ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

UNCLAS TEL AVIV 001624 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 ICD LONDON ALSO FOR HKANONA AND POL PARIS ALSO FOR POL ROME FOR MFO SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: OPRC KMDR IS SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION -------------- SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: -------------- ¶1. 40th Anniversary of the Six-Day War ¶2. Mideast -------------- Key stories in the media: -------------- Israel Radio quoted Palestinian sources as saying that PM Ehud Olmert will meet on Thursday in Jericho with PA Chairman (President) Mahmoud Abbas. Israel Radio reported that the PA government has demanded that the calm with Israel be restored -- also in the West Bank. The radio said that on Monday the Palestinian government rejected Abbas's request that a truce in the West Bank be postponed by one month. Ha'aretz quoted a GOI source as saying on Monday that resuming negotiations with Syria is not on the agenda for a scheduled meeting between Olmert and President Bush in Washington in two weeks. Rather, the two are expected to discuss the diplomatic process with the Palestinians, the Arab Peace Initiative and ways of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Ha'aretz noted that some of Olmert's advisors are concerned that an initiative to renew peace talks with Syria might undermine Israel's relations with the US. However, the newspaper said that IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi strongly supports renewed talks with Syria, with the goal of distancing Damascus from its alliance with Iran and contributing to a new regional order in which Syria would forge closer relations with moderate Arab states. The Jerusalem Post reported that Defense Minister Peretz told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday that, while the Syrian calls for negotiations must be carefully examined, the IDF cannot afford to lower its defense along Israel's northern border. This morning Israel Radio quoted Syrian MP Muhammad Habash as saying on Al Jazeera-TV that Israel is planning to start a war with Syria in the summer. The Jerusalem Post reported that Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, who is in charge of the strategic dialogue with the US, told the newspaper on Monday that there is a 50 percent chance that sanctions will convince Tehran to halt its military nuclear program. Mofaz is due to leave today for Washington for talks on the issue with senior US officials. All media marked and commented on the anniversary of the outbreak of the Six-Day War 40 years ago today. Akiva Eldar of Ha'aretz recounted that David Kimche, then an IDF Intelligence officer who would later become director-general of the Foreign Ministry, and Dan Bavli, who was a reserve officer, handed the GOI a document proposing a two-state solution, but that the state chose to ignore it. Makor Rishon-Hatzofe reported that this week small left-wing groups plan to disrupt life in Israel and harm the IDF to mark the 40th anniversary of the war. The Jerusalem Post reported that historian Michael Oren told the newspaper on Monday that those who call the Six-Day War a disaster or a Pyrrhic victory are grossly mistaken, because they overlook the fact that Israel was not destroyed. In the interview, Oren said that his research of documents in Arab countries has revealed clearly that the Arabs had planned to destroy Israel. The Jerusalem Post noted that, although this seems obvious to persons sympathetic to Israel who hold to the traditional story of the Arabs' responsibility for the outbreak of war, the intervening decades have seen the promulgation of a myth that Israel was not really in danger. Ha'aretz reported that, on July 16, 2006, four days after the Second Lebanon War started, Israel's National Security Council recommended that the Israeli offensive against Hizbullah be wrapped up as quickly as possible, as most of the possible objectives had already been met. In retrospect, however, Ha'aretz noted that it is evident that no serious discussion was ever held over recommendations to shorten the war. Ha'aretz also reported that on Monday the head of the research division of Military Intelligence, Brig. Gen. Yossi Baidatz, told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Hizbullah was rebuilding its forces south of the Litani River in Lebanon, despite the presence of international peacekeepers in the area. Baidatz's remarks apparently contradict comments made by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at a speech to the Knesset last week, in which he said that "the situation in southern Lebanon has changed completely" since the summer 2006 war. Ha'aretz reported that on Monday Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann ordered Justice Ministry officials to draft a new version of a law that exempts the state from compensating Palestinians for damage caused in the course of non-combat activities in the territories. If such a law passes, it will mark the first time the Knesset has reenacted legislation that was overturned by the High Court of Justice. The court overturned the original law, known as the Intifada Law, in December 2006, four years after its enactment. Friedmann has asked that the government-sponsored legislation be ready within the next two weeks, even if its passage will also require a change in the Basic Law. For the new Intifada law to survive judicial review, the Basic Law on Human Dignity and Freedom will likely need to be amended -- also for the first time. On the other hand, Ha'aretz wrote that Friedmann might prefer to revise the Basic Law on the