ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

UNCLAS TEL AVIV 001574 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: -------------- Mideast -------------- Key stories in the media: -------------- Maariv (Maya Bengal) reported that President Obama is expected to present his regional peace plan within a few weeks. The daily quoted Israeli sources as saying that the plan will not come as an Qout of the blueQ surprise to Israel, as the Americans have updated Israel on the issue. Bengal also reported that Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to visit Israel in two weeks Q accompanied by U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace Sen. George Mitchell -- to discuss security issues, principally the Iranian nuclear program. Israel Radio reported that U.S. envoy Frederick Hof, who is trying to revive Israel-Syria negotiations, will return to Israel soon, accompanying Special Envoy Mitchell. (The Jerusalem Post quoted officials close to Likud MK Carmel Shama as saying that there is no connection between efforts to block his proposed law that would make an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan more difficult, and HofQs visit to the region.) Speaking on Israel Radio, IsraelQs Ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev said that their visit will apparently take place in 10 days. She told the radio that Israel has discussed Syrian infringements and Iranian involvement in arms smuggling to Hizbullah with the U.S. administration. Israel Radio reported that State Department Spokesman Ian Kelly told Radio Sawa that Thomas Pickering, a former Ambassador to Tel Aviv and the UN, who The Washington Post said (on Wednesday) met last month in Geneva with senior Hamas officials Mahmoud Zahar and Bassam Naim, was acting in his private capacity. The radio reported that Hamas praised the meeting, but that it also said that it should not be granted too much importance. A Hamas source told Israel Radio that the meeting was the latest in a series of contacts between the U.S. and the group, and that it will take some time until the former U.S. diplomatsQ change in attitude reaches decision-makers in Washington. The Jerusalem Post quoted Likud sources as saying that PM Benjamin Netanyahu is working behind the scenes against a bill that would prevent Hamas prisoners from receiving visitors until Gilad Shalit comes home. The sources cited NetanyahuQs belief that the proposed bill could complicate negotiations on ShalitQs release and harm IsraelQs image abroad. HaQaretz quoted Western and Israeli intelligence sources as saying that Iran's smuggling network to Gaza through Sudan has shrunk following Operation Cast Lead and that international awareness of the issue has increased. Maariv cited LondonQs Times as saying that a possible Israeli attack on IranQs nuclear facilities would involve advanced aircraft and naval vessels -- including three Dolphin-class submarines, which foreign sources say are equipped to carry nuclear weapons. Makor Rishon-Hatzofe quoted a source Qin the inner circle of Secretary of State Hillary ClintonQ as saying that the Secretary was in effect cut off from U.S. foreign policy-making by ObamaQs Qnew commissarsQ (his advisers: first and foremost, Rahm Emanuel). Maariv reported that yesterday a Qassam rocket landed in an empty area in the western Negev. The Jerusalem Post reported that the IDF has developed a special training regiment to teach infantry units how to storm and sweep skyscrapers that have been built in Gaza and the West Bank. Maariv (Ben Caspit) reported that President Shimon Peres intends to renew his peace efforts -- on a smaller scale than his QNew Middle East.Q Caspit also reported that Kadima Knesset Member Shaul Mofaz is supposed to present a diplomatic plan consistent with the Peres-Ehud Barak program. Caspit said that a majority in MofazQs party favors his plan, which is based on interim steps, as opposed to Kadima leader Tzipi LivniQs comprehensive view of the process. The Jerusalem Post reported that yesterday, a day after releasing a QdamningQ report on Operation Cast Lead and amid accusations that it is operating without transparency, the group Breaking the Silence presented the daily with its donor list for the year 2008, which included several European governments -- the EU, the UK, and the Netherlands Q and the New Israel Fund. Judge Richard Goldstone, the head of the UN Human Rights Council-mandate commission of inquiry on alleged war crimes during the operation, was quoted as saying in an interview with The Jerusalem Post that the mandate of his probe has not changed and that there is no reason for Israel not to cooperate. The newspaper noted that Israel disagrees, saying that there has been no formal change and that the commissionQs goal is not to find truth but to attack Israel. Yediot reported that a year ago, the Defense MinistryQs internal comptroller presented to the IDFQs General Staff a report detailing the activities of the ministryQs delegations worldwide. The newspaper reported that the ministryQs mission in the U.S. includes 211 employees. Yediot criticizes the perks enjoyed by those officials. In an unrelated story, HaQaretz featured the promotion arms deals in Congo by three members of the Israeli defense establishment over the past decades, while a bloody civil war raged there and IsraelQs official policy forbade such sales. The Jerusalem Post quoted the Anti-Defamation League as saying yesterday that WhyIslam, a U.S. -based educational awareness Web site, links to anti-Semitic content. Leading media reported that former PM Ehud Olmert has decided to boycott a scheduled hearing with Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, after an indictment was filed yesterday against a former aide who is a key figure in the case of double-billing in a travel agency that the hearing was slated to address. Makor Rishon-Hatzofe reported that beyond the PAQs anger over Fatah Secretary-General Farouk QadoummiQs remarks about the alleged assassination conspiracy