ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

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SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

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SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT:
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1. Mideast


2. Iran

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Key stories in the media:
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The media reported that last night the Israel Air Force bombed the
house of Hamas parliamentarian Khalil al-Haya in Gaza. He was
slightly injured in the attack, but eight others including seven
members of his family were killed, and 13 people were wounded.
Shortly after the attack, the IAF struck a suspected rocket
manufacturing facility, killing a ninth man. Palestinian sources
said the facility was a stone mason's workshop. In total, 13
Palestinians were killed in Gaza Sunday by the IDF, and more than 15
rockets were launched from Gaza at Sderot and the western Negev.
The media reported that on Saturday 10 Palestinians were killed in
IAF strikes. On Sunday the security cabinet authorized the IDF to
intensify air attacks on the Gaza Strip and targeted assassinations
of senior Hamas activists. Ha'aretz quoted GOI sources in Jerusalem
as saying that the cabinet decision called for assassinations of
leaders of the military wing of Hamas, not the political wing. The
sources were quoted as saying that al-Haya's name had not been
mentioned in the meeting. The Jerusalem Post reported that on
Sunday Hamas political leaders in the Gaza Strip involved in
terrorism became targets after the security cabinet granted the IDF
a green light to strike at terror chiefs. Ha'aretz cited the belief
of sources in the IDF that the steps taken so far will not deter
Hamas and that the organization will continue to launch rockets at
Sderot. Leading media reported that Strategic Affairs Minister
Avigdor Lieberman told his cabinet colleagues that the decision to
target Hamas terrorists was an important first step toward
eradicating Hamas. Israel Radio reported that PA Chairman
[President] Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh have
urged the international community to help put an end to Israel's
military strikes.

On Sunday Ha'aretz reported that the Foreign Ministry is putting
together a plan to station an international force on the Philadelphi
route in Rafah to stop weapons smuggling from Sinai to the Gaza
Strip. Israel believes that such smuggling is strengthening Hamas
in Gaza, and stopping it will be the key to improving security. On
Sunday The Jerusalem Post quoted senior GOI officials as saying on
Saturday that the cabinet might support Fatah to keep Hamas from
taking compete control of the Gaza Strip.

On Sunday Ha'aretz reported that the US is pressing Israel to help
bolster security forces in the Gaza Strip that are loyal to Abbas.
Ha'aretz said that Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, the US security
coordinator, recently discussed the function of the pro-Abbas
Presidential Guard and National Security forces with senior Israeli
officials. According to Ha'aretz, the Americans believe that
strengthening Abbas loyalists and deploying them in friction points
along the north of the strip and the Philadelphi route in Rafah will
eventually improve the security situation. Yediot reported that
Israel declined Hamas's offer to exchange Palestinian prisoners for
many Israeli-Arab security detainees. The newspaper quoted Israeli
security sources as saying that Hamas wants to show solidarity with
Israeli Arabs and to drive a wedge between them and Israel. Yediot
dubbed the proposed deal an intervention in Israel's domestic
affairs.


In its lead story (bylined by Zeev Schiff),Ha'aretz reported that
Washington has given Israel the green light to accept Syrian
President Bashar Assad's call for peace talks, in a change of
position accompanied by several preconditions. According to
Ha'aretz, the Bush administration has given Israel permission to
discuss the future of the Golan Heights, security arrangements, and
Israeli-Syrian peace accords if it agrees to talks with Syria.
However, Washington has reportedly stipulated that Israel must not
agree to any negotiations, even indirectly, on the United States'
positions, or on the future of Lebanon. Furthermore, Israel must
not make promises to Syria regarding US policy. Washington will
deal directly with Syria on these matters. Lebanon would also not
be discussed in negotiations between Syria and Israel.

Ha'aretz quoted Vice PM Shimon Peres as saying on Sunday, during a
panel debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the World
Economic Forum in Jordan, that Israel will present a
counter-proposal to the Arab League's peace initiative. He was
quoted as saying that Israel's formal proposal would take into
account the details of the Arab plan, which calls for a full Israeli
withdrawal from territory captured in the 1967 Six-Day War in return
for normalization with the Arab world. Peres was quoted as saying
that the proposal would also outline Israel's opposing position.
Ha'aretz quoted Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa as saying
that the league would be interested in such a proposal.

On Sunday The Jerusalem Post reported that Muhammad Larijani, an
Iranian politician and scientists whose brother Ali is his country's
top nuclear envoy, told the newspaper in Jordan on Friday that
Tehran was not bent on wiping Israel out and that his President has
been misunderstood and misreported when purportedly expressing this
genocidal ambition. The Jerusalem Post quoted a high-ranking IDF
officer as saying over the weekend that Israel still maintained its
assessment that Tehran would have a nuclear bomb only by the end of
the decade.

Ha'aretz and The Jerusalem Post reported that the Shin Bet considers
itself authorized to use surveillance techniques that violate
privacy, such as wiretaps, when activity that "sabotages the state's
Jewish character" is carried out, even if this activity is not
illegal. The security service made this assertion in a letter sent
on Sunday by its head, Yuval Diskin, to the Association for Civil
Rights in Israel and Adalah - the Legal Center for Arab Minority
Rights in Israel. The letter, sent in response to a query from
those organizations, was approved by Attorney General Menachem
Mazuz.

