Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05TELAVIV417
2005-01-25 10:44:00
UNCLASSIFIED
Embassy Tel Aviv
Cable title:  

ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

Tags:  IS KMDR MEDIA REACTION REPORT 
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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 000417 

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

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 TEL AVIV 000417

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. Iran: Nuclear Program


2. Bush Inauguration

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

Israel Radio reported that FM Silvan Shalom will meet
with Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice
tomorrow.

All media reported on Monday's "historic" UN General
Assembly session to mark the liberation of the Nazi
death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau (lead stories in all
media except the ultra-Orthodox newspapers).
Paraphrasing a remark made by Nobel Peace Prize
Laureate Elie Wiesel at the session, Maariv bannered:
"Has the World Learned a Lesson?"

Israel Radio reported that today the PA will deploy
forces in the southern Gaza Strip, and that it is
expecting Israel's response so that it can position
them in the entire area. The radio cited Hamas as
saying that it has hardly any disagreement with Mahmoud
Abbas (Abu Mazen) regarding the hudna (truce),which
Hamas says depends on Israel's actions.

All media reported that, at his annual presentation to
the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of
threats facing Israel, Mossad Director Meir Dagan
warned Monday that by the end of this year, Iran will
have reached the point of no return in its technology
for manufacturing nuclear weapons, and that it will be
able to build a nuclear bomb three or four years later.
Dagan also said there are hints of nuclear programs
underway in other Middle Eastern countries, such as
Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, and that the terror
threat on Jewish interests in the Diaspora is
increasing. Speaking on Israel Radio this morning, MK
Yuval Steinitz, Chairman of the Knesset's Foreign
Affairs and Defense Committee, urged the West to thwart
Iran's nuclear program.

Maariv reported that USAID intends to purchase the
Katif Bloc's greenhouses in the Gaza Strip, and that it
has published a USD 9-million tender on the matter.
The newspaper notes Israel's satisfaction over this
development, since it could finance some of the costs
of the disengagement and the compensation to settlers.
Israel Radio quoted a senior Israeli source as saying
that Israel should evacuate the residents of the
northern Gaza Strip village of Dahaniyeh, since they

are considered collaborators with Israel.

Jerusalem Post reported that, while confident Russia
will not finalize a deal selling shoulder-held anti-
aircraft missiles to Syria during President Bashar
Assad's current trip to Moscow, Israel is concerned
that Moscow may mount the missiles on armored personnel
carriers and sell them in a few months' time. Ha'aretz
quoted Assad as saying in Moscow that Syria is
interested in promoting the peace process with Israel,
and not in the missiles. Maariv reported that Mossad
Director Meir Dagan told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs
and Defense Committee Monday that the voices of peace
coming out of Damascus are only slogans.

Jerusalem Post reported that Diaspora Affairs Minister
Natan Sharansky is expected to assert today, at a news
conference timed to coincide with events linked to the
anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, that the
PA, even under new chairman Abbas, is engaged in the
"promotion of genocide" against the Jewish people.

Ha'aretz reported that Binyamin region brigade
commander Col. Mickey Edelstein has confirmed to
Machsom Watch, a voluntary women's group that monitors
checkpoints, that starting in July, East Jerusalem
Palestinians will be denied freedom of movement into
Ramallah.

Israel Radio reported that the state is appealing to
the High Court of Justice in a bid to reverse a lower
court's ruling on Monday that Tali Fahima, who was
accused of "abetting the enemy," be released from
detention and placed on house arrest.

Yediot reported that the IDF is disbanding its "hesder"
units (in which yeshiva students combine military
service with religious studies). The religious
soldiers will be scattered among other units. The
newspaper cites the IDF's concern that entire
homogeneous religious units could have refused to serve
evacuation orders during the implementation of the
disengagement plan. However, Yediot cited senior
sources in the IDF Manpower Branch as saying that the
move is not related to the disengagement. In a
different development, Ha'aretz reported that the IDF
is reestablishing its psychological warfare unit, after
a lengthy period in which the unit was dormant. It
operates mostly in the Palestinian arena.

Ha'aretz reported that the Israel/Palestine Center for
Research and Information (IPCRI) has suspended its
peace education program due to financial woes. In a
letter to dozens of Jewish and Palestinian teachers
from 70 schools in Israel and the West Bank, IPCRI
explained that the tsunami in Asia and war in Iraq have
led to a sharp decline in the donations received by the
institution.
Ha'aretz and Maariv reported that the Jewish Leadership
faction in the Likud, headed by far Right activist
Moshe Feiglin, has been distributing tens of thousands
of copies of a booklet calling for non-violent civil
disobedience and non-violent civil rebellion as the
ways to combat the disengagement plan. Jerusalem Post
and Hatzofe reported that Likud D-G Arik Brami asked an
internal party' court Monday to oust Feiglin from the
party. Leading media reported that on Monday, Rabbi
Dov Lior, the Chairman of the Yesha rabbinical council
of the Jewish settlements in the territories, endorsed
a sticker justifying Jews who would sacrifice their
lives to oppose disengagement.

All media reported that on Monday, the Nazareth
Magistrate's Court acquitted an Israeli Arab woman from
the Galilee village of Be'ana of all charges of failing
to prevent the suicide bombing at Meron junction near
Safed on August 4, 2002, which killed nine people
besides the bomber. Bereaved relatives and the state
prosecution plan to appeal the ruling.

