Gaza, Israeli Minister of Culture: “It’s ours, Palestinians are guests”

Jerusalem, Jan. 2 (LaPresse) – Israeli Minister of Culture Miki Zohar, of the ruling Likud party, said that Gaza belongs to Israel and that Palestinians in the territory are “guests” whom Israel currently allows to live there. “Gaza is also ours. We let them stay there as guests up to a point, but Gaza is ours,” Zohar stated in an interview with the public broadcaster Kan, as reported by The Times of Israel. The minister, who has expressed similar views in the past, was explaining why he is considering denying funds to the Israeli film industry for awarding the Ophir Prize, Israel’s most prestigious film award, to a film about a Palestinian boy from the West Bank who is denied permission to visit the beach in Israel. Although Zohar admitted he has not seen the film, he argued that it portrays the IDF negatively and presents Israel as an occupier. “Judea and Samaria are ours,” emphasized the Israeli Minister of Culture, using the biblical term for the West Bank. “We are not occupiers in our land.” Zohar added that filmmakers who want to receive government funding should “produce films that Israelis want to see. Not those that Europeans want to see.”