ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 10 TEL AVIV 001593

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


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SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT:
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1. Mideast


2. Iran: Nuclear Program

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Key stories in the media:
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On Sunday, Yediot reported that on May 21, Ehud Olmert
will pay his first visit to the United States as prime
minister and will meet with President Bush. The
newspaper said that Olmert's advisers, Prime Ministers
Bureau director-designate Yoram Turbovitz and Dov
Weisglass, are already working with Bush's advisers to
prepare for the visit, together with the Israeli
Ambassador in Washington, Danny Ayalon. Yediot wrote
that US administration leaders have suggested that
Olmert appear before both houses of Congress as a
special gesture of the friendship between the two
countries. (Only Rabin and Netanyahu were accorded
similar honors.) The newspaper reported that Olmert
is leaning toward accepting the suggestion. Yediot
reported that Olmert will discuss his political plan to
determine Israel's borders during his term in office
while receiving recognition from the US administration
for the planned measure. Yediot wrote that the most
sensitive issue that will be raised during Olmert's
meetings with Bush and with Vice President Dick Cheney
will be the Iranian threat to Israel and the fear that
if there should be an American military operation
against Iran's nuclear installations, Iran will try to
strike at Israeli population centers with long-range
missiles.

Over the weekend, most media led with the shaping up of
the new government, which will have 27 members -- the
largest cabinet in Israeli history. On Sunday, the
media reported that Interim PM Ehud Olmert has chosen
the Labor Party's Amir Peretz as vice premier and
defense minister, Yuli Tamir as education minister,
Binyamin Ben-Eliezer as national infrastructure
minister, and Shalom Simhon as agriculture minister.
Yediot wrote that Kadima's Abraham Hirchson would
become finance minister, and Tzipi Livni foreign
minister. Maariv and other media saw Shaul Mofaz as
finance/interior/national infrastructure minister.
Today, Yediot said that former Shin Bet head Avi
Dichter would get the internal security portfolio, due
to AG Menachem Mazuz's ruling that Yisrael Beiteinu
leader Avigdor Lieberman cannot fill the position. This
morning, Israel Radio reported that Shas demands four
ministerial posts. Today, the media reported on
various recriminations on the part of disappointed
politicians. Maariv cited an alleged claim by Shimon
Peres, no. 2 in Kadima that Kadima is giving up its
assets. Last night on Channel 2-TV, Prof. Uriel
Reichman, to whom former PM Ariel Sharon allegedly
promised the education portfolio, announced his
resignation from the Knesset (banner in Ha'aretz).
Yediot and Israel Radio reported that Defense Minister
Shaul Mofaz canceled the traditional Defense Minister's
reception to be held on Israeli Independence Day, which
was supposed to include 4,000 guests, including the
diplomatic corps. According to the radio, the
nomination of Peretz as defense minister motivated
Mofaz's unprecedented decision.

In its lead story, The Jerusalem Post reported that
fearing an Iranian missile attack, the IDF has raised
the level of vigilance of its Arrow 2 anti-ballistic
missile defense systems and has reinforced personnel at
the command center at the Palmahim Air Force base north
of Ashdod. Major media cited a report drafted by a
military-civilian committee appointed by former PM
Sharon and chaired by former minister Dan Meridor,
according to which other countries in the Middle East
could follow Iran in equipping themselves with nuclear
weapons. Ha'aretz wrote that the committee recommended
to Mofaz on Sunday that Israel should maintain its
policy of nuclear ambiguity, that as Jordan has
strategic importance for Israel, its stability should
be supported, and that the National Security Council
should become the government's central military
planning authority.

Ha'aretz and Yediot cited US media as saying Sunday
that the US and its allies are preparing a "financial
offensive against Iran if the latter refuses to
cooperate again with the international community and
stop its uranium enrichment activity. Yediot reported
that President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld have initiated a multi-billon dollar program
to station commando units in 20 US embassies in the
Middle East, Asia, and South America, that would be
called to act in ad hoc anti-terror operations.
Leading media reported that on Sunday, Fatah gunmen
stormed the offices of the PA's Health Ministry in Gaza
City and the Nablus municipality in a sign of growing
tensions with Hamas. The media reported that for the
first time, Hamas police arrested armed members of
rival organizations. Yediot reported that PA Chairman
[President] Mahmoud Abbas has a secret plan to dissolve
the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Yediot reported that Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh has
three Israeli sisters who live in the Beersheva area.

