Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05TELAVIV3951
2005-06-23 11:10:00
UNCLASSIFIED
Embassy Tel Aviv
Cable title:  

ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

Tags:  IS KMDR MEDIA REACTION REPORT 
pdf how-to read a cable
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 TEL AVIV 003951

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:
--------------

Mideast

--------------
Key stories in the media:
--------------

Israel Radio cited police concerns that anti-
disengagement activists will step up their deterrence
efforts, including causing damage to infrastructure
facilities. Jerusalem Post reported that Vice PM Ehud
Olmert lashed out on Wednesday at settlers who say that
the fate of Jerusalem will be the same as the Gaza
Strip if the disengagement plan is implemented, calling
such settlers "stupid."

Israel Radio reported that IDF Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Harel
met on Wednesday night with Palestinian Deputy Interior
Minister, Gen. Jamal Abu Zayd, to discuss ways to
enhance security coordination in preparation for the
disengagement.

Ha'aretz reported that Israel has agreed to consider a
number of proposals for creating an overland connection
between Gaza and the West Bank following the
disengagement, as well as measures that will make it
much easier for people and goods to enter Israel from
the territories. However, the newspaper quoted a
senior Israeli source as saying: "Everything will
depend on security. If they [the Palestinians] give us
a few months of quiet, we can agree to allow trucks to
pass. But an event like the suicide bomber [caught] at
Erez Checkpoint on Monday distances this." James
Wolfensohn, the Quartet's envoy on the disengagement,
was quoted as saying in an interview with Ha'aretz
Wednesday that over the past two weeks, there has been
significant progress in Israel-Palestinian talks on
economic and civil aspects of the disengagement, which
had previously been stuck due to a dispute over the
agenda. Wolfensohn was also quoted as saying that
trust between Israelis and Palestinians is at a 10-year
low. Ha'aretz and Israel Radio reported that U.S.
officials visited the Gaza Strip last week to prepare
Wolfensohn's visit in the Strip, despite the travel ban
imposed by the U.S. administration since the October
2003 attack on a U.S. embassy convoy.

Ha'aretz reported that Israel and Egypt are close to
agreeing on the deployment of 800 Egyptian policemen
along the western side of the Philadelphi route on the
Rafah border. On the other hand, the newspaper
believes that Israel is retracting for now the idea of

expanding development in the border segment south of
the Gaza Strip -- between Kerem Shalom in the north and
Eilat in the south. Israel Radio quoted a senior GOI
official as saying that the forthcoming agreement does
not constitute a change on the ground, does not modify
the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, and does not
constitute a military threat. Israel Radio reported
that several members of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs
and Defense Committee, including chairman Yuval
Steinitz, strongly objected to Egyptian troops being
positioned along the border.

Jerusalem Post quoted FM Silvan Shalom as saying on
Wednesday that Israel would take control of areas in
Gaza for a few days if there is going to be fire
leading up to and during the Gaza withdrawal, even if
it means harming innocent Palestinians. Yediot and the
ultra-Orthodox newspapers quoted Col. Brig. Gen. Eival
Giladi, head of coordination and strategy at Sharon's
bureau, as saying that Israel will use fighter jets if
the Palestinians attack it during the disengagement.

Based on international media reports citing a British
announcement, Ha'aretz and Israel Radio reported that
Quartet representatives -- Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan,
Russian FM Sergei Lavrov, and top EU foreign affairs
official Javier Solana -- will meet in London today to
discuss the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Ha'aretz
also cited Reuters as saying that foreign ministers of
the G8 group of industrialized nations will meet in
London today to discuss the pullout.

Israel Radio quoted senior Palestinian sources as
saying that Palestinian PM Ahmed Qurei met in Nablus on
Wednesday with representatives of militants wanted by
Israel and negotiated their joining the PA's forces.
Leading media reported that wanted members of Fatah
opened fire on Qurei in Nablus's Balata refugee camp.

All media cited the belief of senior Labor Party
officials that the party's primaries will be postponed
because of suspected fraudulent registration of voters.

Yediot reported that Jomhury e-Islami, a conservative
Iranian newspaper associated with the regime, has
accused Yediot's special envoy to Tehran Orly Azolai of
having visited Iran in order to generate a conflict
among the candidates in the presidential election.
Yediot cited Iran's Culture Ministry as saying that
Azolai never visited Iran.

Jerusalem Post and other media reported that the IAF
destroyed four Qassam rockets on the outskirts of the
Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip early
Wednesday meeting.

Ha'aretz quoted Transportation Minister Meir Sheetrit
at saying at the Knesset on Wednesday that Islamic
Jihad is initiating, planning, and carrying out acts of
terror in keeping with directives coming from Damascus.
Maariv reported that this week, U.S. helicopters
launched missiles at positions of Syria's border guard
at the Syrian-Iraqi border. Maariv also quoted the CEO
of a Russian weapons firm as saying as saying that a
new Russian-Syrian arms deal is in the making.
Yediot cited a "secret document" drafted by the Foreign
Ministry, according to which Libyan leader Muammar
Qadhafi is interested in relations with Israel.

Jerusalem Post notes that Secretary Rice's Cairo speech
failed to impress intellectuals in the Arab world.

Citing the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Jerusalem Post
cited a survey issued this week by The Israel Project,
a Washington-based group seeking to strengthen Israel's
image, which found an increasingly hostile attitude to
Israel among graduate students at top U.S.
universities.

Ha'aretz reported that the Foreign Ministry's
Appointments Committee, headed by FM Shalom, named
Jeremy Issacharoff on Wednesday as political attache to
Washington, the No. 2 post at the embassy.

