ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 TEL AVIV 004277 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. London Bombings -------------- Key stories in the media: -------------- Major media (banner in Ha'aretz) reported that a delegation of senior Israeli officials that left for Washington over the weekend will ask the U.S. government this evening for some USD 2.2 billion in special aid for the disengagement plan. Ha'aretz quoted GOI sources in Jerusalem as saying Sunday that this week's talks will focus on the details of the aid package, as the U.S. has already assured Israel in principle that it will provide funding for the military outlays related to the plan and for developing the Negev and Galilee -- areas that would get two thirds of the money. Leading media (Maariv's banner announces the "end of the U.S.-Israel crisis") reported that the U.S. and Israel will sign a memorandum of understanding on security exports today, and that Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz will come to the U.S. next week to finalize the agreement. Maariv and other media reported that Defense Ministry D-G Amos Yaron will visit the U.S., "where he will be received honorably, restoring the luster to his tarnished reputation," after tending his resignation. The media (lead stories in Jerusalem Post and the religious newspapers) reported that, nearly three years after construction began on the security barrier going up between Israel and the West Bank, the government on Sunday set September 1 as the deadline for the completion of the Jerusalem barrier, which will leave 55,000 Arab residents of the city on the Palestinian side. Hatzofe banners: "Sharon Divides Jerusalem." Ha'aretz reported that FM Silvan Shalom met Sunday with Alvaro de Soto, the UN envoy to the Middle East, and asked him to prevent the Palestinians from carrying out their plan to hold a General Assembly meeting on the West Bank separation fence. Leading media reported that an interview of Mofaz, conducted for the first time on Sunday by Al Jazeera- TV, is likely to be broadcast today. Mofaz reportedly emphasized the importance of settlement blocs and the Jordan Valley to Israel. Israel Radio said that Mofaz told the TV station that disengagement coordination talks with the Palestinians are going well. Ha'aretz and Jerusalem Post reported that Mofaz told the TV station that Israel has given the Palestinians approval to start building a seaport in Gaza and begin planning a new airport there as well, and that he called on the Arab world to give the Palestinians economic and humanitarian aid. The media also said that the Arab states should moderate support for terror. Ha'aretz reported that Mofaz met on Sunday with Quartet representative James Wolfensohn to discuss coordinating the disengagement plan with the Palestinians. The newspaper says that Israeli officials are under the impression that PA Civil Affairs Minister Muhammad Dahlan has been meeting with different Israeli ministers to extract promises from each one. Israel Radio reported that Dahlan and Gen. Yosef Mishlav, the coordinator of GOI activities in the territories, agreed that the crossings between Israel and the West Bank will remain open during the disengagement. Ha'aretz quoted Palestinian Minister of National Economy Mazen Sinnokrot as saying on Sunday that an agreement has been reached between Israel and the PA regarding the positioning of European observers at the future border crossings between Israel and the PA, and between the PA and Egypt. Israel Radio quoted a Palestinian source -- cited in the Palestinian daily Al- Ayyam -- as saying that Egypt is ready to amass the rubble from the ruins of the evacuated Gaza Strip settlements in the Sinai. On Sunday, Ha'aretz reported that Mofaz and PA Interior Minister Gen. Nasser Yousef have reached an agreement to coordinate the disengagement between Israel and the PA. The newspaper says that Yousef undertook to deploy armed troops as a buffer between the settlements and the built area of Khan Yunis, from which mortar shells and rockets have been fired at Israeli targets. Yousef also reportedly promised to prevent mass looting in the evacuated Gush Katif settlements. On Sunday, leading media quoted British PM Tony Blair as saying, in an interview with BBC Radio 4 on Saturday, that "some of the critical issues in the Middle East" should be "dealt with and sorted out" in order to uproot terrorism. Leading media reported that Sharon's bureau would not comment. However, Yediot quoted diplomatic sources in Jerusalem as saying that Blair's comment contained "a lot of hypocrisy," and that they "place the victim on the defendant's bench." All media reported that an Israeli woman residing in London might have been a victim in London's bus bombing. Ha'aretz reported that the IDF is expected to hand over control of Bethlehem to the PA this week, and quoted military sources as saying Sunday that control may be transferred as early as Tuesday. Maariv reported that only 450 out 1,000 settler families in the Gaza Strip have had some contacts with the Disengagement Administration regarding their relocation after August 15. For its part, Yediot reported that approximately 500 families from the settlement of Neve Dekalim, the largest in Gush Katif, are looking into the possibility of moving to live as a bloc in Ahuzat Etrog, a community near Kiryat Malachi, east of Ashdod. On Sunday, Ha'aretz and other media reported that a 15- year-old Palestinian youth was shot to death on Friday by a guard employed in a private firm protecting the construction of the security fence, close to Beit Likya. On Sunday, Yediot and Jerusalem Post reported that the parents of Assaf Deri, an Israel killed last year by police in Burbank, Calif., are suing the local police for USD 51 million dollars. The parents, who live in Israel, claim that Assaf was shot only because he looked like a Muslim. -------------- ¶1. Mideast: -------------- Summary: -------------- Liberal op-ed writer Yael Gewirtz opined in the lead editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "The Israeli leaders' awakening from the intoxicating smell of tight occupation carries a hefty price tag." Block Quotes: -------------- "Wrapping Splits" Liberal op-ed writer Yael Gewirtz opined in the lead editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (July 11): "Slowly, but consistently, Israel has been acting to determine its borders and to disengage from a needless security and economic burden.... The Israeli government will erect a wall that will leave outside [Jerusalem] tens of thousands of Palestinian residents and leave tens of thousands of others inside. When you annex arbitrarily, you have to