Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06DAMASCUS1635
2006-04-11 13:35:00
UNCLASSIFIED
Embassy Damascus
Cable title:
Damascus Media Reaction: US/EU Decisions to Halt Aid to
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UNCLAS DAMASCUS 001635
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
DEPARTMENT FOR PA, NEA/ARN, INR/IC/CD, INR/S:STHIBEAULT AND
JMCCARTER, VOA NEWS CA, NEA/PPD:CBOURGEOIS, DBENZE AND
AFERNANDEZ, IIP/G/NEA-SA RWINCHESTER
WHITE HOUSE FOR NSC
CENTCOM FOR CCPA
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KMDR PREL KPAO OPRC SY
SUBJECT: Damascus Media Reaction: US/EU Decisions to Halt Aid to
PA, Lebanon, Iraq (4/7-11)
UNCLAS DAMASCUS 001635
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
DEPARTMENT FOR PA, NEA/ARN, INR/IC/CD, INR/S:STHIBEAULT AND
JMCCARTER, VOA NEWS CA, NEA/PPD:CBOURGEOIS, DBENZE AND
AFERNANDEZ, IIP/G/NEA-SA RWINCHESTER
WHITE HOUSE FOR NSC
CENTCOM FOR CCPA
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KMDR PREL KPAO OPRC SY
SUBJECT: Damascus Media Reaction: US/EU Decisions to Halt Aid to
PA, Lebanon, Iraq (4/7-11)
1. Summary: Syrian papers reported a Syrian Information
Ministry statement denying a report by an Israeli newspaper that
Syria had sent messages to Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert seeking to resume peace talks between the two countries.
The source told Syria's official SANA news agency that "this
information is baseless" and stressed "Syria's permanent
commitment to achieve comprehensive and just peace based on
pertinent UN Security Council resolutions that demand full
Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights to the 1967 war
borderline." The official criticized the "Israeli leaks" as
aiming at covering Israel's "apartheid oppressive practices in
the Palestinian lands...."
Papers also reported a statement by the Syrian Foreign Ministry
denying that Syria had sent the United Nations a map of the
Shebaa Farms and the Golan Heights. Damascus was responding to
official reports and to a recent map issued by the UN Security
Council published by a Lebanese daily that show the disputed
farms as part of Syrian territory. This comes as Beirut is trying
to establish the Lebanese identity of the farms. The Lebanese
government has repeatedly asked Syria to provide the UN written
evidence to document Lebanon's sovereignty over the farms.
On Lebanon, Syrian papers reported that the Lebanese government
is holding nine Arab nationals amid reports of an assassination
plot against Hizbollah SecGen Hasan Nasrallah. A Lebanese
judicial official downplayed the charges being considered
against the nine detainees, but a Hizbollah spokesman insisted
that the Shiite militant group's leader was the target of a
conspiracy by Lebanese and Palestinian nationals.
End of summary.
2. Selected Headlines:
"The 14th Conference of member countries of the Organization of
the Islamic Conference will be inaugurated tomorrow in Istanbul
with the participation of Dr. Mahmoud al-Abrash, Speaker of the
People's Assembly. Al-Abrash discusses with Jasem al-Kharafi, his
Kuwaiti counterpart, the latest developments in the region"
(Government-owned Tishreen, 4/11)
"Arab Foreign Ministers of Iraq's neighbors to meet in Cairo
Tomorrow" (Government-owned Tishreen, 4/11)
"Hizbollah confirms news of arrest of a terrorist network that
planned to assassinate Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, SecGen of
Hizbollah" (Government-owned Tishreen, 4/11)
"Foreign Ministry denies sending maps of the occupied Golan and
Shebaa Farms to the UN" (Government-owned Tisrheen, 4/10)
"Official media source: No messages to the Israeli Prime Minister
designate on resuming peace negotiations. Syria persists in its
demands to achieve just peace" (Government-owned Tishreen, 4/10)
"Lebanese circles call for resignation of the Lebanese government
and for early elections" (Government-owned Al-Thawra, 4/10)
"Coalition consults with parliamentary blocs to have the final
word regarding Al-Ja'fari's nomination" (Government-owned Al-
Thawra, 4/10)
"Israel threatens to boycott everyone who holds contacts with
Hamas. Israeli aggression becomes more ferocious as economic
siege worsens" (Government-owned Tishreen, 4/10)
3. Editorial Block Quotes:
--------------
"It Is not in Europe's Interest"
--------------
Muhammad Khair al-Jamali, an editorialist in government-owned Al-
Thawra, said (4/10): "The unfair European decision to cut aid to
the Palestinian Authority will exacerbate the already tense
situation in the region and turn it into something like a powder
keg ready to explode at any moment....
