ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 07 TEL AVIV 002347 SIPDIS STATE FOR NEA, NEA/IPA, NEA/PPD WHITE HOUSE FOR PRESS OFFICE, SIT ROOM NSC FOR NEA STAFF JERUSALEM ALSO FOR ICD LONDON ALSO FOR HKANONA AND POL PARIS ALSO FOR POL ROME FOR MFO E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: IS KMDR MEDIA REACTION REPORT SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION -------------- SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: -------------- ¶1. Mideast ¶2. Iran Nuclear Program ¶3. Release of Mordechai Vanunu -------------- Key stories in the media: -------------- All media cited PM Sharon's downplaying, in a speech to the Knesset Thursday, of the upcoming Likud referendum on his disengagement plan. This morning on Israel Radio, Vice PM Ehud Olmert said that if the party does not endorse the plan, this would have "very serious" diplomatic, economic and political consequences for Israel. The radio reported that the French government has expressed skepticism about the plan's chances of success. Ha'aretz reported that Minister without Portfolio Natan Sharansky has sent a letter to the 19,000 Russian-language members of the Likud, calling on them to vote against the disengagement plan. Jerusalem Post quoted Herbert Zweibon, chairman of Americans For a Safe Israel, a U.S. Jewish organization fighting the two-state solution to the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, as saying that an Israeli withdrawal from the territories could lead to an anti- Semitic backlash among evangelical Christians who are today among Israel's strongest supporters. Jerusalem Post notes that Zweibon has close ties with the evangelical community. Hatzofe reported that an unnamed "senior White House official" told the unlicensed right-wing Israeli radio station Arutz Sheva (Arutz 7) that the U.S. does not accept Israeli sovereignty over settlement blocs or the non-return of Palestinian refugees to Israel. The official was quoted as saying: "The parties will decide on these issues in negotiations among themselves." Jerusalem Post quoted Farouk Kaddoumi, the PLO's hard- line "foreign minister," as saying in an interview with the Jordanian newspaper Al-Arab, that when PA Chairman Yasser ARAFAT talks about the need to pursue the struggle against Israel, he is referring to the armed struggle. Kaddoumi reportedly said that the armed struggle is the only way to accept the Palestinians' demands. He admitted in the interview that the PLO charter, which denies Israel's right to exist, was never changed. Jerusalem Post reported that Thursday the Popular Resistance Committees, an alliance of various armed Palestinian groups in the Gaza Strip, announced that its members managed to free three Palestinians who were held in a Gaza City prison on suspicion of involvement in the attack on a U.S. diplomatic convoy last October. The Committees also said that a fourth suspect was not freed because he is being held in solitary confinement. Israel Radio reported that last night in Qalqilya three key Fatah/Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades activists were killed in a clash with IDF forces. The media also reported that two Palestinian girls aged 4 and 7 were killed in the Gaza Strip. Maariv reported that Survey of Israel, the GOI's official mapmaker, has recently printed an updated edition of Israel's maps, which includes the separation fence. Ha'aretz (English Ed.) reported that last Thursday, American-born Rabbi Arik W. Ascherman, executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR), was arrested while demonstrating against the route of the fence. Ascherman is awaiting his day in court in connection with other charges related to his struggle for human rights. Israel Radio quoted Lakhdar Brahimi, the special UN envoy to Iraq, as saying on a French radio station that Israel is the "biggest poison" in the region. Brahimi also reportedly blasted the U.S. support for Israel. Israel Radio quoted Fred Eckhardt, Spokesman to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, as saying that Brahimi's SIPDIS remarks do not represent Annan's views. Ha'aretz quoted Nigel Roberts, director of the World Bank office in the West Bank and Gaza, as saying: "We are ready to play a constructive role in the disengagement process if we are asked to do so by all the key parties -- Israel, the PA and the international community." Roberts was referring to reports that the Bank had already agreed to buy the Gaza Strip settlements, or that it had already taken practical steps to that effect. Jerusalem Post quoted a "high- level World Bank official" as saying Wednesday that the bank will not purchase or become temporary custodians of Israel assets in the Gaza Strip after an Israeli withdrawal, and that it is more likely to play an economic advisory role, helping the Palestinians manage and productively use the evacuated property. Leading media reported that Nabil George Razouk, the Israeli Arab from East Jerusalem who was abducted in Iraq on April 8, was freed Thursday by his captors. The media reported that the PA representative in Iraq was instrumental in securing his release. Ha'aretz reported that one of the two Israelis detained in New Zealand was carrying a forged Canadian passport. Ha'aretz