ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

UNCLAS TEL AVIV 001866 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. Anti-Terrorism Efforts -------------- Key stories in the media: -------------- The media reported that PM Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in London yesterday. Major media reported that officials in his entourage continued to lower expectations in advance of his meeting with U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell tomorrow, saying that although there has been a degree of progress in the discussions leading up to the meeting, a QbreakthroughQ was not expected. Major media quted State Department Spokesman Ian Kelly as saying yesterday: QWhat George Mitchell is trying to do is lay the foundation that will lead to the resumption of meaningful neotiations. And this is part of that whole process. There have been some reports that weQre close t a breakthrough. I think I would say that -- I ould characterize it as that weQre getting close to an agreement. But any reports that weQve cometo an agreement, or that we expect one on Wednesday necessarily, I would have to call premature. ut I will say that we hope that this particular hase of the discussions will end very soon.Q Leading media noted that Kelly did not add more details. HaQaretz cited the belief of Israeli officials that the understandings to be reached between U.S. and Israeli representatives will call for a settlement freeze of 9-12 months, but will not include East Jerusalem. Within the supposed agreement, building that has already begun will be allowed to be completed. Leading media quoted Netanyahu as saying upon his arrival in London that no one will limit IsraelQs sovereignty in Jerusalem. Leading media reported that today at dawn IAF craft attacked a smuggling tunnel in southern Gaza. Israel Radio quoted medical sources in Gaza as saying that at least two Palestinians were killed in the raid. The attack was a reaction to mortar fire that was directed at Israel yesterday, lightly wounding one IDF soldier. Earlier yesterday, a Palestinian gunman was killed in a shootout with IDF troops on the northern border of the Strip. According to reports, the exchange of fire occurred after an IDF patrol spotted the gunmen planting a bomb near the security fence. When the troops attempted to apprehend the group, they were met by gunfire. Two of the gunmen succeeded in escaping back to Gaza, while the third died on the spot. Following the firefight, Palestinians launched a small volley of mortar shells into Israeli territory. The soldier wounded was hit by shrapnel from one of the shells. The incident broke nearly two weeks of quiet along the Israel-Gaza border. The online service walla.co.il reported that the Binyamin Regional Council (north of Jerusalem),which published a tender a month ago for the development of 74 plots in the settlement, has scheduled a tour of the settlement for construction contractors today. Israel Hayom and Israel Hayom quoted PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as saying in an interview with the London Times that the PA intends to create a de-facto Palestinian state within two years. Israel Radio cited Finance Minister Yuval SteinitzQs anger over FayyadQs remark. All media reported that yesterday, during a meeting with his ministry's management, FM Avigdor Lieberman proposed that anyone who has not served in the IDF or completed national service would not be eligible to take part in the Foreign Ministry's prestigious cadets' course and represent Israel abroad. Lieberman is seeking to encourage members of the Arab and ultra-Orthodox sectors, who wish to be accepted into the Israeli Foreign Service, to commit to national service at the very least, if not to full military service. The media cited angry responses from left-wing and Israeli Arab politicians. Channel 2-TV suggested that LiebermanQs suggestion and recent diplomatic statements result from his being apparently spurned by Netanyahu and DM Ehud Barak, as well as from his legal entanglement. Leading media reported that the Shalit family-run campaign for the release of Gilad Shalit -- whose 23rd birthday falls on Thursday -- intends to protest today against the visit of families of Hamas detainees to three prisons. The media reported that the Israel Prisons Service subsequently canceled todayQs family visits to Palestinian prisoners. The Jerusalem Post reported that several American Jewish communities will mark ShalitQs birthday on Friday with a series of events and rallies, as well as a postcard campaign urging the International Red Cross to visit him. The Jerusalem Post and Israel Radio reported that The Elders group, of which former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is a member, will meet a cross section of Israeli and Palestinian societies during their week-long visit to Israel and the West Bank. Maariv reported that Al-Masry Al-Youm, one of the more popular newspapers in Egypt printed an excerpt from the successful novel by the Israeli poet and novelist, Almog Bahar, QAna Min al-Yahud. Maariv writes that the decision to excerpt the book was a decidedly unusual step to make by an Egyptian media outlet, as many people in Egyptian intellectual circles are in the midst of a debate over the translation of Israeli art. The media reported that, during the past two days, over 10,000 Israelis have signed an online petition that was set up after the Swedish government declined a request by Israel to