Judiciary to explicitly state that the High Court has no authority to rule on the constitutionality of the new law. It is unclear whether the Knesset has the authority to pass a previously overturned law without changing the wording, or whether it must adhere to the guidelines set by the court. It is also uncertain if the High Court would automatically overturn the legislation if it passed without any changes. Ha'aretz reported that on Monday, speaking to his supporters, Knesset Member Ami Ayalon, who is running neck and neck with former PM Ehud Barak to become head of the Labor Party, left open the possibility that Labor will stay in the government if he is elected party leader. He was quoted as saying that the decision would be made by the party's institutions. Ha'aretz said that the outgoing Labor Chairman, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, who is backing Ayalon, hopes to stay in the government. Ha'aretz wrote that Peretz wants a cabinet post that will involve him in socioeconomic issues. Ha'aretz reported that on Monday Shas Party Chairman Eli Yishai told Vice PM Shimon Peres that the party will support his bid for the presidency, having gotten the nod to do so from its spiritual leader, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef. Yishai reportedly told Peres that Yosef would instruct all 12 of the ultra-Orthodox party's Knesset members to vote for him in the presidential balloting. Yediot, which filed a similar story, found that in a first round of voting among the Knesset members, former Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin would garner 49 votes, Vice PM Shimon Peres 48, and Labor MK Colette Avital 23. According to Yediot, Peres would win in a second round with 66 votes vs. 54 to Rivlin. The Jerusalem Post reported that on Monday an alliance of Jerusalem Arab organizations launched an international campaign to create an independent municipality for Arab residents of East Jerusalem. Leading media commented on a limited military operation and arrests by the IDF in the Gaza Strip. This morning Israel Radio quoted Palestinian sources as saying that IDF troops wounded Palestinian youths in the West Bank. Ha'aretz reported that the Shin Bet will tell a Knesset committee today that it has halved its reliance on the special detention authority it was granted last year. According to the order, which functions as a temporary law, the Shin Bet is allowed to hold detainees for four days before they receive a hearing. The order in question is a temporary provision designed to allow the Shin Bet to detain Gaza citizens even after the disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005 and the subsequent abolition of military rule there by the IDF. Ha'aretz reported that an internal report by the IDF's Civil Administration in the territories found that at least 25 percent of the structures built by Israelis in the West Bank's Area C (full Israeli control) were constructed on private Arab-owned land. According to the report, only 0.5 percent of the illegal structures were constructed on land registered to Jewish owners. The data also indicate that Israel is practicing a discriminatory policy: It is more lenient on illegal construction by Jews than by Palestinians. Although the Jewish population in the area is four times larger than the Arab population, the authorities have demolished three times as many Palestinian-controlled structures as Jewish-controlled structures. Ha'aretz also reported that the report found that the Civil Administration had finished mapping only nine illegal outposts in the West Bank, containing 131 structures, by mid-2006. Leading media reported that the IDF and police will provide security for a Peace Now rally today in Hebron, near the center of the Jewish community there, to protest 40 years of settlements. The Jerusalem Post reported that, in a debate among Democratic Party US presidential candidates on Sunday, New Mexico Governor and former US Permanent Representative to the UN Bill Richardson backtracked on his earlier suggestion that former Secretary of State James Baker would be his Middle East envoy and instead suggested former President Bill Clinton The Jerusalem Post reported that on Monday the Justice Ministry charged that Amnesty International's report on the treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank was "immoral" and "inaccurate." The Jerusalem Post reported that former IDF Intelligence head Maj. Gen. (Res.) Aharon Zeevi-Farkash called on Monday, during a conference at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, for the establishment of an international "intelligence pool" to combat Al-Qaida. He was quoted as saying that countries like the US and the UK need to start to "view their Muslim populations differently" and as a potential threat. The Jerusalem Post reported that expanding the powers of the European monitors at the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt was among the topics discussed when senior EU and Israeli officials met in Jerusalem on Monday for the annual EU-Israel Association meeting. Ha'aretz reported that Egypt will host representatives of the major Palestinian factions later this month for talks in a cease-fire agreement that Egyptian officials are busy preparing. Ha'aretz quoted Acting Israel Tax Authority Director General Yehuda Nasradishi as saying on Monday that compensation for direct damage from the fighting around communities surrounding the Gaza Strip -- which he estimated at 826 million shekels (approx. USD 203.5 million) would be paid only on the basis of claims filed, and not automatically, as was the case for damages from the Second Lebanon War. Nasradishi