On Sunday, Hatzofe reported that official Hamas
representatives have been invited to attend an anti-
Israel conference that is going to be held in Norway on
May 15. On Sunday, Yediot and The Jerusalem Post said
that the French Foreign Ministry confirmed on Friday
that Paris refused to issue a visa to the Palestinian
Planning Minister, Samir Abu Isha.

Ha'aretz reported that two members of the Al-Aqsa
Martyrs Brigades were killed Sunday by undercover IDF
troops in Bethlehem. Israel Radio reported that this
morning, a Qassam rocket fell south of Ashkelon and
that the IDF responded with artillery fire. Yediot and
other media quoted Mofaz as saying at Sunday's cabinet
meeting that Islamic Jihad tried to launch a Katyusha
rocket at Israel on Friday.

On Sunday, The Jerusalem Post printed an AP dispatch
quoting a top Palestinian official as saying Saturday
that a stern US warning to international financial
institutions has made it impossible for the PA to
receive funding since Hamas took power.

Leading media reported that on Sunday, Al Jazeera-TV
broadcast an audiocassette in which Osama bin Laden
claimed that the cessation of aid to Hamas proves that
the US and Europe support the "Zionist crusade."
Maariv cited Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, as
saying that Hamas's ideology is totally different from
that of "Sheikh bin Laden." The Jerusalem Post printed
an AP story, in which GOI spokesman Ra'anan Gissin is
quoted as saying that bin Laden had decided to attack
Israel to deflect growing Arab animosity toward Al
Qaida.
On Sunday, Ha'aretz and The Jerusalem Post reported
that lawyers for Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman,
the two former AIPAC officials accused of conspiring to
receive and disclose classified defense information got
permission on Friday from the judge in the case to
subpoena top US administration officials, including US
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

SIPDIS

Maariv and other media reported on a precedent-setting
ruling in which judge Boaz Okon from the Jerusalem
District Court decided Sunday that the PA meets most
requirements to qualify as a country, and that it has
impunity in international law from claims by Israel for
legal matters in the territory it controls. The
newspaper reported that a settler-controlled
educational institution had demanded compensation for
its inability to recover a financial debt in the
territories.

The Jerusalem Post quoted President Bush's science
adviser, Prof. John Marburger III, as saying on Sunday
that "there is reason to be concerned" about Iran's
nuclear potential." Marburger was a keynote speaker at
a symposium held at Kibbutz Ma'aleh Hahamisha to mark
the 50th anniversary of the Fulbright Program run by
the US-Israel Educational Foundation. The Jerusalem
Post reported that Marburger defended Bush's view on
embryonic stem cell research, but that he recognized
that other countries, including Israel, did not regard
the issue as problematic and continued their work
because of the potential that embryonic stem cells
could eventually prove to repair diseased tissues and
organs. On Sunday, The Jerusalem Post cited the Jewish
Telegraphic Agency (JTA) as saying that the US Congress
is hoping to work with Israel and other at-risk
countries to develop science and technology
applications to fight terrorism.

All media reported on events related to Holocaust
Remembrance Day, which will be commemorated tonight and
tomorrow. The Jerusalem Post reported that President
Bush named nine people, including Prof. Elie Wiesel and
Judy Yudof, former president of the Conservative
Judaism movement, to the US Holocaust Memorial Council,
which oversees the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in
Washington.
The Jerusalem Post wrote that the family of Daniel
Wultz, a 16-year old American from Weston, Florida, who
was seriously wounded in last week's Tel Aviv suicide
bombing, has requested that Tel Aviv's Ichilov
Hospital, as well as the American Embassy in Tel Aviv,
not release any information about their son.

On Sunday, The Jerusalem Post reported that American
actor Will Smith dined on Friday in Tel Aviv with
Yitzhak Rabin's daughter Dalia Rabin Pelosoff, Los
Angeles Israeli Consul-General Ehud Danoch, US
Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones, Likud MK Silvan
Shalom and his wife, Judy Shalom Nir Mozes.

