Palestinian rapper causes a stir among rightwing Israelis

A brave Palestinian rapper could not be dissuaded from performing last night, despite protests from hundreds of Israeli nationalists and threats from the Israeli minister of culture to shut his concert down.

Tamer Nafar successfully performed at the Neve Yosef Community Centre in Haifa last night after the event organisers threatened to cancel the event.

"It's unfortunate that the Haifa Film Festival, a symbol of quality and closeness between people and countries, has chosen to give a stage to an artist who takes every opportunity to go against the State of Israel and its existence as a Jewish state," said Miri Regev, the culture minister. 

Hundreds of right-wing Israeli protesters met in the gardens outside the concert to protest against the concert, which Regev said gave 'legitimacy to terrorism".

Many of the protesters allegedly shouted racist abuse at Haneen Zoabi, a member of the Palestinian-Israeli party Balad, including accusations of terrorism.

The Haifa Municipality erroneously announced before the show that Nafar had cancelled. They subsequently changed the concert’s start time to 10pm, allegedly in order to disrupt the show, but they did not cancel the show.