Openheimer: Edelstein using Web site to sway public opinion in Israel to the extreme Right.
By GIL STERN STERN HOFFMAN
Peace Now secretary-general Yariv Openheimer sent a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu Sunday protesting the government’s new public relations web site, masbirim.gov.il, saying it is right-wing.The site was unveiled last week as part of Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein’s initiative to recruit ordinary Israelis to defend the country abroad.Openheimer wrote to Netanyahu that Edelstein was using the Web site to sway public opinion in Israel to the extreme Right. He noted that the site does not encourage advocating the two-state solution, it talks about the need to keep Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights, and it suggests that evacuating settlers would harm their human rights.Edelstein responded that Peace Now should join the effort to defendIsrael abroad, rather than take quotes out of context to criticize thecountry.