Israel Radio (on Sunday) and Hamodi'a reported that
three Israeli engineers are helping Iran recover from
the serious earthquakes that affected it recently.


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1. Mideast:
--------------

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

Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "The
current situation, in which the PA has two heads
conflicting with each other, is intolerable....
Responsibility for the renewed violence falls squarely
on the Palestinians, who are being pushed by their new
rulers into siege and hard times."

Liberal op-ed writer Ofer Shelach commented in the
editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot
Aharonot: "With every passing day, with every step
taken on the tightrope that Israel and the Palestinians
are walking on, we are drawing closer to the next war."

Senior op-ed writer Akiva Eldar commented in Ha'aretz:
"Kadima's 'convergence' will only perpetuate the
conflict."

Tel Aviv University Professor of Political Science
Shaul Mishal wrote in Yediot Aharonot: "The last thing
Hamas and Fatah want is a civil war, from which both
sides will emerge as losers."

Diplomatic correspondent Alexander Maistrovoy wrote in
popular, pluralist Russian-language Novosty Nedely: "On
the deeper level, the US administration has serious
doubts regarding Olmert and the government he is to
form, and [moreover his] hasty efforts to implement the
second disengagement from Judea and Samaria [i.e. the
West Bank]."

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


I. "Police Officer and Terrorist"

Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized
(4/23): "If anything remains of the appearance of a
separation between the official and the underground in
the PA, it disappeared when Hamas took control of the
government. The clearest illustration of this to date
is the decision by the Interior Minister of the Hamas
government, Said Siam, to appoint Jamal Abu Samhadana
as inspector general of his ministry and commander of a
new security force. Abu Samhadana is completely
unacceptable to Israel, whose civilians he murdered for
years from his Rafah-area hideaway, and to the
Americans; his Popular Resistance Committees killed
Americans in the Gaza Strip in 2003. In exchange for
his appointment, Abu Samhadana is supposed to change
his ways, but he has not promised to do so and, in
fact, has announced that his organization will continue
to act against Israel.... Abbas's declaration of a year
ago, when he was elected to succeed Yasser Arafat,
regarding the unity of the government, the law and the
arms in the PA, has sounded like a sad joke since the
Hamas victory in the legislative assembly elections.
The current situation, in which the PA has two heads
conflicting with each other, is intolerable....
Responsibility for the renewed violence falls squarely
on the Palestinians, who are being pushed by their new
rulers into siege and hard times."

II. "On the Way To War"

Liberal op-ed writer Ofer Shelach commented in the
editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot
Aharonot (4/23): "With every passing day, with every
step taken on the tightrope that Israel and the
Palestinians are walking on, we are drawing closer to
the next war.... Israel, with American support -- it
was the Bush administration that strongly pushed for
elections in the PA, it is now determined more than
anyone to reverse their results, and it is not the one
that is going to pay the price -- regards toppling
Hamas the way it has always regarded steps taken vis-a-
vis the Palestinians: as if there were no tomorrow, as
if the way in which its desire is achieved has no
impact whatsoever on what happens afterwards.... The
battle against Hamas's rise to power needs to be fought
patiently and soberly. It obliges the leaders to know
what to do -- and, even more so, what not to do. This
was said by one of the more prominent members of the
security establishment in a conversation that was held
on the eve of the Palestinian parliamentary elections,
before anyone had even guessed that Hamas was going to
win. That statement is no less applicable today than
it was then. The problem is that in a completely
breached political establishment and with a belligerent
military, fewer and fewer people are listening to those
kinds of statements, which get drowned out in the
tumultuous march to war."

III. "The Main Thing Is That There's a Partner"

Senior op-ed writer Akiva Eldar commented in Ha'aretz
(4/24): "Ariel Sharon bequeathed to generations to come
the US President's promise to support the settlement
blocs.... A very senior figure in Kadima responded to
this question in a moment of honesty by saying she
fears that the negotiations over the permanent status
agreement will fail, and that the international
community will blame Israel. In other words, the new
government itself is not a partner to an agreement
based on the international legitimacy given to the June
4, 1967 borders, with mutual adjustments and a just and
agreed solution to the refugee problem. Kadima's
'convergence' will only perpetuate the conflict."