cope with a situation made necessary by an arbitrary separation: the government and the Jerusalem Municipality will have to provide health, education and administration services to the 55,000 Palestinians who will now remain beyond the fence.... A wall is built with hard materials; it is impossible to wrap the damage done to East Jerusalem residents with a humane gesture, as if this were an environmental work by the artist Christo. The [government's] decision is harsh and infinitely complex to carry out. The Israeli leaders' awakening from the intoxicating smell of tight occupation carries a hefty price tag. Returning the reality to what it used to be is expensive -- almost to an impossible degree." -------------- ¶2. London Bombings: -------------- Summary: -------------- Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "Nobody knows what fundamental Islam wants to achieve, and its excuses for terror attacks change from time to time." Chief Economic Editor and senior columnist Sever Plotker wrote in the editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "The guilt has already begun to be shifted away from the murderers and onto others. By so doing, the groundwork is being laid for the terror attacks yet to come." Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized: "Critics focus on what the West does. But the real 'root cause' for Islamists is what the West is." Senior Middle East affairs analyst Zvi Bar'el wrote in Ha'aretz: "It's easier to send a few brigades to Afghanistan to cleanse Taliban nests, or run street fights in Fallujah. It is almost impossible to eliminate the poverty. But between these two extremes there is a huge space for cooperation." Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. "Who Will Lose the Terror War?" Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (July 10): "There is no escape from anti-Western terror, which has no declared political purpose and with which nobody can negotiate on the terms to end the crisis, because there is no one to talk to and nothing to discuss. Nobody knows what fundamental Islam wants to achieve, and its excuses for terror attacks change from time to time. The list of targets consists of everything identified with the West and especially with America. The Jews are a target in and of themselves, and so are all the opponents of fundamentalism wherever they are, including free Muslims like Salman Rushdie and the Egyptian ambassador in Iraq, who was executed last Thursday.... Since September 11, 2001, almost every Western state has changed its laws, tightened immigration regulations, increased intelligence means and created an infrastructure to fight terror. This has been done to such an extent that there were complaints of excessive infringement of human and civil rights. But it seems that ultimately the awareness of the threat has not changed." II. "Laying the Groundwork for Terror Attacks Yet to Come" Chief Economic Editor and senior columnist Sever Plotker wrote in the editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (July 10): "The following facts are clear to any reasonable individual who looks at the waves of terrorism of the 21st century: first and foremost, this is terrorism that is perpetrated by Muslims.... Second, it is terrorism that is perpetrated by rich and educated people, not by the indigent and uneducated.... Third, the Jihadists launched a terrorist war against the West because it is the West, and not in order to 'promote' by so doing the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or to prompt the U.S. to remove its troops from Iraq. Their one and only motive was and remains to undermine the pillars of the hated Western culture and to lay bare its weakness.... Fourth, there is only one way to fight terrorism: to fight it. To strike at it. To eradicate it mercilessly. The war on terrorism needs to be absolute because terrorism is absolute. Until victory, until the enemy surrenders. Any compromise with Muslim terrorism, any attempt to understand it -- in other words to forgive it, at least partially -- is tantamount to moving down the slippery slope against which Churchill warned in June 1940, when he refused to begin negotiations with Hitler. A short time after the mass terror attacks and even before all of the dead have been identified, the cogs in the machinery of self- deception in Britain and throughout Europe began to turn. The guilt has already begun to be shifted away from the murderers and onto others. By so doing, the groundwork is being laid for the terror attacks yet to come." III. "Root Causes" Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (July 11): "Regrettably, it hasn't taken long for [some British] politicians and pundits to raise the familiar, if sterile, 'root causes' argument to 'explain' the blowing up of carriages on the London Underground and a double-decker bus in the center of town.... Even Blair himself has seemed to be backtracking, ever so subtly, from his initial Churchillian responses on the day of the bombings.... In the encounter between the Orient and the Occident, between Islam and the West and, more recently, in Israel's struggle to survive in the Muslim Middle East, it may be that errors have been made which have contributed to the development of Islamic fanaticism. If so, those errors should be addressed. We all have an interest in preventing the spread of murderous extremism. But no such errors can possibly be cited to so much as imply a justification or legitimization for the premeditated, indiscriminate killings of innocents.... Critics focus on what the West does. But the real 'root cause' for Islamists is what the West is." IV. "Drafting a Different Road Map" Senior Middle East affairs analyst Zvi Bar'el wrote in Ha'aretz (July 10): "Commentators distinguish between minor terrorist attacks and serious ones. The bombings in London fall into the category of minor attacks that even George Bush and Benjamin Netanyahu can explain: a war of Islam against the West.... The call for a universal war against terror sounds good. It creates a sense of unity of the sons of light against the sons of darkness. Mainly, it imbues the faith that terror could be vanquished by military means alone. Granted, it's easier to bring together representatives of intelligence services, exchange information, examine war tactics and hold joint maneuvers. It's easier to send a few brigades to Afghanistan to cleanse Taliban nests, or run street fights in Fallujah. It is almost impossible to eliminate the poverty. But between these two extremes there is a huge space for cooperation, which could reduce the support for organizations such as Al-Qaida and increase the chances of foiling its attacks." KURTZER