The head of the Binyamin Regional Council, Yisrael Gantz, addressed the director of the public broadcasting corporation Kan in light of the exclusion of Judea and Samaria from the clips of Israeli landscapes that were broadcast at Eurovision.
"Eurovision is a flagship project for Israeli tourism, which is intended, among other things, to serve as a lever to increase tourism to all parts of our beautiful country," Gantz wrote to Eldad Koblenz, CEO of Kan.
Gantz complained about an interview on Channel 2 by Eurovision hostess, Lucy Ayoub, in which she was asked why pictures of Judea and Samaria weren't included. Ayoub replied that "there was no interest."
"According to Ayoub's words, it seems that Kan deliberately and knowingly excluded pictures of Judea and Samaria, which, as you know, comprise about a quarter of the territory of the State of Israel," Gantz asserted.
According to Gantz, this discriminatory behavior is seriously damaging to the tourism potential of Binyamin and other regions in Judea and Samaria "as well as harming its residents. Furthermore, Ayoub's statement, which was met with no objection by you, proves that there is no room for the continued existence of a public body funded by the taxpayers' money of hundreds of thousands of citizens living in Judea and Samaria."
"It's preferable that the budgets allocated to Kan be invested in education, health and culture for all citizens of Israel," Gantz concluded in his letter.