"The decision gives Israel the green light to implement its
unilateral plan, which prevents the establishment of a
contiguous Palestinian state.... The Israeli military aggression
against the Palestinians, which resulted in the death of 14
Palestinians in the past two days, was the first result of the
Western siege against the Palestinian people....
"The European decision does not serve Europe's interest and its
image in the region...."
--------------
"Exposed Collaboration"
--------------
Omar Jaftali, an editorialist in government-owned Tishreen,
wrote (4/10): "The cessation of European and American aid to the
Palestinians, which coincided with the Israeli aggression
against Palestinians in Gaza, exposes an obvious collaboration
with Israel to torpedo Palestinian rights and to abort what has
been achieved on the Roadmap....
"The European-American punishment of the Palestinians shows the
falsehood of the international quartet, which claimed that it
drew up a peace plan but left Israel to do anything it
wanted....
"Israel does not want peace with Palestinians.... Its protectors
in the 'free world' gave it a free hand to destroy the peace
process, and now they are helping it cause this human disaster
to the Palestinians....
"Is it not shameful that Arabs stand impotent, unable to engage
in any effective move to support their brothers? And why hasn't
the Arab financial aid that the Khartoum summit agreed upon to
support the steadfastness of the Palestinians arrived yet?"
--------------
"US Provocation"
--------------
An unsigned editorial in government-owned Al-Ba'th on (4/9):
"Washington's insistence on preventing the Palestinian
government from implementing the political program on the basis
of which it won the confidence of the Palestinian people in a
rarely matched democratic process is a provocative action....
"The provocative US decision to halt financial aid to the
Palestinian Authority did not mention the suffering of more than
3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza as a result
of the Israeli occupation. It also ignored the state terrorism,
the separation wall, the checkpoints, the closure of crossings,
and the thousands of prisoners and detainees in the occupation
jails....
"The US demands of the Palestinian government reflect the agenda
of the Israeli right and perhaps go further than what Ehud
Olmert himself is asking the Palestinians to do....
"Americans and Europeans are interfering in Palestinian options
and pursuing a policy to starve out Palestinians.... The US and
the EU should have punished Israel for the continuation of its
occupation of the Arab territories and its daily crimes and
extremist actions against the Palestinian people. Had there been
such firmness and resolve against the Israelis, the world would
have avoided, long ago, the tensions and wars that Israel is
causing."
--------------
"A Booby-Trapped Israeli Demand"
--------------
Ali Nasrallah, an editorialist in government-owned Al-Thawra,
commented (4/9): "Israel has stated that withdrawal from the
Shebaa Farms can only come about through negotiations with
Lebanon, ending with a peace agreement between the two sides....
"The Israeli position reaffirms that the demand of demarcating
the border of Shebaa Farms was, and still is, a booby-trapped
Israeli demand aimed at ending the Lebanese resistance,
dismantling the links between Lebanon and Syria, and singling
Lebanon out, isolating it from its Arab environment, moving it
to the other side, and taking it completely out of the equation
of the Arab-Israeli conflict...."
--------------
"Who Is Responsible for Chaos?"
--------------
Ahmad Hamadah, an editorialist in government-owned Al-Thawra,
wrote (4/7): "The US invasion of Iraq resulted in the killing
and wounding of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, the destruction
of the Iraqi infrastructure, the collapse of the Iraqi
establishments, and the spread of unprecedented chaos and
political vacuum in Iraq....
"After all this, Condoleezza Rice and Jack Straw rush to visit
Baghdad and use all their pressure cards to drive the Iraqi
forces to fill the political vacuum and form the government, as
if the Iraqis were the ones who created the vacuum and caused
the chaos and destruction.
"Rice claims that the US Administration does not interfere in
the election of a head of government in Iraq or in other
domestic Iraqi affairs.... Washington applied pressure on all
Iraqi forces to accept the American dictates.
"Jack Straw, for his part, agreed with Rice that sovereign Iraqi
decisions are made only by Iraqis, but he later said that
Britain and the United States have the right to arrange the
situation in Iraq and to have a say in what happens there....
"What happened this week -- the interference in Iraq's domestic
affairs and the claim that there is no such interference --
brings to mind a host of American-British allegations through
which the two countries have tried to mislead the world. But
those allegations, primarily the claim that the two countries
were willing to hold free, fair, and democratic elections to
elect a government that represents the Iraqi people, were soon
exposed. How can any election held under the swords of
occupation be fair, free, democratic, and transparent?"
