Culture minister slams Labor MK as 'elitist, arrogant'

Nachman Shai boasted about maintaining the center of the country as the center of producing cultural content for the entire country.

By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
Updated: FEBRUARY 18, 2016 02:26
MK Nachman Shai. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
MK Nachman Shai.
(photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev accused Zionist Union MK Nachman Shai Wednesday of being “elitist, disconnected and arrogant” and not doing enough to help the periphery when he was the director-general of her ministry.
Writing on her official Facebook page, Regev said she was ashamed to post an interview with Shai on the Knesset Channel in which he boasted about maintaining the center of the country as the center of producing cultural content for the entire country.
“This explains a lot about the twisted outlooks that I have had to fight,” Regev said.
“I watched the shocking clip over and over again, and I did not believe we are in 2016 and that the Zionist Union dares to be so patronizing to more than a million citizens in Israel.
 Shameful.”
Regev vowed that as long as she is in charge of her ministry, she will make sure that culture will be enriched in the periphery.
Shai’s reaction was that when he was director-general of the ministry 15 years ago, he invested in the periphery, built institutions there and advanced multiculturalism.
“We aided the terrific cultural variety of our country,” Shai said. “We helped Sephardim and Ashkenazim, ultra-Orthodox and secular, Arabs and Jews, veterans and those who came recently. Culture for everyone.”
Turning to Regev, he said: “There was culture in this land before you, Miri. You and your friends will not succeed in destroying it.”