ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 08 TEL AVIV 005275 SIPDIS STATE FOR NEA, NEA/IPA, NEA/PPD WHITE HOUSE FOR PRESS OFFICE, SIT ROOM NSC FOR NEA STAFF SECDEF WASHDC FOR USDP/ASD-PA/ASD-ISA HQ USAF FOR XOXX DA WASHDC FOR SASA JOINT STAFF WASHDC FOR PA USCINCCENT MACDILL AFB FL FOR POLAD/USIA ADVISOR COMSOCEUR VAIHINGEN GE FOR PAO/POLAD COMSIXTHFLT FOR 019 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. Iraq -------------- Key stories in the media: -------------- Israel Radio reported that the U.S. is urging Israel and the PA to exercise restraint and not to miss the historic opportunity for peace in the region. Visiting U.S. House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MI) was quoted as saying in an interview with Jerusalem Post that an Israeli-free Gaza is now the laboratory where the Palestinians will need to prove that they can govern. Ha'aretz reported that Rev. Jesse Jackson telephoned Israel's Ambassador to the U.S., Danny Ayalon, to convey his congratulations to Sharon on the implementation of the disengagement plan. The newspaper reported that, "in a surprising move," Jackson said that now that the disengagement has been carried out, the burden of proof is on the Palestinians. Jerusalem Post reported that a senior Israeli official praised the "most positive EU statement in years." The statement issued by Britain, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, read that the EU welcomed the "historic progress made on Israel's withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank," and salutes the courage of Sharon and his government. Ha'aretz cited the IDF's fears that violence might escalate in the coming weeks following the army's killing of five Palestinians in Tulkarm Wednesday. On Thursday, rockets were fired at Sderot. Ha'aretz cited the IDF's belief that the firing of a rocket across the Lebanese border on Thursday was unintentional. The media reported that PA Chairman [President] Mahmoud Abbas slammed the killings and accused Israel of causing a deliberate provocation in order to undermine his efforts to maintain calm. Israel Radio reported that a Palestinian stabbed and slightly wounded a border policeman in Hebron this morning. The attacker was arrested. Israel Radio reported that, following a debate PM Sharon held with senior defense officials last night, Israel will soon ask Egypt to deploy forces along the Philadelphi route. Ha'aretz and the radio reported that Israel insists on the Palestinians crossing from Egypt through a point other than Rafah. Ha'aretz says that Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz made that proposal. Israel Radio says that, should the Palestinians insists on the Rafah crossing point, Israel would undo its customs agreement with the PA, which would cost the latter hundreds of millions of dollars annually. The station and other media reported that the cabinet will vote on the agreement with Egypt on Sunday, and the Knesset on Wednesday. Maariv cited Interior Ministry statistics, according to which the number of Israelis living in the West Bank has increased by close to 13,000 over the past year -- exceeding that of the settlers evacuated during the disengagement. Over 250,000 Israelis now reside beyond the Green Line. Jerusalem Post reported that the vast majority of the Gaza Strip's Jewish residents have elected to end their settlement enterprise in the lands Israel won in 1967, despite the initial push of the settlement movement to absorb them into West Bank communities. Still, the newspaper reported that private American investors have pledged USD 5 million to build 60 housing units in four West Bank settlements for Gaza evacuees. Israel Radio reported on the meeting Justice Minister Tzipi Livni held with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday. Livni told the radio that, as a terror organization, Hamas could not take part in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections. Israel Radio quoted Abbas as saying that there is no reason why Hamas could not enter his government if it achieves good results in the elections. Jerusalem Post quoted a source close to Sharon as saying that, facing a potential attempt by members of his Likud party to oust him as leader, Sharon would consider asking President Moshe Katsav to disperse the Knesset and initiate early elections. Israel Radio says that the buzz in Israeli politics is of elections late in 2005 or early in 2006. Leading media expect Binyamin Netanyahu to formally announce next week his candidacy for Likud chairmanship. Yediot reported that Sharon severely attacked him on Thursday. Speaking on Israel Radio this morning, Labor Party Secretary- General, Knesset Member Eitan Cabel expressed his belief that Labor will quit the government in November. Leading media reported that Meretz-Yahad party leader Yossi Beilin will support the move led by the right- wing factions to topple Sharon's government. However, Ha'aretz notes that other senior Meretz-Yahad members do not agree with him. Israel Radio reported that the police have arrested a man and a woman who admitted to hurling a pig's head into the courtyard of a Jaffa mosque a few days ago. They reportedly acknowledged that they wanted to provoke the Israeli Arab public in the context of the disengagement. The radio reported that the police are preparing for possible confrontations at the site this afternoon. Yediot reported that on Wednesday, for the first time, the Chinese Foreign Ministry officially responded to the U.S.