Israeli culture minister urges city to cancel Palestinian rapper’s show

Israeli culture minister Miri Regev has urged Haifa Municipality to cancel a performance by Palestinian rapper Tamer Nafar.

Nafar, who came to prominence as part of hip-hop group DAM, is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and a well-known artist and community activist.

According to Haaretz, the government minister urged the city to cancel the show scheduled for Tuesday “due to what she described as his subversive ideology.” Earlier this week, Likud activists in Haifa announced plans to “blow up” the show.

In a letter to the Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav, Regev said that Nafar’s lyrics “give legitimacy to terrorism”, and that “public funds should not support activity that undermines the state, its values and symbols in the name of art and freedom of speech.”

Haifa Municipality, for its part, claimed that it had deliberately pushed Nafar’s performance to a later time, in the hope that the rapper would cancel it altogether.

Nafar, however, responding on Facebook, said he has no intention of pulling out: “I understand that the city is under pressure from the culture minister and her gaggle of racists, and it is hoping that I will cancel, but I have no intention of letting them silence me.”

As Haaretz notes, “last month, the culture minister walked out of the Ophir film awards ceremony after Nafar and a Jewish performer, Yossi Zabari, read a part of a poem by Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish on stage.”