ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 08 TEL AVIV 002239 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 CDR USCENTCOM 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: -------------- Mideast -------------- Key stories in the media: -------------- All media underscored the blocking by Defense Minister Amir Peretz on Sunday of an IDF proposal to step up its offensive on the Gaza Strip in response to the recent barrage of Qassam rockets fired into Israeli territory. Palestinian militants in Gaza fired over 20 Qassam rockets at the western Negev on Sunday, wounding two Israelis, one seriously, in the hard-hit Negev town of Sderot. The barrage is continuing today. More than 20 other rockets were fired at Israel over the weekend. The media reported that in the wake of an incident on Friday, in which seven Palestinian civilians were killed in a yet unsolved blast originally thought to have resulted from an IDF shelling, the military wing of Hamas said that it would renew rocket attacks and suicide bombings in Israel, ending the truce that the group declared last year. The media quoted a Hamas spokesman as saying: "We have decided to make Sderot a ghost town." Major media reported that on Sunday, Khaled Mashal, the head of Hamas's political bureau, defended a decision to renew suicide attacks against Israel, a view that the media said is not shared by many Hamas leaders in the territories. Maariv reported that the IDF has prepared a list of senior Hamas leaders possibly slated for assassination. Leading media reported that the IDF investigation of the explosion that killed seven members of a Palestinian family on a beach in the northern Gaza Strip (Beit Lahiya) is exploring three possible causes: an off-target IDF shell; unexploded IDF ordnance; or the detonation of a Palestinian bomb. The Jerusalem Post reported that both PM Ehud Olmert and Peretz indicated at Sunday's cabinet meeting that the blast may have been caused by the Palestinians, not the IDF. Over the weekend, the media quoted State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack as saying Friday: "We call on the PA to prevent all acts of terrorism, including the firing of missiles and rockets from Gaza," and reported that responses from other international bodies, such as Russia and France, were more severe. Ha'aretz reported that two Palestinians who were wounded in the explosion are being treated in Israel. Over the weekend (Maariv's banner on Sunday read: "Palestinians: We Kidnapped Israeli Youth") the media reported that after several hours in captivity, Jewish- American student Benjamin Bright-Fishbein was released early Sunday morning after he was kidnapped by Palestinian gunmen while visiting Nablus on Saturday. The Jerusalem Post reported that Bright-Fishbein, an exchange student at the Hebrew University who had spent the past month as an intern at The Jerusalem Post, went to Nablus because he had heard it was an "interesting city." All media reported that on Sunday gunfire at a passing vehicle killed a Palestinian man on the northern Tel Aviv-Jerusalem road in the West Bank in what police and the IDF suspect was an attack for nationalist motives. Leading media cited the IDF's belief that the incident was a terrorist attack, and that the shooter mistook the victim for an Israeli citizen because of the Israeli license plates on the vehicle. All media reported that Olmert will meet with British PM Tony Blair in London today and with French President Jacques Chirac on Wednesday to present the principles of the realignment plan. All media reported that a car with three Palestinians illegally residing in Israel was forcing Ben Gurion Airport's main gate. They were arrested. Maariv noted that the incident took place while Olmert was taking off. Over the weekend, The Jerusalem Post reported that Ra'anan Gissin, the Prime Minister's Office's foreign press spokesman, who for the last five years has been an "Israeli fixture" in the foreign media, will not accompany Olmert on his European trip. The Jerusalem Post expressed its belief that he will soon be leaving his job. The Jerusalem Post quoted FM Tzipi Livni as saying in an interview with AP on Sunday that Israel wants to sit down with PA Chairman [President] Mahmoud Abbas, but that it is "not realistic" to pursue a final deal with him as long as Hamas refuses to moderate. Ha'aretz printed a Reuters story quoting Western diplomats as saying Sunday that the Bush administration is pressing the EU to scrap a plan to pay salaries to Palestinian health workers and possibly others to avert the collapse of essential services. Maariv cited a New York Times story Sunday that quoted experts as saying that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remark that Israel should be "wiped off the map" was likely mistranslated. On Sunday, The Jerusalem Post cited Defense News that the Pentagon is actively supporting the upgrading of the Israeli Arrow anti-missile system. Major media reported that on Sunday, thousands of Jews and Israelis demonstrated against Ahmadinejad in the German city of Nuremberg during a World Cup soccer match between Iran and Mexico. All media reported that after Abbas called on