IV. "Hamas and Fatah Stand To Lose From a Civil War"

Tel Aviv University Professor of Political Science
Shaul Mishal wrote in Yediot Aharonot (4/23): "The last
thing Hamas and Fatah want is a civil war, from which
both sides will emerge as losers. Their fear is of a
third factor that will neutralize both of them -- be it
the force of worldwide jihad, such as al-Qaida, or a
massive Israeli incursion into the Palestinian
Authority territories. Moreover, the fact that in Arab
countries such as Egypt and Jordan there are Islamic
movements that constitute a threat to the government
will lead to the quick intervention of either those
countries themselves or the Arab League in the conflict
between the various Palestinian factions....
Paradoxically, Hamas only stands to gain from the
situation as it is at present. All of those who now
are boycotting Hamas will be forced to speak with it
precisely because of their concerns about the possible
deterioration, fear that Hamas will lose control, and
then it won't be Fatah that will find itself back in
power but other, hostile forces. Fatah cannot turn
back the clock and regain the role and status it had
before Hamas's victory. The truth of the matter is
that Fatah is a divided and torn party.... The only one
who can still maneuver is PA Chairman Abu Mazen, who is
a Fatah man. The security forces are subordinate to
the Palestinian Authority and, under normal
circumstances, should be made subordinate to the new
government. However, since Fatah is not prepared to
play by the new rules of the game, and Hamas is not
prepared to regard itself as the new government that
has replaced the old one but rather sees itself as an
entirely new regime, it has insisted that it be given
control over the focal points of power, which it wants
to mold and organize in keeping with its ideology."


V. "Uncle Sam's Pros and Cons"

Diplomatic correspondent Alexander Maistrovoy wrote in
popular, pluralist Russian-language Novosty Nedely
(4/20): "Ehud Olmert's victory in the Israeli [general]
elections caused mixed feelings in Washington.. From
the very beginning the [US] administration staked on a
predictable, complacent and manageable leader ... [Ehud
Olmert]. This is crucial for the US in the situation
of growing instability and unpredictability in the
Middle East.... However, on the deeper level, the US
administration has serious doubts regarding Olmert and
the government he is to form, and [moreover his] hasty
efforts to implement the second disengagement from
Judea and Samaria [i.e. the West Bank] ... which might
... affect US efforts to fight global terrorism... Al
Qaida's and Hamas's potential consolidation of their
hold on the West Bank might pose an immediate threat to
the Hashemite dynasty -- the United States' closest
ally in the Arab world ... breach the balance of power
in the Middle East ... and threaten the efforts to
stabilize Iraq.... Such a ... hasty disengagement would
be ... perceived ... as a panic flight and ... provoke
the Palestinians, Iran, and Syria to attack [Israel]
... create havoc; weaken Israel ... and change the
United States' attitude towards the Jewish state."

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2. Iran: Nuclear Program:
--------------

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

The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post
editorialized: "If Bush waits too long, the sense that
it is too late to stop Iran will grow, the window for
action will close and his own political decline will
deepen further."





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

"Speed Up Iran Sanctions"

The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post
editorialized (4/23): "It is assumed by many that US
President George Bush -- floundering in the polls,
reorganizing his staff, and tied up in Iraq -- is
unwilling or incapable of upping the ante on the
diplomatic front, let alone taking military action. In
reality, Bush's political problems and the Iranian
threat are not in conflict, but part of the same
challenge. The centerpiece of the Bush presidency is
foreign policy, and that policy will have failed if the
most dangerous regime in the world can run circles
around the US and acquire nuclear weapons. Such a
failure would certainly dwarf and possibly undo the
administration's accomplishment of ridding Iraq of a
similarly belligerent dictatorship. The sense that
this is the direction of events, in turn, undermines
Bush politically at home. It is not enough for the
State Department to make vague claims about the headway
it is making; significant momentum must be
demonstrated.... There is substantial agreement between
Washington, London, Berlin and Paris that the mullahs
must be stopped. As usual, however, it will fall on
the White House to provide the leadership necessary to
galvanize such a consensus into effective action. But
if Bush waits too long, the sense that it is too late
to stop Iran will grow, the window for action will
close and his own political decline will deepen
further."

JONES