Leading media reported that today EU foreign policy chief Javier
Solana will meet with FM Tzipi Livni in Sderot.

On Sunday Makor Rishon-Hatzofe reported that the US has decided to
transfer to Israel USD 205 million for the development of an
anti-missile system. Some of that aid, approximately USD 25
million, will be allocated to pay for continued improvements of the
Arrow missile system, and another USD 40 million will be allocated
for the development of the Stunner weapons system that is geared to
intercept tactical rockets. The decision was approved on Saturday
by the US Congress at the request of the US administration. Makor
Rishon-Hatzofe wrote that Malam, a subsidiary of Israel Aerospace
Industries, is involved in improving the Arrow missile so that it is
better suited to intercept the advanced systems in place on Iranian
Shihab 3 and other ballistic missiles.

Media reported that on Saturday five Palestinians were killed in
Hamas-Fatah clashes.

The Jerusalem Post reported that the US Department of Commerce has
imposed a civil penalty on Delaware Cooper US, Inc., for violating
legal restrictions against complying with the Arab boycott.



Yediot reported that key Labor Party leadership contender MK Ami
Ayalon is mulling his party's ongoing participation in the
government, as he would supervise it from the outside. Ayalon had
declared that he would not sit in an Olmert government.

On Sunday Yediot and The Jerusalem Post reported that leading
Israeli and Palestinian businessmen met in Jordan on Friday to
launch the "Israeli-Palestinian Business Council," which they say
aims to bolster "reason and dialogue" and "economic revitalization"
and to press politicians to end the conflict.

Ha'aretz and The Jerusalem Post repotted that later this week (on
Thursday, according to The Jerusalem Post) PM Ehud Olmert will hold
his first meeting with a task force on implementing the Winograd
Commission's structural recommendations. The panel, whose member
come from both within and outside the government, will be chaired by
Amnon LIpkin-Shahak, a former minister and IDF chief of staff.
Yediot cited Lipkin-Shahak's admission that he has not read the
entire Winograd report.

Ha'aretz wrote that the fear of being murdered has become the
primary preoccupation of journalists in the Gaza Strip, replacing
their concern that they may be kidnapped.

Israel Radio reported that senior New York Times columnist Thomas
Friedman has recommended that the US negotiate with Hamas.

The Jerusalem Post cited the human rights group Gisha, the Legal
Center for Freedom of Movement, as saying on Sunday that academics
and university should protest the GOI's restrictions on Palestinian
university students while Israel fights a proposed academic boycott
by British universities.

Leading media reported that on Sunday around 50 people were killed a
Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon in clashes between the
Lebanese Army and a Palestinian organization.

Ha'aretz reported that in two weeks the UN Economic Commission for
Europe (UNECE) will meet for the first time in Israel. The topic of
the conference to be held in Tel Aviv from June 5-8 is: "Knowledge
Sharing and Capacity Building on Promoting Successful Public-Private
Partnerships in the UNECE Region." Senior officials and ministers
will attend from the US, Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Germany
and France; as well as senior bankers and executives. This is the
first time that the UN body has chosen to meet in Israel to advance
economic issues, according to attorney Yehuda Raveh, one of the
coordinators of the meeting. Among the topics to be discussed are
large infrastructure projects built as public-private partnerships
(PPP). Israel is now planning and building USD 7 billion of such
infrastructure projects, with another USD 7 billion expected soon.
Such investments reached USD 100 billion in Eastern Europe in the
past seven years.

The Jerusalem Post reported that a new subcommittee of the Knesset's
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee has been tasked with
confronting the civilian issued faced by Israeli residents of the
West Bank.

The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli 8th to 11th graders of the
ORT educational network have created a Web site with the purpose of
educating students around the globe on news and life in Israel --
"Eye 2 Israel" (www.israel1.org).

On Sunday Yediot reported that the Housing and Construction Ministry
is giving a special "gift" to the community of Black Hebrews in
Israel: a new and permanent housing community that will be comprised
of 282 housing units in the Mamshit area of Dimona.


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1. Mideast:
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Summary:
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Diplomatic correspondent Ben Caspit wrote on page one of the
popular, pluralist Maariv: "At the end of the day, only the IDF will
have to enter, go from house to house and disarm Hamas."

Liberal op-ed writer Yael Gewirtz commented in the lead editorial of
the mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "A dilly-dallying
government is better than a race in hell."

The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized: "Egypt
is rightly anxious about the establishment of an Iranian outpost on
Cairo's doorstep in Gaza. But it has contributed mightily to that
concern itself by failing to stop the arms flow."

Former Ambassador to the US, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and
former Minister of Defense Moshe Arens wrote in the independent,
left-leaning Ha'aretz: "The government's inaction is an exact
repetition of the mistakes of the Second Lebanon War.... This is
war, and you cannot fight a war based on dogmatic slogans."

