ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

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TAGS: IS KMDR MEDIA REACTION REPORT
SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION


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SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT:
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Mideast

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Key stories in the media:
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Israel Radio quoted PA Chairman [President] Mahmoud
Abbas as saying Monday that Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice will visit the PA on Friday as part of
her Mideast tour. On Sunday, The Jerusalem Post said
that her visit is meant to ensure that Arab countries
do not provide financial aid to the Hamas-led PA and to
strengthen the international front against Hamas. On
Monday, Ha'aretz reported that A/S David Welch will
visit Israel and the PA over the weekend. The
newspaper said that the U.S. would try to strengthen
Abbas as he deals with Hamas. On Monday, Maariv
reported that Shin Bet Director Yuval Diskin was about
to leave for the U.S. in order to coordinate efforts to
isolate Hamas and to discuss the Hamas-Iran connection.

Leading media reported that Abbas has formally charged
Hamas leader Mahmoud Haniyeh to form the new
Palestinian government. Major media reported that
Hamas and Fatah might create a national unity
government. Leading media reported that the PFLP has
agreed to join the Hamas government. Some media
reported that the PFLP has received assurances that its
imprisoned militants, including the murderers of
Israeli cabinet minister Rehavam Zeevi, would be freed.
Major media quoted Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz as
saying that Israel would respond harshly to this. The
Jerusalem Post quoted PA officials as saying Monday
that Abbas is planning to appoint new security chiefs
in a bid to maintain control over the PA security
forces after Hamas forms the new cabinet. Ha'aretz
reported that Israel continues to coordinate security
forces with the PA, as IDF officers and their
counterparts in the Palestinian security services are
maintaining ties as per usual. On Monday, Ha'aretz led
with the request Abbas made of Hamas during Saturday's
swearing-in session of the parliament that it honor
agreements made with Israel.

During the weekend, all media reported that on Sunday,
the Israel cabinet approved a series of sanctions that
would be taken against the PA after the new Palestinian
parliament was sworn in on Saturday, giving Hamas a
majority in the Palestinian legislature. The central
sanction is a decision to withhold the Palestinian tax
funds that Israel levies for the PA -- funds that are
used generally to cover the PA civil service payroll.
The cabinet, however, voted down a proposal that was
put forward by the security establishment to close the
Erez crossing and to terminate immediately the
employment of Gazan laborers in Israel.

Leading media quoted Hamas's deputy political bureau
head Musa Abu Marzouk as saying in an interview with
the Israeli-Palestinian radio Kol Hashalom that
Israel's existence is a fact.

All media reported on, and Yediot and Maariv led with,
the visit of a Hamas delegation led by political bureau
head Khaled Mashal to Iran. Maariv bannered: "A Hate
Alliance." Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei called on Muslim nations to provide annual
financial aid to a Hamas-led PA government and
supported Hamas's refusal to recognize Israel.
Ha'aretz reported that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak
declined to meet with Hamas representatives. Leading
media cited the London-based Al-Hayat that Jordan
canceled a visit of Hamas's leaders to Amman.

On Monday, The Jerusalem Post reported that American
officials have been quietly probing whether Georgia
would be willing to allow the U.S. to use its military
bases and airfields in the event of a military conflict
with Tehran.

All media cited an announcement by the Shin Bet and IDF
Monday that plans by a Fatah-Tanzim cell in Bethlehem
to fire mortars into Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood have
been thwarted. The Jerusalem Post quoted members of
the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee as
saying that plans to attack neighborhoods in central
Jerusalem were also discovered.

All media reported that the IDF has conducted an
operation in Nablus in the past few days. An Islamic
Jihad militant was killed Monday in the city's refugee
camp of Balata. The media reported that four
Palestinians were killed in clashes with the IDF on
Sunday.

Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi was quoted as saying in an
interview with Maariv that he wishes for Kadima's
victory in the elections.

All media highlighted the sentencing of British
holocaust denier David Irving to three years'
imprisonment.

Ha'aretz reported that last week a federal court
ordered a lower court to review the case of an American
child whose passport indicates his place of birth as
"Jerusalem," as his parents want "Israel" to appear
instead.

On Monday, Yediot reported that on Sunday, 300 Israeli
and Palestinian high-school students took part in a
diplomatic simulation game. The newspaper wrote that
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones attended the
opening ceremony.

Ha'aretz cited the results of a poll conducted among
Palestinians by the Jerusalem Media and Communication
Center, according to which 66 percent of respondents
said the new government should honor the PA's
commitment to negotiations with Israel. Among Hamas
voters, only 12 percent said they chose Hamas for its
political agenda, while 43 percent said they were fed
up with Fatah's corruption. The rest said they were
hoping for a better life or voted for religious
reasons. Mahmoud Abbas's popularity continued to
decline.