--------------
Mideast:
--------------

Summary:
--------------

Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "The
arrogance broadcast by Israel's representative [Ariel
Sharon] merely emphasized the weakness of his partner,
[Mahmoud Abbas,] and served no purpose, even though the
demand for an end to the terror is justified."

Liberal op-ed writer Yael Paz-Melamed wrote in popular,
pluralist Maariv: "Most of the value systems of the two
camps [i.e. the Left and the Right] are substantively
different, and this leads to a difference in patterns
of behavior."

Settler leader Israel Harel wrote in Ha'aretz: "Today
... there [still] remains a sliver of hope that the
evil decree [of disengagement] can be prevented."

Middle East affairs commentator Guy Bechor, a lecturer
at the Interdisciplinary Center, wrote in mass-
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "Israel, which
established the Palestinian Authority in the framework
of the Oslo Accords, now faces a political body that
has no intention of reaching a political arrangement
with it."
Block Quotes:
--------------


I. "A Chill Wind at the Summit"

Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (June
23): "The meeting between Ariel Sharon and Mahmoud
Abbas did indeed seem, as the Palestinians claim, like
one between a senior commander and a junior officer who
did not carry out his mission as expected, or like one
between a landlord and a tenant who did not pay his
rent on time.... Sharon could have skipped the
humiliation and focused on his demands. If he was
trying to win the hearts of his voters, he did so at
too high a cost.... The arrogance broadcast by Israel's
representative merely emphasized the weakness of his
partner, and served no purpose, even though the demand
for an end to the terror is justified. In the end,
arrogance will not benefit the Israeli public, which
would be better served by a strong and independent
interlocutor.... It is doubtful Abbas will be capable
of providing Israel with security, or even a promise of
security, in the foreseeable future; and it is doubtful
that Sharon is capable of promising the Palestinians a
continuation of the diplomatic process after the
withdrawal from Gaza. His political situation does not
enable him to make promises. The hope is that the very
fact of the withdrawal from Gaza will improve the
atmosphere between the parties and set in motion the
dynamic of the diplomatic process, and that a
withdrawal successfully coordinated with the PA will
open the door to a more optimistic next step."

II. "The War of the Orange and the Blue"

Liberal op-ed writer Yael Paz-Melamed wrote in popular,
pluralist Maariv (June 23): "The difference -- the
ostensibly substantive difference -- between the
rallying of the Right and the silence and apathetic
reaction of the Left is not an indicator of how
strongly the Left is committed to its ideology. It is
essentially an indicator of the ideology itself. The
worldview of the moderate Left, to which many people in
the center of the political spectrum also subscribe, is
one of commitment to life, even at the cost of land and
walls [such as the Western wall]. Life is the supreme
value. It comes before the Greater Land of Israel, and
long before violent and uncompromising conflicts over
some buildings from illegal settlement outposts.
Moreover, this camp feels a genuine revulsion for
extremism in any form, for fanaticism arising mainly
out of religious messianism. Most of the value systems
of the two camps are substantively different, and this
leads to a difference in patterns of behavior. The
right-wing camp, and particularly the extreme Right,
believes that almost anything is permissible for the
sake of the Land of Israel -- to break laws, to disrupt
normal life, to deprive another people of liberties, to
humiliate them, to crush them into the dust. For what
does it matter? The main thing is that they should
understand that the Land of Israel is something
sacred.... He who believes in life stays at home to
live it. He works hard to succeed in maintaining his
priorities in life. That is why you will see many more
[anti-disengagement] orange ribbons on the roads. That
is why the Left ought not to have fallen into this
trap, by trying to create a presence of [pro-
disengagement] blue ribbons. This is not the way of
the Left."

III. "Still a Sliver of Hope"

Settler leader Israel Harel wrote in Ha'aretz (June
23): "Many of those who supported the disengagement
yesterday are today voicing serious doubts as to Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon's true motives and the prices --
strategic, ideological and human -- that we are going
to pay. With the terror continuing, coupled with
threats that if Sharon is slow in implementing
additional withdrawals, the terror of the past years
will be just a preface to the true war of terror, it is
natural for people to be changing their positions....
Blocking roads and other such 'dedicated' antics will
not open the floodgates, which is the only thing at
this late hour that can prevent the historic mistake of
the uprooting.... Today, less than 60 days before the
first policemen report to Gush Katif and begin to tear
the settlers from their homes, their lands and their
communities, there [still] remains a sliver of hope
that the evil decree can be prevented."

IV. "Stop the Show"

Middle East affairs commentator Guy Bechor, a lecturer
at the Interdisciplinary Center, wrote in mass-
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (June 23):
"Israel, which established the Palestinian Authority in
the framework of the Oslo Accords, now faces a
political body that has no intention of reaching a
political arrangement with it, but rather intends to
continue to undermine Israel with temporary 'hudnas'
[ceasefires] in order to prepare militarily.... Even
the methods of action by the current top Palestinian
leaders, Qurei and Abbas, very much resemble those of
Yasser Arafat at the time: dissatisfaction as a
strategic policy, zero self-responsibility, Israel is
always to blame and outward weakness behind which lies
an aspiration for power. Help me, Abu Mazen asked the
Prime Minister this week, as if he did not have
thousands of troops under his authority. In this too,
Abbas continues his predecessor's policy of the
powerful moaning over their fate. The time has come to
remove the veil enveloping our region, the time has
come to declare that from now on there will be no more
steps of 'coordination' with the PA or various 'relief
measures,' and that Israel will carry out disengagement
exactly as it planned from the outset: unilaterally,
with no phony coordination. If the PA wants to take
control of the territory, that's its business and the
business of its Arab sisters. Disengaging from Gaza
and northern Samaria [the northernmost part of West
Bank] should therefore also be a disengagement from the
PA, and from all the evils it has brought on Israel
since the day of its establishment and until today."

CRETZ