-Israeli memorandum of understanding regarding the ban on sales of sensitive military equipment to China. According to Yediot, the ministry wrote in a release "China and Israel are sovereign countries and they ought to conduct an independent policy as part of the development of relations between the countries," and that "the U.S. has no right to intervene in normal exchanges and cooperation between the sides." Maariv and other media reported that Abbas and other Palestinian officials have recently expressed their support for the relocation of Palestinian refugees from Lebanon to Gaza. Yediot and Maariv reported that, for the first time since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and Egypt, the pro-government Egyptian daily Al- Ahram printed an article by an Israeli diplomat -- Ambassador Shalom Cohen, who explained the peace opportunity created by the disengagement. The newspapers note that Al-Ahram attached an editorial comment of its own to Cohen's article, saying that the withdrawal from Gaza is only the first stage in a comprehensive pullout, that Israel must meet its commitments under the road map, and that Cohen ignored 38 years of Israeli occupation in Gaza. Maariv cited a denial by Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son in the Iraq War and is picketing President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex., that she made any anti-Israel or anti-Semitic comments. Under the headline, "Saying Good-Bye," Jerusalem Post pictures FM Silvan Shalom presenting U.S. Ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer with a Jewish National Fund certificate recording the planting of trees in his name. Ha'aretz features efforts by U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) to turn January into an official Jewish history month. Yediot bannered the results of a Mina Zemach (Dahaf Institute) poll conducted on Wednesday: -54 percent of Israelis favor the evacuation of West Bank settlements; 42 percent are opposed. -68 percent of Israelis support the evacuation of unauthorized settler outposts. -49 percent would like Sharon to continue his political life; 47 percent believe that he has concluded his historical role and that he should retire. According to a Ha'aretz/ Dialogue Institute poll conducted over the past two days, some 61 percent of Israelis believe that "Israel has been hurt and pained by the disengagement"; only 23.5 percent describe post- evacuation Israel as "a normal, civilized state." -------------- ¶1. Mideast: -------------- Summary: -------------- Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "Israel's top priority right now should be resuming a dialogue with the PA, not provocative construction ventures." Military correspondent Alex Fishman wrote in mass- circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "The Egyptian Border Guard Force, which will deploy on Philadelphi Road, is not a force that will threaten Israel's security." Senior columnist Nahum Barnea wrote in Yediot Aharonot: "The U.S. administration will prefer to embrace Sharon rather than to pressure him." Former editor-in-chief Moshe Ishon wrote in nationalist, Orthodox Hatzofe: "[President Bush] hasn't actually set a date [for Israel's withdrawal from the West Bank], but British Prime Minister hastened to state that pertinent talks would start as early as this year." Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. "A Poorly Timed Provocation" Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (August 26): "Under American pressure, Sharon froze a plan to build 3,500 housing units in [the] E-1 [corridor]. But Washington does not buy his explanation that it is possible to create 'transportation contiguity' for the Palestinians via overpasses and tunnels that would connect the northern and southern West Bank. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is more attentive to the Palestinians' fear that Israel seeks to divide the West Bank into isolated cantons. It is hard not to view the decisions about the fence and the new construction near Ma'aleh Adumim as a poorly timed provocation. They damage the efforts to rebuild trust with the Palestinian Authority and to strengthen its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, as a partner for future negotiations.... They erode the contribution that the successful disengagement made to reviving the diplomatic process and show that Sharon has returned to his evil ways in the settlements. There is widespread agreement within Israel about keeping the settlement blocs, including Ma'aleh Adumim, under any final-status arrangement. But this must be done through an agreement with the Palestinians that takes their needs into account as well, not by creating facts on the ground unilaterally, which will only make the tangle created by the spread of settlements in the West Bank even more complicated. Israel's top priority right now should be resuming a dialogue with the PA, not provocative construction ventures." II. "No Cause For Concern" Military correspondent Alex Fishman wrote in mass- circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (August 26): "The Egyptian Border Guard Force, which will deploy on Philadelphi Road, is not a force that will threaten Israel's security.... The main question is whether the Egyptians