ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

UNCLAS TEL AVIV 002880 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: -------------- Iran -------------- Key stories in the media: -------------- Israel Radio quoted Palestinian sources as saying that last night Hamas handed over an Al Qaeda terrorist to Egypt. In exchange, Egypt let Hamas and Islamic Jihad members cross into Gaza. Over the weekend leading media quoted a US official as saying on Saturday that the US is likely to hold its Middle East meeting in Annapolis, Maryland. Abbas was quoted as saying on Sunday in Cairo that more than 36 countries are expected to participate in the fall meeting, which he said "makes it necessary for us to arrive there with a clear document that will 'pave the way' for future talks on the details of a final agreement." However, Ha'aretz quoted Palestinian sources as saying that it is doubtful whether Syria, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia will attend the meeting. On Sunday Yediot cited assessments in the US that Syria will participate. Makor Rishon-Hatzofe quoted Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa as saying that Syria will take part in the meeting. Leading media reported that PM Ehud Olmert and PA Chairman [President] Mahmoud Abbas are scheduled to meet on Wednesday. On Sunday Ha'aretz reported that Israel fears Palestinian positions may be hardening ahead of the first meeting between Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams which will work on a joint statement ahead of the November meeting. Today Ha'aretz quoted a senior Palestinian source as saying that the PA will publicly call for the involvement of an international body to oversee the implementation of agreements with Israel on economic and political reforms in the PA. According to the same source, who is involved in the negotiations, Israel is expected to accept the participation of a "third party" in the region. The senior official was quoted as saying that the PA would agree to a formula in which the international body would function in a similar fashion as UNIFIL. The makeup of the international body and its authority will be determined during the summit, but an agreement may be reached even sooner, according to the senior Palestinian source. The senior Palestinian official made it clear that from the point of view of the PA, the involvement of the US alone will not be enough. He was quoted as saying that the new body will not only be involved in matters pertaining to negotiations, but will include representatives from other countries, like Japan, the Arab League and the EU. On Sunday The Jerusalem Post reported that Chairman Abbas told the newspaper that an offer similar to the one proposed at Camp David in 2000 (92 percent of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) is not enough. He insisted on the pre-1967 borders. On Sunday Maariv reported that "very high-ranking" political officials in Jerusalem told Abbas that Israel will not announce an historic concession on any of the three core issues of the conflict even at the price of having the international conference fail. Ha'aretz reported that Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter told the newspaper this weekend that the Samaria and Judea (Shai) [i.e. West Bank] District Police will move its headquarters to the controversial E-1 area, which links Jerusalem with the West Bank settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim, by the end of this year, regardless of whether or not the US approves. All media reported that on Sunday thousands of settlers hiked to five empty hilltops in the West Bank and created five new outposts. The Jerusalem Post quoted Datya Yitzhaki, one of the organizers of the event, as saying: "It is our answer to [Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice," referring to the fall meeting. The media quoted the IDF as saying that it was planning to evacuate the activists from the hilltops, but that evacuations might be postponed -- according to The Jerusalem Post, because of counterterrorism operations being carried out in the West Bank. Leading media reported that Israel is to set free 87 Palestinian security prisoners today. Ha'aretz and The Jerusalem Post reported that Hamas has called yet again for a cease-fire (hudna) with Israel. Ha'aretz said that a GOI spokesman dismissed Hamas's statement. The Jerusalem Post reported that the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned on Sunday that if Israel carries out its threatened sanctions after declaring Gaza "hostile territory," it would likely create a humanitarian crisis. Ha'aretz reported that on Sunday Syria denied that military activity is taking place at the Dir al-Zur research farm, which was the target of an Israeli bombing raid in Syria about a month ago, according to a report last week in Yediot. On Sunday Maariv cited the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida as saying the Ali-Reza Asgari, the Iranian general who defected to the West, provided information that assisted Israel in its attack on Syria. The Jerusalem Post cited a denial by the Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry Lands in Syria. Over the weekend major media reported that on Saturday Syrian Vice President Farouk Shara accused Israel of planning to attack his country, rejecting reports that the alleged IAF earlier this month targeted a nuclear facility. On Sunday leading media cited quoted Shara as saying on Saturday that his country does not want war with Israel "in the distant or near future." Over the weekend leading media reported that the UN Security Council will not vote on imposing tougher sanctions on Iran before November at the earliest, when the IAEA is expected to submit its report on Iran's nuclear weapons program. On Sunday Ha'aretz and The Jerusalem Post reported that on Friday Britain's University and College Union announced that it is dropping its controversial plans to boycott Israeli universities, after deciding that a boycott would be illegal. On Sunday Ha'aretz quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying that Israel is concerned by the situation in Myanmar, and that it urges the government to demonstrate restraint from harming demonstrators. The Jerusalem Post cited The New Yorker as saying that the US plans for an attack on Iran are insufficient for Israel. Major media quoted former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton as saying that he sees no alternative to a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. On Sunday Ha'aretz reported that Israel is considering downgrading its relations with Venezuela in light of the extremist anti-Israel