Saturday for a July 26 referendum on the "prisoners' document," Hamas members jailed in Israel retracted their support for the document. On Sunday, The Jerusalem Post reported that the US House of Representatives voted Friday, 312-97, to cut foreign aid to Saudi Arabia due to its teaching of intolerance and the lack of action by the kingdom in preventing funding of terror groups. The Jerusalem Post said that the measure still needs to be approved by the Senate, which has not yet voted on its version of its foreign aid bill. Ha'aretz reported that Paul Mackney, General Secretary of the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education (NATFHE),Britain's largest teachers' association, announced over the weekend that NATFHE's recent decision to encourage an academic boycott of Israel has expired, as was expected when it was implemented. It stopped being valid two weeks ago because NATFHE merged with another British union, the Association of University Teachers. Maariv also wrote that the boycott had expired. Israel Radio reported that Justice Ministry representatives and US Embassy staff will discuss the issue of trafficking in persons. The radio noted that three weeks ago, the GOI decided to establish a commission of directors-general of ministries to coordinate efforts on the matter. The station said that late last week it was decided to name attorney Rachel Gershoni to head that commission. Yediot reported that writings by the late ultra- nationalist Rabbi Meir Kahane were found in the room of Private Yisrael Reinman, the American immigrant soldier who is believed to have committed suicide in a West Bank mosque on Monday. Maariv reported that Minister for Pensioner Affairs Rafi Eitan, who was the handler of convicted spy Jonathan Pollard, claims that Pollard's petition against him at the High Court of Justice, accusing Eitan of abandoning him to the Americans, is a "medley of unfounded allegations and false accusations." The Jerusalem Post cited the results of Tel Aviv University's Peace Index poll, conducted on May 29-31: Only 39 percent of Israelis think Israel will be able to determine its borders unilaterally even if it does not gain international and US support for such a move, whereas the majority (55 percent) say it cannot do so without such support. -------------- Mideast: -------------- Summary: -------------- Prominent liberal writer David Grossman wrote in popular, pluralist Maariv: "The disgrace on the Gaza beach is a defeat in a campaign that is far more important than the exchange of blows with the Palestinians -- the campaign for our image as a nation and as human beings." Editor-in-Chief Amnon Dankner wrote on page one of Maariv: "Israel has every right in the world to robustly protect its citizens from Qassam rocket fire." The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized: "Those who would condemn Israel for attempting to protect itself are not, in fact, serving the interests of the innocents for whom they claim to be concerned." Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "The Prime Minister is sounding a lot less determined as time passes." Senior Middle East affairs analyst Zvi Bar'el wrote in Ha'aretz: "A referendum may not bring the desired results for [Mahmoud] Abbas." The Director of the Interdisciplinary Center's Global Research in International Affairs Center, columnist Barry Rubin, wrote in The Jerusalem Post: "Actually making peace with Israel is very far down [Mahmoud Abbas's] list of priorities, and successfully doing so is blocked by all Abbas's other domestic political considerations." Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. "We Have to Wake Up" Prominent liberal writer David Grossman wrote in popular, pluralist Maariv (6/11): "The sight of the girl on the Gaza beach, whose life was torn to shreds before our very eyes, must wake us from the hypnotic coma we have been in for years. Instead of worrying about the 'damage to Israel's image that could be caused,' instead of immediately voicing the automatic and faded arguments, we would do best were we to look at our handiwork and to ask ourselves to where, towards what abyss are we propelling ourselves with our own handiwork. To what end is all this done? What results have we achieved with our endless fire into the 'Qassam launching grounds,' our 'arrest of wanted men' dozens of times every night in the occupied territories and the targeted killing operations that murder mainly innocent people?.... The Prime Minister has said at every podium around the world that Israel 'will make every possible effort' before it despairs of the possibility of dialogue with the Palestinians and opts for unilateral realignment. But the daring declaration made by Abu Mazen about the referendum was immediately dismissed as 'completely meaningless'.... The disgrace on the Gaza beach is a defeat in a campaign that is far more important than the exchange of blows with the Palestinians -- the campaign for our image as a nation and as human beings." II. "Hypocritical Chorus" Editor-in-Chief Amnon Dankner wrote on page one of Maariv (6/12): "It is not yet clear at all what caused the deaths of seven members of a Palestinian family on a Gaza