Israeli Culture Minister Threatens To Claw Back State Funding From Local Doc 'Two Kids A Day' Explor

Source: Deadline

Israeli Culture Minister Threatens To Claw Back State Funding From Local Doc ‘Two Kids A Day’ Exploring Detention Of Palestinian Children

By Melanie Goodfellow
Senior International Film Correspondent
@mel_goodfellow
January 16, 2023 7:33am

Israel’s newly appointed Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar has lashed out against Israeli filmmaker David Wachsmann’s award-winning documentary Two Kids A Day, probing the country’s detention of Palestinian children in the West Bank, and is threatening to take back its state funding.

The minister, who took up office in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new hard-right government at the end of December, has criticized the work for presenting Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers “as those who harm children, while terrorists are presented as innocent victims”.

Zohar said he had requested Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to investigate whether it would be possible to retroactively take back state money given to the film for its production.

“The Ministry of Culture and Sports under my leadership will not finance works that harm the good name of the State of Israel, both in Israel and in the world,” he was quoted as saying by local media.

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Read more: https://deadline.com/2023/01/israel-culture-minister-threatens-state-funding-documentary-two-kids-a-day-palestinian-children-1235223456/