was quoted as saying that 626 claims have been filed for damages sustained around Gaza. Ha'aretz reported on a drama series on Iranian state TV that carries the message that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a "European problem" and that Israeli Jews should therefore return to their original homelands on that continent. Yediot reported that the police have recommended that Finance Minister Abraham Hirchson be indicted for theft and embezzlement. Leading media reported that the police have recommended the Shula Zaken, PM Olmert's former chief of staff, be indicted in an alleged bribery affair. Maariv prominently commented on a possible resumption of the Cold War, this time between the US and Russia. Ha'aretz reported that the American hedge fund Cerberus-Gabriel is resuming its bid to obtain a permit from the Bank of Israel to control Bank Leumi, Israel's second-largest bank. Ha'aretz presented the results of Tel Aviv University's Peace Index poll conducted among Israeli Jews on May 28-30: -Only 37 percent are currently convinced by PM Olmert's claim that there is no immediate and total way to stop the Qassam fire; 53.5 percent think he is mistaken. Indeed, 46 percent ascribe the leadership's decision not to launch a military operation in Gaza to the conclusions of the Winograd Commission's interim report (vs. 39 percent who do not believe this is the reason). - A large minority -- 42 percent -- favors reoccupying Gaza and staying there to make sure the fire is not resumed, while 48 percent oppose such a move. Sixty-three percent (vs. 28 percent),however, support a limited ground operation after which IDF forces would withdraw. The public is almost evenly divided between 47 percent who support holding direct negotiations with Hamas on stopping the rocket fire on Sderot, and 48 percent who oppose such negotiations. - Among those who generally support negotiations, 63 percent also favor direct contacts with Hamas on the rocket fire and only 33 percent are opposed to such talks. But among those who generally oppose contacts with the Palestinian Authority, only 18 percent favor negotiating with Hamas, compared with a majority of 56 percent who are opposed. - In any case, an overwhelming majority -- 76 percent -- of the Jewish public believe that Israel should not respond positively to Hamas's offer about ceasing IDF arrests of and strikes on its members in the West Bank in return for promises to stop the Qassam fire. The Jerusalem Post presented a poll released on Monday by James Zogby's Arab American Institute in conjunction with Americans For Peace Now, which shows strong support for a two-state solution among both American Arabs and Jews, and for a presidential candidate who would play an active role in the peace process if elected. -------------- ¶1. 40th Anniversary of the Six-Day War: -------------- Summary: -------------- Chief Economic Editor Sever Plotker wrote in the mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "Just like the name of the unforgettable [Israeli] book ... from 1967 -- 'Sorry We Won ' -- Israel in June 2007 looks like a country that is ashamed of everything that happened here 40 years ago. But had it happened differently, we would not be here today." The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized: "It is not the lack of a Palestinian state that perpetuates the war, but the war, and the rejection of Israeli sovereignty at its heart, that perpetuates the lack of a Palestinian state." Historian and columnist Tom Segev wrote in the independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz: "Those [Israelis belonging to] the 1967 generation did not appreciate the damage caused by the occupation -- among other things, to the fundamental ideological and moral values that gave birth to the country, and to its democratic fabric. This was the major failure of that generation." Palestinian affairs correspondent and far-left Palestinian sympathizer Amira Hass wrote in Ha'aretz: "Starting in 1991, Israel has been creating two kinds of expanses between the Mediterranean and the Jordan: a superior, open, developed and improved space for the Jews, and a shattered space tainted by intentional de-development for the Palestinians.... No wonder there is nostalgia for the occupation that existed before 1991!" Dr. Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator of the Palestine Liberation Organization, wrote in Ha'aretz: "If Israel fails to accept [the Arab League's] generous offer, we could lose the last chance for peace based on the two-state solution and might instead face a long bloody conflict." Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. "Had Things Happened Differently, We Wouldn't Be Here" Chief Economic Editor Sever Plotker wrote in the mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (6/5): "The [Six-Day] War was preceded by days of existential fear. The public in Israel was exposed to Nazi-like Arab propaganda, which threatened to kill, to annihilate, to destroy and to throw the Jews into the sea.... Forty years after the Six-Day War, Israel under the Olmert government is defeated in the public diplomacy battle, defeated in the politics of history and is incapable of eliciting even the most minimal air of national uplifting. Just like the name of the unforgettable [Israeli] book ... from 1967 -- 'Sorry We Won ' -- Israel in June 2007 looks like a country that is ashamed of everything that happened here 40 years ago. But had it happened differently, we would not be here today." II. "The War That Didn't End" The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (6/5): "Over the past 40 years, [the Six-Day War] victory has been