Ha'aretz editorialized: "It evidently makes no difference which
party is in power, as long as the army serves the settlers rather
than the state."

Block Quotes:
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I. "Our Mission"

Diplomatic correspondent Ben Caspit wrote on page one of the
popular, pluralist Maariv (5/21): "There is no magic solution and no
instant formula. In the end, in two months, two years or seven
years, or after the next Qassam rocket that falls into a
kindergarten, we, and only we, will have to do the hard work.... The
Egyptians are burying their heads in the sand, the Jordanians are
praying, and at the end of the day, only the IDF will have to enter,
go from house to house and disarm Hamas. Irrespective of Right or
Left, without a great deal of options and with a large number of
casualties, this will be a purely Israeli mission. It is possible
that it will be followed by a commission of inquiry, for that is the
way we are, but there is no commission that can solve this problem
without facing it head on, the way things used to be done. There is
no other way."

II. "Time For Realism"

Liberal op-ed writer Yael Gewirtz commented in the lead editorial of
the mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (5/21): "We have
forgotten about the increase in terror that actually took place when
the IDF was fully active in Gaza; we have forgotten the goals of the
fighting that were declared after the abduction of Gilad Shalit; we
have forgotten that Qassam rockets have continued to fall.... In the
current shameful situation, and considering the disgraceful
condition of our leader, it would be better for the Prime Minister
and his colleague to proclaim that Israel does not possess a
realistic solution that is preferable to those that were declared
'un-implementable' at the end of the previous fighting. A
dilly-dallying government is better than a race in hell."



III. "No More Arms to Gaza"

The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (5/21):
"Bitter experience has ... proved that Fatah cannot be relied upon
to keep Hamas at bay -- just as the Egyptians have proved their
incapability or disinclination to foil the massive gunrunning into
Gaza on which Hamas thrives. If Egypt now bewails Hamas's growing
power, it has only itself to blame. It allowed the Rafah border to
become Hamas's military lifeline. For Egypt to now seek to
reinforce Fatah through the same conduit is to compound the problem,
not solve it. Egypt is rightly anxious about the establishment of
an Iranian outpost on Cairo's doorstep in Gaza. But it has
contributed mightily to that concern itself by failing to stop the
arms flow. What Israel needs to do now is look after its own
interests.... Hamas must be confronted wisely and effectively. Its
armed men and those who encourage and dispatch them must be given no
rest. When the extremists are confronted, the moderates will be
strengthened."

IV. "Forgot Everything, Learned Nothing"

Former Ambassador to the US, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and
former Minister of Defense Moshe Arens wrote in the independent,
left-leaning Ha'aretz (5/21): "First, priority must be given to the
protection of Israel's civilian population; that comes before
anything else. That is the mission of the IDF. Second, the battle
must be taken into enemy territory. In this case it means the army
taking over a strip of 5 to 8 kilometers in the northern Gaza
Strip.... The government's inaction is an exact repetition of the
mistakes of the Second Lebanon War. Not understanding that the only
way to suppress the launching of short-range rockets is for ground
forces to reach the launching sites, the Galilee was exposed to
Hizbullah rockets for over five weeks, and the war was lost. Now
the same mistake is being repeated. Nothing has been learned.
Then, because our ministers' minds were being obfuscated by the
stupid slogan that 'We shall not again get stuck in the Lebanese
quagmire,' and now, the slogan is 'We shall not return to Gaza.'
This is war, and you cannot fight a war based on dogmatic slogans."


V. "A Kind of Military Coup"

Ha'aretz editorialized (5/21): "While [Israeli cabinet] ministers
speak about a two-state solution, a kind of military coup is taking
place in the West Bank, in which the IDF is turning the area into
the state of the settlers. While the Palestinian population is
being suffocated, the settlements are flourishing.... One shocking
example of this democratic crisis is the army's disregard of court
decisions regarding the route of the separation fence.... In light
of all this, Amir Peretz's talk about dismantling West Bank
settlement outposts, like Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni's promises to
reach a new agreement on dividing the land between Israel and
Palestine, sounds emptier than ever. It evidently makes no
difference which party is in power, as long as the army serves the
settlers rather than the state."

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2. Iran:
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Summary:
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The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "It is not too
late to stop [Iran's nuclear program], with the help of effective
and painful sanctions. But these must be imposed swiftly and
firmly. Time is of the essence."




Block Quotes:
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"Painful Sanctions For Iran"

The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (5/20):
"Through [the continuation of its nuclear program,] Iran is defying
the international community and transmitting a clear message: We are
determined to continue developing our nuclear program and are
thumbing our nose at the world.... It seems the world no longer
perceives the demand for sanctions as Israeli paranoia, or another
manipulation by U.S. President George W. Bush's administration....
Even world leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, seem
to recognize the obligation incumbent on them to prevent Iran from
obtaining nuclear weapons. It is not too late to stop it, with the
help of effective and painful sanctions. But these must be imposed
swiftly and firmly. Time is of the essence."

JONES