beersheba theatres, issued a joint statement telling their artists they must go where they are sent.
This means "anywhere there are Israeli citizens who are lovers of Israeli theatre, including the new cultural centre in Ariel," Haaretz newspaper quoted the statement as saying.
MPs Alex Miller of the hawkish Yisrael Beitenu party and Carmel Shama of the ruling Likud said they had asked for an urgent debate on the issue at parliament’s Education, Culture and Sports committee.
"It is our duty to handle this incident as quickly as possible, in order to examine possible ways to deal with this phenomenon, and consider sanctions such as withdrawal of funds from the artists who took part in this insane initiative," YNet news website quoted them as writing in their request.