of Yasser Arafat, the PA is also critical of Jordan for having facilitated the broadcasting of QadoummiQs comments on Al Jazeera-TV. HaQaretz (English Ed.) quoted local and international anti-boycott groups as saying this week that they are monitoring the growing academic Israel-boycotting movement in the U.S. but that they do not currently deem it a serious threat. The Jerusalem Post reported that 20 Israeli and Palestinian religious teachers will begin a weeklong join workshop on Sunday in Jerusalem, where they will discuss conflict resolution and the role of religion in the Middle East. All media highlighted the continued ultra-Orthodox clashes with police in Jerusalem -- the worst in years, as 1,000 ultra-Orthodox took part in the riots yesterday. The religious extremists demand the release of the mother who allegedly starved her toddler son. (HaQaretz presented a projection by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel studies and renowned demographist Sergio Della Pergola: In 2020, Jews will constitute 61% of the population of Jerusalem; the ultra-Orthodox will represent 33.7% of the cityQs Jewish population. In an extreme scenario, if ultra-Orthodox do not migrate from Jerusalem, Jews will be 65.5% of JerusalemQs population and the ultra-Orthodox will be 41% of the Jewish population.) Maariv predicts that the cost of living in Israel will acutely rise over the coming months. The newspaper cited private research that 100,000 more Israelis will be unemployed in a yearQs time (at present, 257,000 are jobless -- 8.4% of the workforce). -------------- Mideast: -------------- Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. "Picture Perfect No More" Diplomatic correspondent Aluf Benn wrote in the independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (7/17): QAll the reports emanating from Washington indicate that Obama will not issue a detailed peace plan any time soon. Netanyahu's fear -- that Washington will demand that he withdraw from all the territories and divide Jerusalem -- will not become reality in the near future. The administration distinguishes between QsubstanceQ and QprocessQ and will now focus solely on creating the framework for negotiations and also probably on setting target dates for the parties involved. There is no reason for Netanyahu and his coalition to lose any sleep over that. Netanyahu seemingly won this round, then, but that is no cause for joy on his part. Even the most optimistic assessment, even the most flattering to Netanyahu, shows that Obama has emerged from the arm-wrestling contest with a slight advantage. II. "WhereQs the Magic?" Senior Middle East affairs analyst Zvi Bar'el wrote in Ha'aretz (7/17): QIraq finds itself in a precarious situation. Nor are things going smoothly for Obama along the main front in Afghanistan.... For now, an American departure does not seem to be anywhere in sight. Iran is another arena in which the U.S. administration is unsure of how to proceed. Whereas the principle of dialogue, which Obama seeks to promote as a substitute for the ineffective policy of sanctions, still depends in part on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's official reinstatement as president, the details of this policy remain blurred: What will the dialogue be about? What will be the minimum demands that Washington wants the other side to meet before removing the sanctions? And -- most important -- will a target date be set for the end of this dialogue?.... The problem [with ObamaQs handling of IsraelQs conflicts and the intra-Palestinian arena], as in Iraq and Afghanistan, lies in the execution.... Obama's vision still depends on the nature of relations between Hamas's Mahmoud Zahar and Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas, and between Ehud Barak and Benjamin Netanyahu. Maybe the President is not such a magician after all. III. "Obama, Go to the Bible" Senior columnist and longtime dove Yoel Marcus wrote in Ha'aretz (7/17): QThe only place where [Obama] hasn't been as president is Israel. He has spoken about us, but not to us. That was precisely what the Jewish leaders complained about in their discussion with him last week. Obama assumed he did a great thing when he spoke in Cairo about the suffering of the Jewish people in the Holocaust. What is infuriating about these appearances is the implied distortion: that we deserve a state because of the Holocaust. Although, as a believing Christian, Obama is familiar with the Bible, his disregard of our historical connection to the Land of Israel, and obscuring the fact that the Palestinians are unable to overcome their passions and to be worthy partners to a peace agreement, is extremely annoying. IV. "Israel vs. Human Rights Watch" Diplomatic correspondent Herb Keinon wrote on page one of the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (7/17): QIn the intervening 31 years [since then Jewish Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky was helped in his cause by Helsinki Watch, the group] has morphed into Human Rights Watch (HRW),a mammoth human rights NGO that went to Saudi Arabia in May and used its work castigating Israel as a way to solicit funds in one of the worldQs worst human rights violators. That transformation, at least for Sharansky, is simply too much. Calling a spade a spade is what Bar-Ilan University political science professor Gerald Steinberg, executive director of NGO Monitor, has been trying to do for years, monitoring the work and methodology of HRW and other human rights organizations but this has largely been a voice in the wilderness, one dismissed by the NGO themselves Q and some in the media Q as nothing more than that of a propagandist with a right-wing Zionist agenda., Now, however, the [Israeli] government is listening, and after years of choosing largely to ignore damning reports put out by HRW and similar organizations, it has decided to go on the offensive and attack the organizations for essentially using human rights and legal lingo to delegitimize Israel. CUNNINGHAM