beach.... [However,] Israel has every right in the world to robustly protect its citizens from Qassam rocket fire.... The attitude of sixties-like flower children who haven't grown up and who believe that, were it only possible to give peace a chance, it would land on us with crowns of roses, borne by white Hamas doves ... is so stupid in the perspective of what Israel has lived through.... True, there are no wonder cures. But another conclusion is wrong, too -- it was reached by [prominent liberal Israeli author] David Grossman in this newspaper on Sunday, who said that instead of military wonder solution that doesn't exist, there is a wonderful diplomatic one." III. "Death in Gaza" The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (6/11): "Hamas's very reaction to Friday's deaths [of seven Palestinian family members] underlines the bankruptcy of its approach. A leadership that genuinely sought to act in the interest of its people would call for, and determinedly act to achieve a halt in the unceasing fire of Qassam rockets and intermittent other anti-Israeli assaults from Gaza into Israel. Self-evidently, after all, a halt to such rocket fire would obviate the need for any Israeli response and thus ensure the well-being of ordinary Palestinians. Instead, Hamas has itself now openly rejoined the ranks of those terror groups firing Qassam [rockets] across the border, in turn requiring further Israeli action to try to thwart the fire.... Those who would condemn Israel for attempting to protect itself are not, in fact, serving the interests of the innocents for whom they claim to be concerned. The way to avoid bloodshed is to demand and ensure a halt to the original acts of aggression, not to blame a nation under attack on those occasions, of which Friday may or may not turn out to be a rare example, when its efforts at self-defense misfire." IV. "Sharpening Olmert's Message" Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (6/12): "Since [Ehud Olmert's] government was sworn in, the convergence plan has been pushed off the diplomatic and the public agendas. They were replaced with military escalation and the danger that the cease-fire with Hamas may collapse. In view of the fact that the disengagement from the Gaza Strip did not result in a period of calm, it is difficult to convince the Israeli public and the international community of the necessity of a similar move in the West Bank.... Israel has also lost the initiative on the diplomatic front -- in the face of international pressure to enter negotiations with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, and American support for Abbas's efforts to bring the so- called prisoners' document to a referendum among Palestinians -- to create a legitimate 'partner' for dialogue with Olmert. The end result is that the Prime Minister is sounding a lot less determined as time passes.... The Prime Minister proved in his visit to the United States that he is able to make an impressive showing on the international stage. His visits in London and Paris will be an opportunity to sharpen his message. That way he will be able to persuade both his hosts and the people at home." ¶V. "An Expected Change of Heart" Senior Middle East affairs analyst Zvi Bar'el wrote in Ha'aretz (6/12): "That Hamas and Islamic Jihad contributors to the prisoners' document would distance themselves from it was expected.... For Abbas, the sole reason to hold a referendum would be to prove that he is popular and as such dismiss the sense that Hamas continues to enjoy massive public support. Abbas may be basing his efforts on opinion polls that reflect his popularity, and may be seeking to prove those assessments at the polls. However, in view of the realities on the ground, the deaths of civilians on Friday, the escalation of violence between the various factions and the absence of diplomatic hope, which may lead to the next Intifada, a referendum may not bring the desired results for Abbas." VI. "A Disturbing Poll" The Director of the Interdisciplinary Center's Global Research in International Affairs Center, columnist Barry Rubin, wrote in The Jerusalem Post (6/12): "A careful and balanced evaluation of Mahmoud Abbas's new strategy is tremendously important. While in some respects it represents a step forward, it is also couched in the tricky double meanings Palestinian political groups have used to conceal their continuing goal of total victory in eliminating Israel. Moreover, nothing is likely to come out of it.... [A Bir Zeit University poll] seems [to indicate that] a large majority of Palestinians support the plan -- which they see as a way of promoting national unity and stopping chaotic Hamas-Fatah fighting -- and also oppose recognition of Israel, or even a real two-state solution.... Abbas wants to consolidate Fatah popular support, stop the fighting with Hamas, force Hamas back into being Fatah's junior partner, gain more international support through a public relations campaign, and end the international sanctions against the PA. Actually making peace with Israel is very far down that list of priorities, and successfully doing so is blocked by all Abbas's other domestic political considerations." JONES