Jerusalem Post reported that the Foreign Ministry
called in Belgium's Ambassador Jean-Michel Veranneman
de Watervliet on Monday to protest a meeting that his
colleague, the Belgian Ambassador to Lebanon, held last
week with Hizbullah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

Ha'aretz cited Israel Airports Authority (IAA)
assessments that the Karni cargo terminal suffered 4
million shekels (around USD 915,000) in financial
damage as a result of the terrorist attack on January

13. The newspaper quoted a senior IAA officer as
saying Monday that the government must relieve the
Authority of the responsibility of operating the border
terminal with the Palestinians.

Ha'aretz reported that the Knesset's Constitution,
Justice and Law Committee is working quickly to prepare
an amendment to the State Judicial Inquiry law to
prevent publication of the classified sections of the
Agranat Commission report on the Yom Kippur on January

28.

Leading media reported that the fundamentalist Orthodox
Russian newspaper Rus Pravoslavnaya ran a letter asking
the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation to
open an investigation against all Jewish organizations
throughout the country on suspicion of spreading
incitement ("murderous rituals") and provoking ethnic
strife. Israel Radio reported that, in a letter to the
Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, 20
members of the Russian Duma have demanded that all
Jewish organizations in Russia be outlawed. The media
reported that FM Silvan Shalom, Natan Sharansky, and
Russia's Chief Rabbi Berl Lazar have urged the Russian
authorities to take action against the anti-Jewish
detractors.

Jerusalem Post printed a Jewish Telegraphic Agency
report on American Jews of Iraqi descent, and their
mixed reactions to the January 30 election.

Jerusalem Post and Ha'aretz quoted Deputy Education
Minister Rabbi Michael Melchior (Labor-Meimad) as
saying that the Education Ministry policy that refuses
to recognize undergraduate diplomas issued by U.S.
universities (such as Yeshiva University) that accept a
year of yeshiva study in Israel as degree credits, is
wrong and will be overturned. (Ha'aretz quoted
Melchior as saying that it will be canceled by the end
of this month.)

--------------

1. Iran: Nuclear Program:
--------------

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

Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized:
"Threats [of military action] should spur Western non-
military sanctions that, if they are comprehensive,
swift and drastic, could still address the problem as
effectively at a lower risk and cost."

Block Quotes:
--------------

"Sanctions First"

Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized
(January 25): "Despite the across-the-board
declarations by George W. Bush, by John Kerry during
his campaign, and by European leaders that an Iranian
nuke is 'unacceptable,' it is an inevitability that the
world will learn to live with. Yet the assumption that
nothing can be done is premature, both on the
diplomatic and military levels. Indeed, American and
Israeli talk of military options should be understood
as giving the diplomatic track its last and best
chance. Unfortunately, much like before the war in
Iraq, the chief opponents of military action are, by
their own hand, removing all other options. The G-3 --
Britain, France and Germany -- seems set on a course of
continuing to give Iran second chances and waving
ineffective trade carrots until it is too late. One
might be excused for concluding, given how accepting
the G-3 is of Iran's obvious lies and obfuscation, that
these countries are more concerned about staving off
American action than they are about ending Iran's
nuclear program.... Iran, despite being treated as a
pariah by the United States, enjoys normal trade and
diplomatic relations with most of the world. It has
much more to lose from sanctions than did Libya, which
was not nearly as integrated into the world economy....
Talk of military action should be taken at face value,
because there may soon be no choice. But before that
happens, such threats should spur Western non-military
sanctions that, if they are comprehensive, swift and
drastic, could still address the problem as effectively
at a lower risk and cost. If military action becomes
the only remaining option, Europe will have no one to
blame but itself."

--------------

2. Bush Inauguration:
--------------

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

The Director of the Interdisciplinary Center's Global
Research in International Affairs Center, columnist
Barry Rubin, wrote in conservative, independent
Jerusalem Post: "Support for democratization [in the
Middle East] ... may be a proper short-term theme and
long-term strategy but is not a comprehensive policy."

Block Quotes:
--------------

"The Next Four Years"

The Director of the Interdisciplinary Center's Global
Research in International Affairs Center, columnist
Barry Rubin, wrote in conservative, independent
Jerusalem Post (January 25): "In his second inaugural
speech President George W. Bush focused to a remarkable
extent on promoting democracy in the world. While not
mentioning specific countries or even regions, this
policy is obviously directed mainly at the Middle East.
Thus he has chosen this issue -- and not the war on
terrorism -- as the central theme of his next four
years.... Support for democratization ... may be a
proper short-term theme and long-term strategy but is
not a comprehensive policy. During the next four
years, the Bush administration is going to have to deal
with issues and crises lying outside of its scope: how
will it judge Palestinian efforts to stop terrorism and
get a cease-fire? It is easy to advocate 'helping' the
moderates, but the U.S. must evaluate whether they are
succeeding or have failed to bring real change. What
will the U.S. do to stop Iran from getting nuclear
weapons; how will it react if it obtains them? When
will the U.S. begin a withdrawal from Iraq, and what
will it do if the newly elected government is hostile
and bloody fighting continues there? In what ways will
U.S. efforts in battling terrorism develop given the
experience since September 2001?"

KURTZER