cited a recently declassified CIA document, according to which in January 1975 then U.S. President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were concerned that the U.S. could be made to intervene if the USSR had militarily backed a Syrian attack on Israel. All media highlighted reports that former energy minister Gonen Segev has been remanded into police custody as a suspect in an alleged international Ecstasy drug smuggling scheme that Israeli and Dutch police say involve millions of shekels (one shekel roughly equals USD 0.22). Segev reportedly used a forged diplomatic passport. Segev, who was number two in the defunct right-wing party Tzomet, joined the late PM Yitzhak Rabin's cabinet in the mid '90s. A Yediot poll conducted by Mina Zemach's Dahaf Institute found that 49 percent of registered Likud voters will vote for Sharon's plan; 39.5 percent are opposed; 11.5 percent are undecided. A Maariv/Teleseker poll found that: -Had it depended on them, 63 percent of Israelis would have favored a national referendum to decide on the issue of the disengagement plan; 5 percent would have preferred a referendum within the Likud; 25 percent favor a "different way." -41 percent prefer an evacuation of the Gaza Strip that would be coordinated with the Palestinians; 34 percent favor a unilateral withdrawal; 18 percent oppose a withdrawal altogether. -54 percent believe that the houses in the settlements to be vacated should be pulled down; 36 percent favor leaving them to the Palestinians. -76 percent of Israelis say that Israel was right in assassinating Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi. -------------- ¶1. Mideast: -------------- Summary: -------------- Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "[Sharon] has harnessed, in the diplomatic arena and within the government, significant support for a withdrawal.... Sharon owes the citizens of Israel ... an accelerated, and not sluggish, evacuation." Extreme right-wing columnist Caroline B. Glick wrote on page one of conservative, independent Jerusalem Post: "The entire rationale of moving ahead with Sharon's plan is that Sharon has claimed that the U.S. has given Israel something in exchange for implementing it. And yet, over the past week, the U.S. has made quite clear that it will give Israel nothing." Jerusalem Post editorialized: " It may be a long time yet before Israel gets the borders it deserves. For now, the best we can hope for is to get the borders we can realistically defend. Fortunately, that prospect is no longer distant." Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. "Speed Up the Evacuation" Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (April 23): "Regardless of where the weight of the votes in Sharon's party falls, he has harnessed, in the diplomatic arena and within the government, significant support for a withdrawal. U.S. President George Bush was the first to back it and so have major leaders in Europe. All the central ministers of the Likud, who are also candidates for Sharon's seat after he retires, have abandoned their doubts by announcing their support for the plan and established an undeniable political fait accompli.... Sharon has voiced two main arguments in favor of the plan, which he himself had opposed until recently. The first argument is security-based: shortening the lines of defense and eliminating soft targets (settlements, military units and the movement of soldiers and civilians along roads in the Gaza Strip) so that the fighting, which is expected to continue both along Gaza's borders (attempts to carry out attacks and launch rockets) and in the West Bank. The second argument is diplomatic: in the absence of an Israeli initiative enjoying American support, Israel will be forced to fend off initiatives less palatable to the Likud and Sharon government. Precisely because of these arguments, the evacuation should not be delayed. The plans for compensation for the evacuated settlers can be approved quickly by the various ministries and the Knesset. Sharon owes the citizens of Israel the opposite of what he willingly grants [Finance Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu: an accelerated, and not sluggish, evacuation." II. "The Generals' Confusion" Extreme right-wing columnist Caroline B. Glick wrote on page one of conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (April 23): "The [Israeli] press has paid minimal attention to the fact that, in the days since Sharon's meeting with Bush, Bush and his people have repeatedly denied a shift in U.S. policy away from the Palestinians and toward Israel. If our media was not firmly backing Sharon's plan, this would not be the case. After all, the entire rationale of moving ahead with Sharon's plan is that Sharon has claimed that the U.S. has given Israel something in exchange for implementing it. And yet, over the past week, the U.S. has made quite clear that it will give Israel nothing. Last Friday Bush explained, 'All final status issues must still be negotiated between the parties.' What this means, as Colin Powell and others have been keen to point out, is that although Bush did state that the U.S. thinks it would be unrealistic to have the so- called Palestinian refugees overrun Israel in the framework