"All American and British statements suggested that the Iraqi
government would be fully authorized to make sovereign
decisions. But practices on the ground showed that the
occupation ignored the Iraqis' right to full sovereignty over
their land and capabilities. Is it possible, after all this, to
fill the political vacuum in Iraq in a way that serves the
interests of its people as long as the occupation remains?"
Seche
SIPDIS
SIPDIS
DEPARTMENT FOR PA, NEA/ARN, INR/IC/CD, INR/S:STHIBEAULT AND
JMCCARTER, VOA NEWS CA, NEA/PPD:CBOURGEOIS, DBENZE AND
AFERNANDEZ, IIP/G/NEA-SA RWINCHESTER
WHITE HOUSE FOR NSC
CENTCOM FOR CCPA
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KMDR PREL KPAO OPRC SY
SUBJECT: Damascus Media Reaction: US/EU Decisions to Halt Aid to
PA, Lebanon, Iraq (4/7-11)
1. Summary: Syrian papers reported a Syrian Information
Ministry statement denying a report by an Israeli newspaper that
Syria had sent messages to Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert seeking to resume peace talks between the two countries.
The source told Syria's official SANA news agency that "this
information is baseless" and stressed "Syria's permanent
commitment to achieve comprehensive and just peace based on
pertinent UN Security Council resolutions that demand full
Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights to the 1967 war
borderline." The official criticized the "Israeli leaks" as
aiming at covering Israel's "apartheid oppressive practices in
the Palestinian lands...."
Papers also reported a statement by the Syrian Foreign Ministry
denying that Syria had sent the United Nations a map of the
Shebaa Farms and the Golan Heights. Damascus was responding to
official reports and to a recent map issued by the UN Security
Council published by a Lebanese daily that show the disputed
farms as part of Syrian territory. This comes as Beirut is trying
to establish the Lebanese identity of the farms. The Lebanese
government has repeatedly asked Syria to provide the UN written
evidence to document Lebanon's sovereignty over the farms.
On Lebanon, Syrian papers reported that the Lebanese government
is holding nine Arab nationals amid reports of an assassination
plot against Hizbollah SecGen Hasan Nasrallah. A Lebanese
judicial official downplayed the charges being considered
against the nine detainees, but a Hizbollah spokesman insisted
that the Shiite militant group's leader was the target of a
conspiracy by Lebanese and Palestinian nationals.
End of summary.
2. Selected Headlines:
"The 14th Conference of member countries of the Organization of
the Islamic Conference will be inaugurated tomorrow in Istanbul
with the participation of Dr. Mahmoud al-Abrash, Speaker of the
People's Assembly. Al-Abrash discusses with Jasem al-Kharafi, his
Kuwaiti counterpart, the latest developments in the region"
(Government-owned Tishreen, 4/11)
"Arab Foreign Ministers of Iraq's neighbors to meet in Cairo
Tomorrow" (Government-owned Tishreen, 4/11)
"Hizbollah confirms news of arrest of a terrorist network that
planned to assassinate Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, SecGen of
Hizbollah" (Government-owned Tishreen, 4/11)
"Foreign Ministry denies sending maps of the occupied Golan and
Shebaa Farms to the UN" (Government-owned Tisrheen, 4/10)
"Official media source: No messages to the Israeli Prime Minister
designate on resuming peace negotiations. Syria persists in its
demands to achieve just peace" (Government-owned Tishreen, 4/10)
"Lebanese circles call for resignation of the Lebanese government
and for early elections" (Government-owned Al-Thawra, 4/10)
"Coalition consults with parliamentary blocs to have the final
word regarding Al-Ja'fari's nomination" (Government-owned Al-
Thawra, 4/10)
"Israel threatens to boycott everyone who holds contacts with
Hamas. Israeli aggression becomes more ferocious as economic
siege worsens" (Government-owned Tishreen, 4/10)
3. Editorial Block Quotes:
--------------
"It Is not in Europe's Interest"
--------------
Muhammad Khair al-Jamali, an editorialist in government-owned Al-
Thawra, said (4/10): "The unfair European decision to cut aid to
the Palestinian Authority will exacerbate the already tense
situation in the region and turn it into something like a powder
keg ready to explode at any moment....
"The decision gives Israel the green light to implement its
unilateral plan, which prevents the establishment of a
contiguous Palestinian state.... The Israeli military aggression
against the Palestinians, which resulted in the death of 14
Palestinians in the past two days, was the first result of the
Western siege against the Palestinian people....
