Culture minister says Gaza belongs to Israel, Palestinians merely ‘there as guests’

The Likud lawmaker makes claim when asked about his response to the award-winning film ‘The Sea,’ which led him to establish alternative award ceremony and threaten funding cuts

Culture Minister Miki Zohar, of the ruling Likud party, said on Thursday that Gaza belongs to Israel, and that the roughly 2.3 million Palestinians in the enclave are “guests” whom Israel is merely allowing to live there for now.

He made the remarks in an interview with the Kan public broadcaster, while explaining the reason why he is considering denying funds to the Israeli film industry, after the country’s most prestigious film prize, the Ophir Award, to “The Sea,” a movie about a Palestinian boy from the West Bank who is denied an entry permit to visit the beach in Israel.

Pushed by radio host Chen Liberman to define exactly what it is about the movie that justified potentially defunding Israel’s film industry, Zohar suggested that it painted the IDF in a bad light and made the Jewish state look like an “apartheid country that is killing Palestinians.”

But when Liberman, in response, pointed out that the fictional IDF soldier did his job exactly as expected of him, stopping only the child without an entry permit while allowing the other children to enter Israel, Zohar pivoted.

“Let me tell you about a large number of children, perfect and sweet, from Be’eri and Kfar Azza who won’t see the sea ever again,” Zohar said, referring to Israeli children killed during the October 7 massacre.

“Minister Miki Zohar, what you are telling me is that because of October 7, Israeli creators are forbidden from making films that are also about Palestinian children?” Liberman inquired, to which Zohar only responded that he would not allow films that acted “against IDF soldiers” to receive funding.

“It’s a movie that depicts a certain reality, that’s the reality of the occupation,” Liberman continued to push. “Maybe you have a problem with the occupation, but not with the movie, because the movie doesn’t lie in that regard.”

The word for occupation in Hebrew — kibbush — allows for multiple interpretations, ranging from short-term Israeli military control to long-term military rule and settlement.

Zohar responded that Israel “is not occupying anything” as it cannot be an occupier in its own lands.

“Judea and Samaria are ours,” he said, using the biblical term for the West Bank.

When asked specifically about the Gaza Strip, and whether the IDF’s continued deployment there was considered an occupation, he rejected this, too, saying: “Gaza is also ours. We’re just letting them stay there as guests until a certain point, but Gaza is ours.”

Zohar has expressed similar sentiments in the past.

He added that filmmakers who wish to receive government funds should “produce films that Israelis like to see. Not what Europeans like to see.”

Zohar eventually declared Liberman to be “hostile,” and charged that it was because of journalists like her that the government is seeking to shut down the public broadcaster.

Zohar recently set up an alternative awards ceremony ostensibly in protest of the prizes handed out at this year’s Ophir Awards, which are run by the Israeli Academy of Film and decide Israel’s Oscar submission each year.

Several leading film professionals who initially vowed to boycott his alternative ceremony reversed their decision and ended up taking part in the event, which was held on Tuesday.

The eight nominees — director Erez Tadmor, actresses Irit Kaplan and Nur Fibak, cinematographer Amit Yasur, screenwriter Mindi Ehrlich, screenwriter Yoav Shutan-Goshen, and editors Einat Glazer-Zarhin and Ilana Reina — said they were convinced by senior producer and Israel Prize laureate Moshe Edery to reconsider their planned boycott of Zohar’s event.

Edery promised to work with the culture minister to ensure continued funding for the film industry.

Zohar has also threatened to cancel the Film Law. This legislation, which was passed in 1999, established the Israel Film Council, which oversees the allocation of budgets to Israeli cinematic endeavors. Industry insiders warned this year that the future of Israeli TV and film is already under threat due to funding drying up and overseas production companies increasingly wary of doing business with Israel amid global boycott efforts.

Since taking office three years ago, Zohar has repeatedly taken aim at productions and cultural endeavors that he has deemed distasteful. Shortly after taking office in January 2023, Zohar declared that the Israel Film Council would require filmmakers seeking government grants to sign a clause saying they would not produce anti-Israel content.