of an agreement, Bush did not commit the U.S. to preventing it from happening. Likewise, in spite of the fact that it may be unrealistic to expect that more than 250,000 Israelis would be driven out of their homes in a peace deal, it is not for the U.S. to say. If the media was not mobilized to support Sharon's plan, surely the fact that the U.S. gave Israel nothing would be given more than passing attention." III. "Borders of Realism" Jerusalem Post editorialized (April 23): "For the better part of the past 30 years, the Right and the Left in Israel made two curiously mirrored arguments. The Right understood the need for secure and defensible borders with all our neighbors, except the Palestinians. The Left understood the need for borders with the Palestinians, while fantasizing about a 'New' borderless Middle East, akin to the European Union.... On the all-important subject of borders, both sides were logically inconsistent.... With the Palestinians, the past 40-plus months of terror have convinced a majority of Israelis of two things. First, that peace with the Palestinians is, for the time being, impossible; and second, that separation is necessary. We cannot forever rule over a people who violently reject that rule, however benign our intentions. And we must have a border to better defend against suicide bombers, the only weapon in the Palestinian arsenal that can really bloody us.... It is ... objected that a border that lacks international legitimacy is no border at all. But then, what was the Green Line? What is the Line of Control in Kashmir?.... It may be a long time yet before Israel gets the borders it deserves. For now, the best we can hope for is to get the borders we can realistically defend. Fortunately, that prospect is no longer distant." -------------- ¶2. Iran Nuclear Program: -------------- Summary: -------------- Senior columnist and chief defense commentator Zeev Schiff wrote in independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz: "Iran's Shihab-3 rockets have become operational, which means Iran can now reach Israel and other distant targets in the Middle East.... [But] the other side knows Israel can deal with that threat and set a heavy price for the enemy if the situation worsens." Block Quotes: -------------- "Despite Everything, an Improvement" Senior columnist and chief defense commentator Zeev Schiff wrote in independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (April 23): "Despite the unceasing terrorist war, it is now clear there has been an improvement in Israel's strategic position over the past year. The military deployment in the Middle East has changed in our favor, and certain threats that appeared grave in the past are gone.... That does not mean all the dangers are gone. It is possible that some threats, particularly in the realm of terror, if actualized, will surprise Israel.... A year ago, the assessment was that Iran would be near nuclear independence in 2004, but that timetable seems to have been postponed.... There has been a worsening of conditions in another military realm -- but it should not be considered a strategic threat yet. Iran's Shihab-3 rockets have become operational, which means Iran can now reach Israel and other distant targets in the Middle East. Combined with the missile systems that Iran and Syria set up for Hezbollah in south Lebanon, the threat is more tangible. The other side knows Israel can deal with that threat and set a heavy price for the enemy if the situation worsens." -------------- ¶3. Release of Mordechai Vanunu: -------------- Summary: -------------- Op-ed writer Rafi Mann observed in popular, pluralist Maariv: "As long as the president of the U.S. decides, for strategic, political or other reasons, to adhere to his country's commitment to Israel's security, the Americans are prepared to turn a blind eye to the doings on the underground floors of the Dimona-2 institute." Block Quotes: -------------- "Bush's Bomb" Op-ed writer Rafi Mann observed in popular, pluralist Maariv (April 23): "Israel's security has been a recurrent motive in a long series of statements by Bush in recent years.... Like in almost every domain -- from economic assistance to the peace process -- [Israel] has one address: Washington. More precisely: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. As long as the president of the U.S. decides, for strategic, political or other reasons, to adhere to his country's commitment to Israel's security, the Americans are prepared to turn a blind eye to the doings on the underground floors of the Dimona-2 institute.... When could the pattern of that relationship blow up and cause serious harm to Israel? Only when something very basic goes wrong in U.S.-Israeli relations -- if, for instance a U.S. president is someday elected and wishes to shake off the 'special relationship' between the two countries, or if Israel makes policy that Washington would view as a clear danger to its interests. To this day, even the most skeptical observers can only point to a tightening and deepening of ties, not to the opposite. Meanwhile, Vanunu had better stop blabbing, but it is doubtful whether that eccentric guy actually represents a strategic threat.... The Iranian bomb worries Bush much more." KURTZER