ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 07 TEL AVIV 003048 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 SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION -------------- SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: -------------- Mideast -------------- Key stories in the media: -------------- All media reported that twelve Israelis were killed Thursday. Four IDF soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon and eight civilians in Katyusha rocket attacks (five in Acre, including a father and his daughter, and three Israeli Arabs in Maalot-Tarshiha). Israel Radio reported that the UN Security Council might only convene on Wednesday. Leading media reported that the US and France are still at odds over the text of a draft resolution at the Security Council to reach a cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon. Media reported that France has circulated a revised UN resolution calling for an immediate cessation of Israel-Hizbullah hostilities. The media reported that Washington has so far resisted calls for a cease-fire without simultaneous steps to deploy peacekeepers and tackle Hizbullah's disarmament. Ha'aretz wrote that France insists that the fighting be halted first to pave the way for a wider peace. Israel Radio quoted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as saying in an interview with CNN that a UN resolution "cannot lead to a return to the status quo ante." Maariv reported that during the interview, Secretary Rice voiced reservations about comments made by State Department Spokesman Sean McCormack Thursday that "we certainly would hope that we could achieve something by Friday, but if not, we are prepared and Secretary Rice has instructed our people, both here in Washington and up in New York, that we're going to work all throughout the weekend if necessary to get something done." Leading media reported that the US demands an arms embargo on Hizbullah. Ha'aretz reported that PM Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz were at odds last night over the extent of the Israeli ground offensive in Lebanon. Peretz reportedly favors expanding the incursion as far as the Litani River, with the objective of controlling the area from which the short-range rockets are fired at Israel. Ha'aretz reported that on Thursday that he had instructed the army to do so. Maariv reported that Peretz's instruction surprised Olmert, who Ha'aretz wrote is not enthusiastic about the idea and feels that holding more ground in southern Lebanon will not solve the problem of Hizbullah's medium- and long-range rockets. Ha'aretz said that the plan to take the area as far as the Litani was presented to the political-security cabinet on Monday, along with the less expansive plan that was approved and is currently being put into practice. Ha'aretz quoted a GOI source as saying that most of the cabinet ministers, including Peretz, had approved the more limited plan. The source was quoted as saying that this should first be completed and then the cabinet could reconvene to discuss a deeper incursion. The media reported that the IDF has created a several-kilometer-wide buffer zone. Israel Radio reported that Olmert met with Peretz and FM Tzipi Livni last night, and quoted a senior government source as saying that no decisions were made at the meeting. The Jerusalem Post quoted a high-ranking IDF officer as saying that the IAF has-been unable to employ targeted killings in the fight against Hizbullah to any significant degree due to an acute lack of real-time intelligence. The newspaper quoted the officer as saying that the difficulty in obtaining intelligence has caused Israel's three intelligence organizations -- the Mossad, the Shin Bet, and IDF Intelligence-- to forgo their "daily ego wars" and to work together in "unprecedented" harmony. All media reported that Hizbullah Secretary-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah warned last night in a televised broadcast that his organization would target Tel Aviv if Beirut was attacked by Israel. "If our capital, Beirut, is attacked, we will attack your capital, Tel Aviv," Nasrallah threatened. This morning Israel Radio reported that the IAF responded by striking many Hizbullah targets in Beirut. Maariv bannered remarks mad by a senior IDF officer that if Tel Aviv is bombarded, Beirut will burn. The Jerusalem Post quoted Uri Lubrani, an adviser to the Defense Minister and formerly Israel's longtime coordinator of activities in Lebanon. As saying that Hizbullah is hurting under the impact of Israel's military action, but that it is not yet showing signs of desperation. All media quoted Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying Thursday in a speech during an emergency summit meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Kuala Lumpur that the solution to the Middle East crisis was to destroy Israel. He also called for an immediate halt to fighting between Israel and Hizbullah. Maariv and other media reported that in a video recording broadcast at the summit, Lebanese PM Fouad Siniora said that 900 Lebanese have been killed in the fighting. Maariv reported that those figures contrasted the lower ones presented by the Lebanese HEALTH Ministry. Israel Radio cited reports in the Australian newspaper The Australian that hundreds