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Mideast:
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Summary:
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Senior columnist Nahum Barnea wrote on page one of mass-
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "Olmert is
determined to continue to restrain himself, despite the
fact that it is not certain that he can allow himself
to do so."

Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "It
is not realistic to think about separating Hamas rule
from the Palestinian people."

The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post
editorialized: "The international community, often with
Israel's participation, has a long history of
financially supporting the Palestinian national project
almost regardless of the form it takes."

Columnist Amos Gilboa wrote in popular, pluralist
Maariv: "[In the past, Hamas] had no interest in
becoming an Iranian protectorate. Now ... I don't
think ... a strategic alliance will be forged between
them."

Block Quotes:
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I. "Ehud's Piping Hot Bowl of Soup"

Senior columnist Nahum Barnea wrote on page one of mass-
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (February 20):
"This is the first diplomatic crisis that Olmert has
encountered as prime minister. Unfortunately, it is
taking place in the midst of an election campaign.
Olmert is trying to deal with the [Hamas-related]
crisis in the most sober way possible, according to his
perspective. The U.S. administration believed that
Israel should have refrained, at the present stage,
from taking any action against the Palestinian
Authority. The argument was that as long as a Hamas
government has not been formed, there was no pretext
for severing relations with the PA. Olmert believed
differently: as soon as the parliament has been sworn
in, power has been handed over in the PA.... Olmert's
bigger problem is on the internal Israeli front. He
refuses to send a message to the public that the rise
of Hamas is a national disaster.... According to the
stormy reaction of the Hamas leaders to Israel's
decisions, Olmert presumes that at least in the
territories they have produced the necessary
impression. Olmert is not Sharon. He does not have a
reserve of decades of fighting the Palestinians at his
disposal. Sharon could allow himself to show restraint
where necessary. Olmert is determined to continue to
restrain himself, despite the fact that it is not
certain that he can allow himself to do so."

II. "Diet Instead of Wisdom"

Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized
(February 20): "It is not realistic to think about
separating Hamas rule from the Palestinian people, or
about starving government institutions while sending
humanitarian assistance directly to the population.
The Palestinians chose their leadership democratically,
and any such separation is arrogant and has no chance.
The unsuccessful comments by Dov Weisglass -- whose
position and source of authority in the present
government is difficult to understand -- regarding the
need to put the Palestinian nation on a diet, but not
to starve it, symbolizes more than anything the
humiliating way in which Israel relates to the
Palestinians, which was one of the factors in Hamas's
rise to power. It is unnecessary and degrading to
recommend a diet to a hungry and unemployed nation, in
addition to which Israel is still responsible for
preventing hunger in all parts of the West Bank that it
controls as an occupying power. At this stage Hamas is
acting more responsibly than the Israeli government.
Its representatives speak of a new era, of a transition
from terror to politics, of continued opposition to
occupation via other means, and of aspirations to a
long-term hudna (cease-fire)."



III. "Stop Aiding Hamas"

The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post
editorialized (February 21): "In its January 30
statement, the Quartet linked its continued funding of
the PA to a Palestinian leadership 'commitment to the
principles of nonviolence, recognition of Israel, and
acceptance of previous agreements and obligations,
including the road map'.... The trouble is that the
international community, often with Israel's
participation, has a long history of financially
supporting the Palestinian national project almost
regardless of the form it takes, the goals it endorses,
and the means it chooses. Why should Hamas believe
things have changed? This is not a question of timing
but of substance. It is a question of whether
Palestinian statehood is, as President George W. Bush
declared in June 2002, conditional on the Palestinians
choosing to create a lawful, peaceful democracy rather
than an aggressive terrorist state. The Palestinian
people, it is widely argued despite the landslide
electoral support for Hamas, wants the former. If so,
the international community will be betraying that
Palestinian people, not to mention Israel and its own
interests, if it does not hold the PA leadership to the
full requirements of democracy and peace."

IV. "Iran Is Not Here"

Columnist Amos Gilboa wrote in popular, pluralist
Maariv (February 20): "The main reason for the low
Iranian aid [to Hamas in the past] was the relationship
between the two, which was never characterized by
strategic relations, but rather by suspicion and
maintaining a distance. First, because Hamas
maintained its independence and its agenda was utterly
different than that of Iran's. It also had no interest
in becoming an Iranian protectorate. Now, ostensibly,
the potential has been created for a change in the
relationship, but I don't think this is to the extent
that a strategic alliance will be forged between them.
Hamas will have a definite interest in maintaining its
ties with the Arab states, headed by Saudi Arabia and
the Gulf emirates, which will continue to help it
unless it becomes an Iranian satellite. Secondly, Hamas
belongs to the Sunni stream of Islam, whereas the
Iranians are Shiites. There is a difference in
principle between Hamas and Hizbullah, which is Shiite
and recognizes the supreme authority of the top Iranian
religious leader, and whose leaders trained in Iran.
Moreover, Iran is known to be quite stingy when it
comes to handing out money."

JONES