will indeed succeed, with the aid of this force, in blocking the wave of smuggling into the Gaza Strip. They are committed to do so in the agreement, but Israel has no ability -- apart from international pressure -- to supervise the quality of the Egyptians' activity and motivation.... The hope is that the Palestinian interest to keep the crossings open and the Egyptian interest to keep the calm will cause them to monitor the borders effectively. Beyond this, Israel has no real influence. The Egyptians currently face a problem of internal terrorism. In cooperation with other countries, they are trying to battle terrorists and the smuggling.... Perhaps they will succeed in doing something [along the Philadelphi Road]. There is another great and important advantage to the deployment of the Egyptian force on Philadelphi Road: the presence of this force enables Israel to withdraw its soldiers from the road in a dignified manner. That too is worth something in these troubled times. The only problem with this force lies in the fact that it creates a precedent. Stationing such a force does not conform to the spirit of the military appendices attached to the peace accords between Israel and Egypt. It should be ensured that this precedent does not lead to a flood of breaches in the accords." III. "Returning Home" Senior columnist Nahum Barnea wrote in Yediot Aharonot (August 26): "Sharon believes that the world will give him a long break in the peace process. The Palestinians will do their best to restrain terror. This time they are motivated not only by external pressure, but also by internal Palestinian public opinion. They too have elections. The U.S. administration will prefer to embrace Sharon rather than to pressure him. They will neither remind him of the settlement outposts that have not yet been evacuated, nor of the requirements of the road map. Bush, in the very warm statements he made about Sharon this week, hinted that in effect he accepts Sharon's view, which holds that we are currently in the 'pre- road map' stage. [But] the voters are cruel. They are usually not grateful for what is not present -- not for the mortar shells that will no longer be fired at Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip, nor for the economy that will improve as a result of the evacuation's success, nor for the quarrels that do not exist between Israel and Western Europe and the moderate states of the Arab world. The evacuation is over. Israel is apparently moving into a year of very intensive internal politics." IV. "While the World Is Happy, Israelis Are Crying" Former editor-in-chief Moshe Ishon wrote in nationalist, Orthodox Hatzofe (August 26): "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said last week ... that the withdrawal from Gush Katif doesn't constitute a conclusion. When one of the journalists told her that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that this pullout was final, Rice answered: so, this is what he said. President Bush has expressed his hope that the 'road map' process would begin after the uprooting of Gush Katif. He hasn't actually set a date, but British Prime Minister hastened to state that pertinent talks would start as early as this year. It should be assumed that he coordinates his remarks with the 'Quartet.' The U.S. Secretary of State is also aware of those developments. It is no secret that President Bush has already said upon previous occasions that Israel must withdraw from Judea and Samaria [i.e. the West Bank]. We should expect a transition period until the elections in the Palestinian Authority, which are supposed to be held during the second half of January ¶2006. Until then, Israel won't in fact be required to withdraw from Judea and Samaria. If Hamas wins a majority in those elections, Israel would have a good reason to oppose the pullout. On the other hand, if Fatah wins, Abu Mazen will be able to more vehemently demand an Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria. He also hopes to win the support of the United States." -------------- ¶2. Iraq: -------------- Summary: -------------- Deputy Managing Editor and extreme right-wing columnist Caroline B. Glick wrote in conservative, independent Jerusalem Post: "There has been no indication whatsoever that Washington cares about fostering peaceful relations between Israel and post-Saddam Iraq and as a result, it is simply irresponsible for Israeli leaders to consider withdrawing from our eastern border on the Jordan River." Block Quotes: -------------- "The End of Mythology" Deputy Managing Editor and extreme right-wing columnist Caroline B. Glick wrote in conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (August 26): "Since it toppled Saddam's regime, the U.S. has done nothing to discourage continued Iraqi rejection of Israel's right to exist and bellicose statements in favor of Israel's destruction which have been heard from all quarters. The best-case scenario for Israel from a post-U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is that Iraq will act in a manner similar to Saudi Arabia in its dealings with the Jewish state.... In any case, there has been no indication whatsoever that Washington cares about fostering peaceful relations between Israel and post-Saddam Iraq and as a result, it is simply irresponsible for Israeli leaders to consider withdrawing from our eastern border on the Jordan River." KURTZER