ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

UNCLAS TEL AVIV 003181 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. Mideast ¶2. Turkey -------------- Key stories in the media: -------------- The Jerusalem Post quoted senior diplomatic officials as saying on Wednesday that it now seems unlikely that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will bring invitations to the Annapolis meeting when she arrives in Israel on Saturday night. Last week the officials had said that Rice would be arriving with a firm date for the meeting and invitations. Israel Radio reported that Assistant Secretary of State David Welch will arrive in Israel today for talks SIPDIS with FM Tzipi Livni and senior GOI officials, ahead of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's visit to the country. Ha'aretz's Web site reported that Livni and chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala) met on Wednesday without their staff. Ha'aretz reported that the IDF has been preparing a list of Israel's essential security needs in advance of the Annapolis meeting. The newspaper reported that the army will not commit to maps of borders and territories, as it did during prior talks on a final status agreement. Makor Rishon-Hatzofe reported that on Tuesday PA Chairman [President] Mahmoud Abbas called on Arab and Muslim states not to normalize relations with Israel. Citing the Canadian-Jewish Web site, Maariv's online service NRG reported that a high-ranking IDF officer told foreign journalists in a meeting in Toronto that Israel is capable of dealing the Iranian nuclear program a crushing blow, either destroying it or significantly damaging the reactors. Reporting on Tuesday's debate among Democratic candidates, Ha'aretz said that the Iranian nuclear program "has taken over the presidential race." The Jerusalem Post quoted Israeli defense officials as saying that the IDF needs more than 1 billion shekels (around USD 252 million) to complete the process of buying new gas masks and refurbishing millions of those being collected from the public. Ha'aretz and Israel Radio reported that a periodic report issued by the UN has, for the first time, specifically defined the Sheba Farms area based on recent cartographic work. The report also criticizes the rearmament of paramilitary groups in Lebanon, particularly Hizbullah. Israel Radio quoted UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as saying that several speeches by Hizbullah's leader Hassan Nasrallah in the past few months "seem to confirm ... Israeli claims" that Hizbullah possesses missiles capable of striking Tel Aviv. The Jerusalem Post reported that Dr. Rowan Williams, the visiting Archbishop of Canterbury, told the newspaper on Wednesday that socioeconomic hardships caused by the West Bank security barrier are contributing to the decline of the Christian population in the Holy Land. The newspaper noted that Dr. Williams did not mention other, long-standing explanations of the phenomenon, such as the growth in Islamic extremism. The Jerusalem Post quoted Isa Bajalia, an Arab-Evangelical pastor, as saying on Wednesday that he has been threatened by a Palestinian security official in Ramallah, and that he has fled to Jerusalem for safety. The Jerusalem Post and other media quoted Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai as saying in the Knesset on Wednesday: "The 2007 budget [for the security fence] is finished, and therefore the work is subsiding." The newspaper reported that after studying the issue, the Prime Minister's Office eventually agreed that the 2007 coffer for the barrier was empty. Electronic media reported that this morning nine Qassam rockets landed in Sderot and the western Negev. IDF Radio reported that the IDF killed four terrorists early Thursday morning in several encounters along the Gaza security fence. Leading media reported that on Wednesday afternoon border police prevented a terrorist attack at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, when they apprehended an 18-year-old Palestinian armed with two knives, an improvised handgun, and a suicide note. Makor Rishon-Hatzofe quoted Egyptian Electricity & Energy Minister Hassan Ahmed Younis as saying on Tuesday that in coming days Egypt will start selecting sites for nuclear power plants. Major media reported that on Wednesday the Knesset plenum passed in a preliminary reading the bill proposal banning Israelis who visited an enemy country from being elected to the Knesset. The Jerusalem Post printed an AP wire story that the Board of Immigration Appeals in Los Angeles has dismissed charges against a pair of Palestinian men -- members of the "LA eight" -- accused of terrorist ties, ending a 20-year government effort to deport them. Yediot quoted Meretz founder and former education minister Shulamit Aloni as saying in an interview with the Arabic-language weekly Ma' Al-Ahdat that Defense Minister Ehud Barak and former IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz should be put on trial at The Hague. Ha'aretz and Yediot reported that on Wednesday, in an interim ruling, the High Court of Justice ordered that a lot be reserved for an Arab couple in the Jewish community of Rakefet in the Galilee. The Jerusalem Post reported that on Wednesday Israeli and PA police teamed up to improve traffic safety in the West Bank. The Jerusalem Post reported that nearly three dozen US physicians are coming to Israel for a "grueling, five-day, state-of the art" course in emergency and trauma medicine. Ha'aretz ran a feature on retiring US Navy chaplain (Rabbi) Rear Admiral L. Harold Robinson. All media highlighted the ongoing strikes in the education system. Ha'aretz led with a report on budgetary constraints for drugs in the Health Ministry. -------------- ¶1. Mideast: -------------- Summary: -------------- Diplomatic correspondent Aluf Benn wrote in the independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz: "In the short time remaining until Annapolis, the negotiators should undergo an accelerated course and avoid the mistakes that caused their predecessors to fail." Liberal op-ed writer Yael Paz-Melamed commented in the popular, pluralist Maariv: "The settlers know they have nothing to worry about.... It turns out that the Americans do not really buy this bluff." Veteran journalist Evelyn Gordon wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post: "Dividing Jerusalem would have ruinous economic and security consequences without improving Israel's demographic situation a whit." Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. "You Can Learn It in a Negotiations Course" Diplomatic correspondent Aluf Benn wrote in the independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (11/1): "In the opinion [of American negotiations experts Profs. Jeanne Brett and Lee Thompson], the preferred approach to solving conflicts relies on finding and leveraging the interests of both parties. That enables give-and-take and increases the chances that the agreement will be implemented. This appeal to interests is preferable to using force -- as Israel does ... and to demanding rights -- as the Palestinians do... Israel prefers interim agreements that will focus on trivialities, such as the color of the Palestinian policemen's uniforms, and will put off the discussion of Jerusalem, refugees and permanent borders. That is Livni's proposal, which lies as the base of the Israeli position in advance of the Annapolis meeting: to discuss the 'nature of the Palestinian state,' and to set aside the 'core' for the time being. It is politically advantageous and protects the coalition, but it harms the chances for a future agreement. When they get around to discussing Jerusalem, the parties won't have anything left to give in exchange. The scholars' final advice concerns negotiations between representatives from various cultures and nations. Here it is important to prepare well, and to understand the internal codes, symbols and sensitivities of the parties. On this matter everyone has made mistakes -- Israelis, Palestinian and Americans, none of whom really understood their interlocutors. In the short time remaining until Annapolis, the negotiators should undergo an accelerated course and avoid the mistakes that caused their predecessors to fail." II. "Diplomatic and Regime Paralysis" Liberal op-ed writer Yael Paz-Melamed commented in the popular, pluralist Maariv (11/1): "As is well known, the Jewish head invents patents [a popular saying]. The latest patent of the Prime Minister and the Defense Minister, which is at the same time meant not to evacuate outposts and not to get in trouble with the Americans, is called 'talks with the settler leaders over a voluntary evacuation.' They'll either be talking or they won't. The settlers know they have nothing to worry about.... It turns out that the Americans do not really buy this bluff.... If the [Annapolis] meeting fails, as expected, we'll only blame the Palestinians. Israel will have arrived there with clean hands." III. "The Report Nobody's Talking About" Veteran journalist Evelyn Gordon wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (11/1): "[Serious security implications involved in a division of Jerusalem] should be obvious to anyone who remembers the daily gunfire on Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood during the early months of the Intifada. Gilo was the only Jewish neighborhood of Jerusalem to suffer in this fashion because it was the only one within rifle range of Palestinian-controlled territory -- namely, the village of Beit Jalla. And once the Israel Defense Forces reasserted control over Beit Jalla, the shooting stopped. Were parts of East Jerusalem handed over to the Palestinians, however, numerous other Jewish neighborhoods would become as vulnerable to Palestinian gunfire as Gilo.... The bottom line is that dividing Jerusalem would have ruinous economic and security consequences without improving Israel's demographic situation a whit. And the [recent] JIIS [Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies] report [advocating the division of Jerusalem] has done a valuable service by bringing these facts to the public's attention. But that service will be wasted unless the public, the media, and, above all, opposition Knesset members begin demanding that the government either find solutions to these problems or drop the whole idea of division." -------------- ¶2. Turkey: -------------- Summary: -------------- Liberal columnist Larry Derfner wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post: "It's one or the other: morality or Realpolitik. As a nation of the world, Israel, along with its lobby in Washington, has always chosen Realpolitik." Block Quotes: -------------- "Jews of Power, Jews of Truth" Liberal columnist Larry Derfner wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (11/1): "It's one or the other: morality or Realpolitik. As a nation of the world, Israel, along with its lobby in Washington, has always chosen Realpolitik. What they may not know, however, is that by now the world sees through them. The word doesn't take seriously what an Israeli macher [big shot] or an American Jewish macher has to say about the Six Million, not when it sees that some Israeli leader and American Jewish macher shushing everyone over the murders of 1.5 million other innocents. Thankfully, those politicians are not the only Jewish voices on the Armenian genocide, or on the Holocaust.... Either you value truth first, or you value power first. Every Jew, every person, makes the choice." JONES