"The European decision does not serve Europe's interest and its
image in the region...."
--------------
"Exposed Collaboration"
--------------
Omar Jaftali, an editorialist in government-owned Tishreen,
wrote (4/10): "The cessation of European and American aid to the
Palestinians, which coincided with the Israeli aggression
against Palestinians in Gaza, exposes an obvious collaboration
with Israel to torpedo Palestinian rights and to abort what has
been achieved on the Roadmap....
"The European-American punishment of the Palestinians shows the
falsehood of the international quartet, which claimed that it
drew up a peace plan but left Israel to do anything it
wanted....
"Israel does not want peace with Palestinians.... Its protectors
in the 'free world' gave it a free hand to destroy the peace
process, and now they are helping it cause this human disaster
to the Palestinians....
"Is it not shameful that Arabs stand impotent, unable to engage
in any effective move to support their brothers? And why hasn't
the Arab financial aid that the Khartoum summit agreed upon to
support the steadfastness of the Palestinians arrived yet?"
--------------
"US Provocation"
--------------
An unsigned editorial in government-owned Al-Ba'th on (4/9):
"Washington's insistence on preventing the Palestinian
government from implementing the political program on the basis
of which it won the confidence of the Palestinian people in a
rarely matched democratic process is a provocative action....
"The provocative US decision to halt financial aid to the
Palestinian Authority did not mention the suffering of more than
3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza as a result
of the Israeli occupation. It also ignored the state terrorism,
the separation wall, the checkpoints, the closure of crossings,
and the thousands of prisoners and detainees in the occupation
jails....
"The US demands of the Palestinian government reflect the agenda
of the Israeli right and perhaps go further than what Ehud
Olmert himself is asking the Palestinians to do....
"Americans and Europeans are interfering in Palestinian options
and pursuing a policy to starve out Palestinians.... The US and
the EU should have punished Israel for the continuation of its
occupation of the Arab territories and its daily crimes and
extremist actions against the Palestinian people. Had there been
such firmness and resolve against the Israelis, the world would
have avoided, long ago, the tensions and wars that Israel is
causing."
--------------
"A Booby-Trapped Israeli Demand"
--------------
Ali Nasrallah, an editorialist in government-owned Al-Thawra,
commented (4/9): "Israel has stated that withdrawal from the
Shebaa Farms can only come about through negotiations with
Lebanon, ending with a peace agreement between the two sides....
"The Israeli position reaffirms that the demand of demarcating
the border of Shebaa Farms was, and still is, a booby-trapped
Israeli demand aimed at ending the Lebanese resistance,
dismantling the links between Lebanon and Syria, and singling
Lebanon out, isolating it from its Arab environment, moving it
to the other side, and taking it completely out of the equation
of the Arab-Israeli conflict...."
--------------
"Who Is Responsible for Chaos?"
--------------
Ahmad Hamadah, an editorialist in government-owned Al-Thawra,
wrote (4/7): "The US invasion of Iraq resulted in the killing
and wounding of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, the destruction
of the Iraqi infrastructure, the collapse of the Iraqi
establishments, and the spread of unprecedented chaos and
political vacuum in Iraq....
"After all this, Condoleezza Rice and Jack Straw rush to visit
Baghdad and use all their pressure cards to drive the Iraqi
forces to fill the political vacuum and form the government, as
if the Iraqis were the ones who created the vacuum and caused
the chaos and destruction.
"Rice claims that the US Administration does not interfere in
the election of a head of government in Iraq or in other
domestic Iraqi affairs.... Washington applied pressure on all
Iraqi forces to accept the American dictates.
"Jack Straw, for his part, agreed with Rice that sovereign Iraqi
decisions are made only by Iraqis, but he later said that
Britain and the United States have the right to arrange the
situation in Iraq and to have a say in what happens there....
"What happened this week -- the interference in Iraq's domestic
affairs and the claim that there is no such interference --
brings to mind a host of American-British allegations through
which the two countries have tried to mislead the world. But
those allegations, primarily the claim that the two countries
were willing to hold free, fair, and democratic elections to
elect a government that represents the Iraqi people, were soon
exposed. How can any election held under the swords of
occupation be fair, free, democratic, and transparent?"
"All American and British statements suggested that the Iraqi
government would be fully authorized to make sovereign
decisions. But practices on the ground showed that the
occupation ignored the Iraqis' right to full sovereignty over
their land and capabilities. Is it possible, after all this, to
fill the political vacuum in Iraq in a way that serves the
interests of its people as long as the occupation remains?"
Seche