transformed in international and even, to a large extent, in Israeli eyes into a burden and a mark of Cain. The besieged Israel of June 4, 1967 has, for some, become the besieger of the Palestinians. A nation, once threatened, is seen as an occupier. This transformation has contributed to and been exacerbated by an internal rift within our society, as symbolized by the poles of Peace Now and the settler movement. Both of these movements are now badly battered: the first destroyed by the wave of Palestinian suicide bombings that were the response to the Israeli offer of a Palestinian state, the second devastated both by war and peace agreements that convinced the public that the Palestinian population cannot be absorbed without destroying our society and democracy.... It is not the lack of a Palestinian state that perpetuates the war, but the war, and the rejection of Israeli sovereignty at its heart, that perpetuates the lack of a Palestinian state. Until this fundamental truth is absorbed and becomes the basis of international policy, the 1967 war, like all those before and after, will not be fully resolved." III. "What Was Forgotten That Morning" Historian and columnist Tom Segev wrote in the independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (6/5): "It cannot be said with certainty that had all Israelis agreed to withdraw from all the territories, all the Arabs would have agreed to make peace. But those of the 1967 generation did not appreciate the damage caused by the occupation -- among other things, to the fundamental ideological and moral values that gave birth to the country, and to its democratic fabric. This was the major failure of that generation. More and more Israelis say today that they do not believe in peace. Many among them are young.... The challenge they face is merely to manage the conflict in a better way than their parents did, so that life will be more tolerable. In view of the circumstances they are inheriting from their parents, that is no small task." IV. "In Praise of the Occupation" Palestinian affairs correspondent and far-left Palestinian sympathizer Amira Hass wrote in Ha'aretz (6/5): "The occupations brought about by the 1967 war accomplished one great thing: They reunited the majority of the Palestinian people within the boundaries of their homeland. For the first time in 19 years it was once again possible for Palestinians to live and experience together, as a group, the expanse between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.... [However,] starting in 1991, Israel has been creating two kinds of expanses between the Mediterranean and the Jordan: a superior, open, developed and improved space for the Jews, and a shattered space tainted by intentional de-development for the Palestinians.... No wonder there is nostalgia for the occupation that existed before 1991!" ¶V. "An Offer That Cannot Be Refused" Dr. Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator of the Palestine Liberation Organization, wrote in Ha'aretz (6/5): "Like all the nations of the world, we refuse to live under occupation or any other system that denies us our full civil and political rights. If Israel fails to accept [the Arab League's] generous offer, we could lose the last chance for peace based on the two-state solution and might instead face a long bloody conflict that will result in many victims on both sides -- something Israel can prevent if it begins to face the current realities of the new Middle East. In the life of every nation, there comes a time to face difficult and historic choices. Based on past experience, with a critical eye to the future and our commitment to future generations, the Arab world is choosing the path of peace, compromise and negotiation by extending its hand to you, the Israeli people. In order that we might see peace in our generation and secure a peaceful future for our children, let us together shape a new reality of peace in the Middle East." -------------- ¶2. Mideast: -------------- Summary: -------------- Deputy Managing Editor and right-wing columnist Caroline B. Glick wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post: "In contrast [to Woodrow Wilson,] Bush never completely matched his visionary rhetoric to his actual policies." Block Quotes: -------------- "Echoes of 1919" Deputy Managing Editor and right-wing columnist Caroline B. Glick wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (6/5): "While [the late US President Woodrow] Wilson's vision was unrealistic, he has to be credited for his unstinting devotion to it. In contrast, Bush never completely matched his visionary rhetoric to his actual policies. And today, increasingly abandoned by his supporters and undermined by his own advisers who reject his vision and insist on returning to fantasyland, Bush has apparently abandoned his own doctrine of war and peace.... While upholding Islam as a religion of peace, the administration courted Islamic preachers of war.... As for the Palestinians, Bush has opted to ignore Fatah's involvement in terrorism, its jihadist indoctrination of Palestinian society and its strategic collaboration with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah, Iran, and Syria. By upholding Fatah, Bush blocked all possibility that an alternative, liberal and democratic Palestinian leadership could emerge. The same pattern has held in Egypt.... As Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proclaims that the countdown to the next Holocaust has begun while actively waging war against the US and its allies on all available fronts, the catastrophe that will follow an American relapse into isolationism and appeasement is undeniable." JONES