By Howard Fischer
Mail | X: @azcapmedia

PHOENIX — The head of the Senate Appropriations Committee is holding up the ability of the University of Arizona to borrow millions of dollars over a painting on display supporting Palestinians that he contends is offensive.

But it may end up being a big fuss over nothing: the University of Arizona Museum of Art where the picture is located will be shutting down anyway at the end of the week.

Sen. John Kavanagh on Wednesday used his position to block the Joint Committee on Capital Review from considering two separate requests for authority to issue bonds.

One is for $20 million to construct a new facility on the campus to house Arizona Public Media, the university’s TV and radio stations. The other involves $10.7 million to renovate part of a building at the university’s health science complex.

What has angered the Fountain Hills Republican is a picture hanging in a university museum related to what is happening in Israel — and, specifically, that it has the words on it, “From the river to the sea.”

“That’s associated with wiping out the state of Israel and its link to Hamas,” Kavanagh said, referring to the group that has governed Gaza and attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

“My position was, and some of the members (of the capital review committee) is they need to take that down because it’s offensive before we’re willing to vote on their items,” he said.

There are no direct state dollars involved. The health science project will be paid back from tuition revenues; university officials said the media building will be financed through gifts.

But state law requires the university to get approval for the borrowing in the first place. Without approval of the capital review committee, both projects remain stalled.

Kavanagh said university officials are arguing they are powerless.

“They don’t think they could take it down because of some state law about free speech in schools,” he said. “Our attorneys looked at it and said, no, they can take it down because it’s on a government building.”

So what happened Wednesday is Kavanagh tabled the request.

“We’re going to show them our attorneys’ position on it,” he said. And if the problem is resolved — either with a finding that the picture is protected or it is removed — Kavanagh said the committee will consider the requests at a future meeting.

The problem, however, appears to be going away by itself. Andy Schultz, dean of the College of Fine Arts, said the University of Arizona Museum will close at the end of the week.

More to the point, he said that will allow the staff to “prepare for the next set of exhibits.” Plans are to reopen the facility in January — without the controversial piece of art.

Kavanagh told Capitol Media Services he does not consider his action — and the pressure on the university — to be improper.

“I think it’s perfectly reasonable to send a message to places that you’d better not put this kind of offensive stuff that promotes genocide up,” he said. “And, also, I want to make a statement that I don’t support this.”

Still, Kavanagh said his hands may be tied if the legislature’s attorneys say that the university has no right to remove the painting.

“Then, I’ll vote for the project,” he said.

There was no immediate response from the university.

This isn’t the first time that Arizona lawmakers have used their powers to register a viewpoint on the Middle East.

In 2014 the state House approved a resolution declaring that the entire West Bank belongs to Israel and the Jews who have settled there since the 1967 war “reside there legitimately.”

The resolution, approved without debate, said the area, which some Israelis refer to by the biblical names of Judea and Samaria, was granted to Israel “through the oldest recorded deed, as recorded in the Old Testament.” It also said the “claim and presence” of Jewish people in Israel, including the West Bank, has “remained constant throughout the past 4,000 years.”

But the real key is the resolution declared that Israel is not an “occupier of the lands of others” and that there can be peace in the area “only through a whole and united Israel.”

Five years later, lawmakers voted to deny public contracts to firms that refuse to do business with other companies that do business in Israel.

The vote came over the often-tearful statements of then-Rep. Athena Salman, D-Tempe, who told her colleagues of how her family members, some now here, some still in the living in occupied territories, have been treated. She said the movement, formally known as BDS — for boycott, divest, sanction — is designed to put pressure on Israel to end what she said are “Israeli human rights abuses” and illegal settlements in the West Bank.

“If that land is annexed it is no longer our land,” Salman said.

Jay Lawrence, then a representative from Scottsdale, said he could not support putting pressure on Israel, saying the BDS movement is fueled by “its anger at Israel and its anger at the Jewish people.”

And Kavanagh, then a state representative, said he sees the BDS movement as an impediment to peace, seeking to force terms on Israel rather than requiring both side to recognize each other’s right to exist.