The Haifa city council decided on Tuesday to establish a committee to consider anew the municipal funding for the Arab Al Midan Theater in the city, after it put on a play portraying the life of one of the Arab terrorists who mutilated and murdered IDF soldier Moshe Tamam in 1984.
Every year the Al Midan Theater receives more than a million shekels (over $250,000) from the Haifa municipality. The request to remove that support was submitted by Haifa Councilman Shai Blumenthal (Jewish Home).
Family members of Tamam took part in the council meeting, which aside from council members included members of the municipality's cultural department.
Until a decision is made by the newly formed committee, no additional funds will be transferred to the theater.
The 19-year-old Tamam was abducted and murdered by Arab terrorists from Baka al-Gharbiya as he hitched a ride with them on his way to the town of Havatzelet Hasharon. The abduction didn't occur in Judea or Samaria, but rather in the coastal region between Haifa and Tel Aviv.
After holding him captive for several days the terrorists murdered Tamam by mutilation, gouging out his eyes before cutting off parts of his body starting with his genitals and then shooting him. They were a cell of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) terror group.
His terrorist murderers were to be released in early 2014 in the cancelled fourth batch of releases after a total of 78 terrorists were set free by the outgoing coalition government in "gestures" to the Palestinian Authority (PA) just to hold peace talks pushed by US Secretary of State John Kerry.
Those talks were torpedoed last April when the PA signed a unity deal with the Hamas terrorist organization.
Terror victims group Almagor recently held a protest at the theater over the play, and called for funding of the establishment to be withdrawn.
"All the financial support comes from Israeli taxpayers, including bereaved families paying taxes according to the law, and is going to an anti-Israel event whose subtext is the call to release 'repented' terrorists, who are being treated like people and not murders," Almagor said in a statement.
"This type of financial support is inappropriate and must be stopped immediately," it added.