line taken by the country's government under President Hugo Chavez. Israel is concerned about the growing alliance between Chavez and his Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Maariv reported that the Interior Ministry is examining a USG offer to provide Israel with biometric passports, whose bearers will not need visas to travel to the U.S. The newspaper quoted Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit as saying that the nature of the US proposal is not clear, but that he "would be happy to exempt [Israeli] citizens from that bother." The Jerusalem Post reported that the ministry is initiating legislation to introduce biometric passports by the end of 2008. Ha'aretz and Yediot reported that Maj. Gen. Dan Harel is scheduled to take over today as deputy IDF chief of staff from Moshe Kaplinsky. Makor Rishon-Hatzofe reported on the inauguration in Richardson, TX, of the Texas-Israel Chamber of Commerce. Israel's Consul-General to the Southwest Asher Yashar and Texas Governor Rick Perry attended the ceremony Makor Rishon-Hatzofe quoted Bassam Abu Sharif, former senior adviser to Yasser Arafat, as saying on Sunday that in the 1970s Anwar Sadat proposed that ARAFAT join him in a war against Israel, promising him a Palestinian state. On Sunday The Jerusalem Post reported that in a meeting in New York with representatives of the American Jewish community, Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan rejected allegations that the massacre of Armenians during World War II was an act of genocide. On Sunday The Jerusalem Post cited an AP report that President George Bush has been asked to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously to Prof. Liviu Librescu, an Israeli Holocaust survivor who died trying to save his students during the mass killings at Virginia Tech in April. Leading media reported that industrialist Stef Wertheimer and his family are at number 10 -- the highest position for the six Israelis on Forbes Magazine's list of the Middle East's 20 richest people. Maariv ran a feature on a book recently published President Bush's daughter Jenna, which Maariv says is bound to boost the popularity of George and Laura Bush. -------------- Iran: -------------- Summary: -------------- The Director of the Interdisciplinary Center's Global Research in International Affairs Center, columnist Barry Rubin, wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post: "Ahmadinejad has not yet achieved the status of being equivalent to Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin as the world's leading threat to peace and freedom; but he is certainly trying to rise to this level." Chief Economic Editor Sever Plotker opined in the mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "For 95 percent of Americans, the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was superfluous, ridiculous and humiliating.... Just a few days after the end of the Iranian President's visit to the United States, his demands are beginning to filter down into the discussions of intelligent, progressive Americans, those five percent who made the effort to listen to him and whose influence is great." Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. "Ahmadinejad's Agenda" The Director of the Interdisciplinary Center's Global Research in International Affairs Center, columnist Barry Rubin, wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (10/1): "Is [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad] a new Hitler, or a leader with understandable grievances who should be engaged in dialogue?.... [He] seems to be a true believer in the Iranian Islamist ideology, which sees international policy as a struggle between the true followers of the deity and the allies of Satan. Ahmadinejad's goals, then, are his control over Iran' Iran's control over the Persian Gulf area (especially Iraq),and even world domination, in roughly that order. Ahmadinejad is not a unique phenomenon in modern Middle East history.... [He] has not yet achieved the status of being equivalent to Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin as the world's leading threat to peace and freedom; but he is certainly trying to rise to this level." II. "Isn't There Something in What Ahmadinejad Says?" Chief Economic Editor Sever Plotker opined in the mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (9/30): "For 95 percent of Americans, the visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was superfluous, ridiculous and humiliating.... So does that mean we have nothing to worry about, that Ahmadinejad did not conquer America? There is something to worry about. Ahmadinejad wove his messages cunningly, in a web of lies, half-truths, and truths, and with part of this the American enlisted Bush-hating elite can identify. And this is more or less what it is now saying to itself, without, of course, deviating from the politically correct. The following statements were mostly taken from articles and columns which appeared recently in the American press:.... 'He is ... quite right when he says that the Palestinians have paid the price of the Holocaust.... Yes, we know the story about wiping Israel off the map, and we have checked it out. From the Iranian delegation we were told that their president did not say "to wipe Israel off the map," but "to wipe the name of Israel off the map." This is a very, very big difference. The expression "to wipe off the name of Israel," served as a metaphor meaning to change the character of Israel, that at long last it should be a state of all its citizens, including the Palestinian Diaspora. Ahmadinejad offers the just solution for the Jewish problem, a state shared by them with the Palestinians... We are not a party to the nuclear horror propaganda against him. What's the problem? Is America alone entitled [to have nuclear weapons]? And as for the blood-count, our Bush is a bigger murderer. How many people has the president of Iran killed? Amnesty International says a few hundreds. That is a grave infringement of human rights, especially against homosexuals. But ladies and gentlemen, let us keep a sense of proportion. How many people has Bush murdered in Iraq? Hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of thousands! Bush is a war criminal. Ahmadinejad is definitely not the satanic character drawn by the Jewish- and Zionist-controlled media -- oops, that was a slip of the tongue.' Just a few days after the end of the Iranian President's visit to the United States, his demands are beginning to filter down into the discussions of intelligent, progressive Americans, those five percent who made the effort to listen to him and whose influence is great." JONES