of Southeast Asian suicide bombers have been dispatched around the world with a mission to attack Jewish interests in countries that support Israel such as Britain, the US and possibly Australia. The radical Jakarta-based Asian Muslim Youth Movement (AMYM) reportedly gave details of the plot on Thursday, claiming it was being funded in part with cash donations from two unnamed Australian-Indonesian businessmen. The leader of the AMYM, Islamist author Suaib Bidu, warned that thousands more jihadis were preparing to join the resistance against Israel and die as "martyrs." Maariv reported that FM Livni and Science and Technology Minister Ophir Pines-Paz have decided that after the end of the current conflict, Israel would open international Israeli cultural and scientific fairs in order to restore and bring up to date Israel's image in the world. The Jerusalem Post cited the role of "Anglo-Israelis" in presenting Israel's case to the foreign media. The Jerusalem Post and Israel Radio reported that at a monthly press conference at 10 Downing Street, British PM Tony Blair refused to condemn Israel's actions as "disproportionate." Instead he called for restraint on both sides. The radio reported a "revolt" over Blair's Lebanon policy among the British government and Blair's Labour Party. Israel Radio reported that Thursday Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez publicly announced he was recalling his country's ambassador from Tel Aviv in protest of Israel's offensive in Lebanon with the support of the US. The radio noted that Venezuela only has a charge d'affaires in Israel at the moment. The cover story of Yediot's weekly magazine is a portrait of Secretary Rice, the "velvet woman and ice queen." SIPDIS Leading media reported that early Thursday morning IDF troops raided southern Gaza, killing eight to ten Palestinians, including four militants and an eight-year-old boy. Israel Radio reported that last night the IAF bombarded a storage building in the Gaza refugee camp of Shati. The radio also reported that IDF troops hit four armed Palestinians in the Rafah area. Yediot and Maariv reported that two weeks ago security forces arrested a young Palestinian from a refugee camp near Nablus. She had reportedly "seduced" an Israeli man and planned to abduct him on behalf of Tanzim. Major media reported that Karnit Goldwasser, the wife of Ehud Goldwasser, ONE of the soldiers abducted by Hizbullah, is touring the US in an effort to influence US public opinion over her husband's fate. Israel Radio reported that she met with US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday. Ha'aretz reported that on Thursday the High Court of Justice ruled that compensation claims by Palestinians over damage sustained during the confrontation in the territories since September 2000 be frozen. Globes reported that Israel Aircraft Industries (IAI) and its Elta Systems Group subsidiary have "suffered a heavy blow." The South Korean Ministry of Defense has disqualified Elta's proposal to supply four AWACS plans, worth USD 1.5 billion. The decision leaves Boeing as the sole proposal in the tender, and brings to an end the year-long prestigious head-to-head confrontation. Globes wrote that US export licenses, the lack of which were the cause of Elta's disqualification, were essential for parts of the AWACS system developed in cooperation with the US government. A Globes-Smith Institute poll found that: -71 percent of Israelis rely on Olmert's management of the security situation. -62 percent are satisfied with Peretz's performance. -73 percent express their appreciation of the government's performance in managing the arena of international policy. -53 percent of Israelis believe that Israel will obtain only a relative or a small part of the war's objectives. Maariv printed the results of a TNS/Teleseker Polling Institute survey conducted among Israeli Jews: "Who do you think is winning the war in the north so far?" Hizbullah: 3.5 percent; Israel: 54.8 percent; no one: 37.7 percent; undecided: 4 percent. "Who do you think will ultimately win the war in the north?" Hizbullah: 2.6 percent; Israel: 73.5 percent; no one: 19.4 percent; undecided: 4.4 percent. -------------- Mideast: -------------- Summary: -------------- Washington correspondent Nathan Guttman wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post: "Though the voices criticizing Bush's policy on the Lebanon war are growing, a recent poll [conducted in the US] suggests that the President's political instincts were right." Senior columnist and chief defense commentator Zeev Schiff wrote in independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz: "Israel must ... avoid again finding itself waist-deep in the Lebanese quagmire." Senior columnist Dan Margalit wrote in popular, pluralist Maariv (8/4): "Ehud Olmert has led the battle demonstrating judgment ... and courage." The Jerusalem Post editorialized: "[Blair's] insight that the war against Israel is part of the wider war against the West is critical, and something that even President George Bush has not expressed in such coherent terms.... Daniel Levy, the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative, wrote in Ha'aretz: "The last two years of the Bush presidency can be an opportunity for progress or an exercise in desperate damage limitation. It sounds counter-intuitive, but Israel should reflect on and even help reorient American expectations." Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. "The Devil's in the Details" Washington correspondent Nathan Guttman wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (8/4): "Though the voices criticizing Bush's policy on the Lebanon war are growing, a recent poll suggests that the President's political instincts were right. A majority of Americans believe that the current involvement of the US in the conflict is sufficient, and more important, more than 40 percent of Americans don't want to see their government getting any deeper into the conflict. If Bush's plan plays out as he had intended, these Americans will have nothing to fear: The US will stay out of active involvement and will -- at most -- put a hint of pressure on Israel to make sure it wraps up the operation in a few days." II. "Stay Out of the Lebanese Quagmire" Senior columnist and chief defense commentator Zeev Schiff wrote in independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (8/4): "A problem will arise if no international peacekeeping force can be found to which the IDF can hand over the territory that it now occupies in southern Lebanon. In such a scenario, Israel will be faced with a dilemma: Stay in southern Lebanon, or withdraw, even if Hizbullah returns to set up bases there? If confronted with this question, Israel must choose withdrawal -- in order to avoid again finding itself waist-deep in the Lebanese quagmire." III. "A Worthy Conduct of the Campaign" Senior columnist Dan Margalit wrote in popular, pluralist Maariv (8/4): "Despite his mistaken decision to stop the aerial fighting in southern Lebanon for 48 hours, which allowed Hizbullah to take a deep breath and to partially rearm, Ehud Olmert has led the battle demonstrating judgment ... and courage (by giving a red light to the Baalbek operation). It is true that there is a discussion about whether he restricted himself when he started the war, which delayed the first signs of success, but this is a question for historians.... But a worthy leadership has been born." IV. "Blair's Blast" The Jerusalem Post editorialized (8/4): "[British Prime Minister Tony] Blair's description of the war [in a speech he delivered in Los Angeles on August 1], in short, was brilliant and courageous. His insight that the war against Israel is part of the wider war against the West is critical, and something that even President George Bush has not expressed in such coherent terms. No less importantly, he strongly dismissed the language of grievances: It is rubbish to suggest that [terrorism] is the product of poverty.... It is based on religious extremism.... And not any extremism, but a specifically Muslim version'. Yet strangely, when it came to suggesting solutions, he seemed to employ the grievance-based model he had so forcefully rejected. 'This war ... can only be won by showing that our values are stronger, better and more just, more fair than the alternative. ... Unless we revitalize the broader global agenda on poverty, climate change, trade, and in respect of the Middle East, bend every sinew of our will to making peace between Israel and Palestine, we will not win.' Blair is right that the global jihad cannot be beaten without defeating its dream of destroying Israel. But this, unfortunately, is not how he will be understood. Reactionary Islam dreams of destroying the Jewish state. It is the Western exposure and rejection of this dream, and forcing the Arab world to disavow it, that will pave the way for a Palestinian state. Israel is not rejecting Palestine; it is the Arab world that continues to reject Israel." ¶V. "Ending the Neoconservative Nightmare" Daniel Levy, the lead Israeli drafter of the Geneva Initiative, wrote in Ha'aretz (8/4): "Witnessing the near-perfect symmetry of Israeli and American policy has been ONE of the more noteworthy aspects of the latest Lebanon war. A true friend in the White House. No deescalate and stabilize, honest-broker, diplomatic jaw-jaw from this president. Great. Except that Israel was actually in need of an early exit strategy, had its diplomatic options narrowed by American weakness and marginalization in the region, and found itself ratcheting up aerial and ground operations in ways that largely worked to Hizbullah's advantage, the Qana tragedy included. The American ladder had gone AWOL.... It is admittedly difficult for Israel to have a regional strategy that is out-of-step with the U.S. administration-of-the-day. However, the neocon approach is not unchallenged, and Israel should not be providing its ticket back to the ascendancy.... Internationalist Republicans, Democrats and mainstream Israelis must construct an alternative narrative to the neocon nightmare, identifying shared interests in a policy that reestablishes American leadership, respect and credibility in the region by facilitating security and stability, pursuing conflict resolution and promoting the conditions for more open societies (as opposed to narrow election-worship). The last two years of the Bush presidency can be an opportunity for progress or an exercise in desperate damage limitation. It sounds counter-intuitive, but Israel should reflect on and even help reorient American expectations." JONES