officially condemn the Aftonbladet article that alleged that IDF soldiers harvest organs from slain Palestinians. The petition calls for a boycott of IKEA, a home products retailer, and the automobile firm, Volvo, among other companies. Yediot noted that business was brisk at the IKEA outlet in Israel yesterday. Yesterday Channel 10-TV and Channel 2-TV broadcast footage of what appears to be Hamas executing rebels from the al-Qaida affiliated Jund Ansar Allah. The video apparently was taken during clashes between the groups on August 15 in Rafah. Channel 2-TV said Fatah distributed the video. Israel Radio reported that Israeli military envoys in Houston have defrauded the defense establishment. The Jerusalem Post quoted the Vatican as saying last week that it would not interfere in a conflict that has flared up between U.S. Catholic bishops and leading Jewish groups over Catholic proselytizing. All media reported that yesterday Bank of Israel Stanley Fischer raised the lending rate for September to 0.75% (from 0.5%). The media, which say that Fischer wants to stop an inflationary trend, noted that the central bank made the move ahead of other nations. Leading media reported that yesterday the American clothing and accessories retailer GAP opened a store in JerusalemQs newest mall. Yediot reported that David Ben-Gurion, an immigrant from Israel, has been elected Mayor of the Californian town of Calexico that abuts the Mexican border. Calexico has one of the highest Hispanic/Latino percentages of any California city. -------------- ¶1. Mideast: -------------- Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. "WhoQs Not Recognizing Whom?" Senior op-ed writer Akiva Eldar commented in the independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (8/25): QAs was reported in this column last week, the phrase the state of the Jewish peopleQ was omitted from the prime minister's remarks at the opening of the cabinet meeting when he presented to the ministers and the media his position on negotiations with the Palestinians. Instead of that, he said that he was expecting Qgenuine recognitionQ from them of the state of Israel, and that was it. The Prime Minister's Bureau went to the trouble of pointing out this important update to the foreign diplomats. Eagle-eyed diplomats made a note of the fact that Netanyahu had exercised self-restraint over the remarks made by the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, at the Sixth Congress of the Fatah, and of the organization's announcement, both of which vehemently rejected the Israeli demand to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. In a break with his usual conduct, the Prime Minister did not look for weak spots in the Bethlehem texts and forwent the opportunity to gain points in the eyes of the public. Netanyahu's silence is particularly salient against the background of the choir of senior ministers who have been competing with one another to raise their voices about the Fatah congress' decisions. III. "A Friendship that Has Withstood Tests" Berlin correspondent Eldad Beck wrote in the mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (8/25): QExactly one month before the German general elections, whose outcome is far from being clear-cut, Angela Merkel will this week host Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Berlin. The importance of MerkelQs diplomatic gesture cannot be underrated. She is presently fighting for a four-year extension of her term. Her willingness to host Netanyahu in such circumstances is further evidence of her deep commitment to Israel. Netanyahu and his government do not promote political causes -- neither in Germany nor in Europe. Most Germans and Europeans love to hate Netanyahu, its government, and Likud -- not because their policies or their actions. This is an automatic, traditional, instinctive enmity, which rejects the Israeli Right without even trying to understand its positions. The European media, for one, fills a most central role in this incitement campaign. -------------- ¶2. Anti-Terrorism Efforts: -------------- Block Quotes: -------------- "How to Lose a War" The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (8/25): QFundamental errors are being repeated in the struggle against Islamist extremism. People in Europe and America do not grasp why their troops are fighting in Afghanistan. On Iran, Western leaders have not only avoided a head-on confrontation with the mullahs, but are even seeking to appease their Hizbullah and Hamas proxies. In fairness, Obama has tried to explain that Afghanistan is not a war of choice, but of necessity.... What message does the Brown government's decision to play footsie with Muammar Qadhafi -- while hiding behind the Scottish justice secretary -- send to Britons already feeling cynical about staying the course in Afghanistan? This sordid episode, moreover, does nothing to illuminate who really blew Pan Am flight 103 out of the sky[, as a possible Iranian-Syrian connection to the crime exists.] If patience is running thin on Afghanistan, and there is no stomach to stop Iran, the reasons are obvious. From Lockerbie to Afghanistan, Western decision-makers have compartmentalized Islamist violence -- rather than defined it as a strategic menace to the Western values of tolerance and liberty. The lesson of Vietnam is that wars become unwinnable when leaders fail to identify their true enemies, leaving their societies unmobilized, confused and lacking in motivation. CUNNINGHAM