ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

UNCLAS TEL AVIV 002105 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: -------------- All media quoted PM Benjamin Netanyahu as saying in interviews with various media that he sees confirmation of IsraelQs positions in President ObamaQs first U.N. speech yesterday. In an interview with HaQaretz, the PM said that President Obama's speech to the U.N. General Assembly was "positive" because "he also said something we had been seeking for six months, that we have to meet and begin the diplomatic process without preconditions." Netanyahu also said Obama had spoken "clearly about Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. I believe that disagreement about this is the root of the conflict." Netanyahu also pointed out that Obama had made reference to Israeli efforts to improve the Palestinian economy by lifting roadblocks. The PM was quoted as saying that he disagrees with the idea that Israel should withdraw to the 1967 orders. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, the PM said that the PresidentQs speech was Qgood and positiveQ for Israel and for moving the peace process forward. Netanyahu told reporters that there is no demand of Israel to freeze the settlements. The Jerusalem Post quoted Knesset members on the Right as saying that PM Netanyahu Qprematurely celebratedQ what he thought was an American policy shift in IsraelQs favor. The media cited, and Maariv bannered, President ObamaQs comment that Qthe U.S. will not accept the legitimacy of Israel's continued settlement building.Q Media said that this corrected IsraelQs assumptions stemming from the PresidentQs remarks following the three-way meeting with the Israeli and Palestinian leaders earlier in the week. The media also reported that Obama called on the Palestinians to stop incitement against Israel and on Israel to end the occupation. The media often cited the PresidentQs remark that the U.S. cannot Qsolve the world's problems alone. �00A; The Jerusalem Post and other media wrote that Netanyahu will seek wide consensus on an action against Iran. Yediot expects PM Netanyahu to tell heads of state at the U.N. General Assembly today that they must choose between Israel -- a democratic, liberal country -- and Iran -- a terror-sponsoring state. The newspaper also says that Netanyahu will condemn the Goldstone report and say that the U.N outlaws Israel. The PM was quoted as saying in an interview with Makor Rishon-Hatzofe that his achievement is an improvement of relations with the U.S. and that he will tell the entire world that Israel will not agree to a new Holocaust. The media reported that although the tone of Iranian President Mahmoud AhmadinejadQs speech was more moderate than last year, the representatives of 20 countries, led by French envoys, walked out of the hall. Maariv reported that PM NetanyahuQs envoy Yitzhak Molcho and senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat are slated to meet in New York to try to reach understandings that will pave the way for the beginning of negotiations between Netanyahu and Abbas. Molcho reportedly met with U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace Senator George Mitchell yesterday to prepare for todayQs meeting. The newspaper reported that Mitchell and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are slated to visit the region in two weeks. Israel Radio reported that, in an interview with the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper, PA President Mahmoud Abbas described the Netanyahu government as a problem and said that the PA had no common basis for dialogue with it. Abbas was quoted as saying that there are no subjects left to discuss between the sides, since the Israeli Government continued the construction in the settlements and refused to talk about Jerusalem and the refugees. He stressed that the PA was opposed to the establishment of a Palestinian state in temporary borders, which he believes would turn into an established fact. HaQaretz quoted Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina, a senior prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, as saying on Monday that he is considering opening an investigation into whether Lt. Col. David Benjamin, an IDF reserve officer, allowed war crimes to be committed during the IDF's three-week offensive in Gaza this winter. The officer -- a dual citizen of Israel and South Africa, where he was born -- served in the IDF Advocate General's international law department, which authorized which targets troops would strike before and during the operation. HaQaretz reported that on Monday Newsweek released an interview with Moreno-Ocampo in which he said he is convinced his office has the authority to launch an investigation into Benjamin's actions. The ICC has until now refrained from trying IDF officers, as it lacks authority to do so, since Israel is not a signatory to the 2002 Rome Treaty that founded the court. South Africa, however, did sign the treaty, so the ICC is authorized to indict its citizens. HaQaretz notes that Moreno-Ocampo's remarks are in line with the recommendations of a UN fact-finding commission on the Gaza war headed by South African Justice Richard Goldstone. HaQaretz reported that the ICC began looking into Benjamin's case after receiving material from pro-Palestinian organizations in South Africa. The material included a transcript of an interview Benjamin gave to the web site Bloomberg.com, in which the officer recounted his involvement in legal consultations with the IDF ahead of army operations. The media reported that yesterday, in his address to the U.N. General Assembly, Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi ripped the U.N. Charter and dismissed the two-state solution. He pitted the bloody history of Jews in Europe against what he termed the tolerance of Islam. Maariv reported the police will increase their state of alert in the northern, mixed city of Acre, for fear of a repetition of last Yom KippurQs clashes. The Jerusalem Post reported that the IDF Central Command is forming a rapid-response team to combat extremist settlers. HaQaretz and Maariv reported that, one day after losing the UNESCO leadership contest to Bulgarian diplomat Irina Bokova, Egyptian Culture Minister Ferrous Hosni renewed his attacks against the Jews. He was quoted as saying that the Qorganization gave in to tremendous political and Zionist pressure.Q Yediot quoted a Saudi Web site in a report that Hosni had assisted Palestinian terrorists. Yesterday Channel 2-TV revealed that in July terrorists tried to carry out an attack against a bus carrying Israelis in the Sinai and that this was the reason for severe warnings at the time by the Counter-Terrorism Bureau at IsraelQs National Security Council. HaQaretz reported that the organization Breaking the Silence will be among the groups receiving grants from a foundation set up by the prominent Canadian singer Leonard Cohen -- the Fund For Reconciliation, Tolerance, and Peace. Cohen will perform in Tel Aviv tonight. The media reported that former PM Ehud OlmertQs trial will start at the Jerusalem District Court tomorrow. HaQaretz cited the results of a poll conducted among Palestinians by the International Peace Institute headed by Terje Roed-Larsen: - Fifty-five percent of Palestinians favor a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, separate from Israel. The survey did not ask respondents about the option of one Palestinian state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River - Sixty-six percent support the Arab peace initiative. - Fifty-two percent are opposed to a solution of the Jerusalem issue according to the principle of QArab neighborhoods to the Arabs and Jewish neighborhoods to the Jews (including the Old City). - Sixty-nine percent support a solution to the refugee problem according to U.N. Resolution 194 Q Israel would take in a number of refugees similar to the number absorbed in the European states. - Almost 70% say that they do not support the U.S. President and 56% say that they do not believe he will bring about progress toward the establishment of two states. - Fifty-five percent are happy with the performance of President Abbas; 51% are unhappy with PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad; and 64% are unhappy with the performance of Hamas PM Ismail Haniyeh. -------------- Mideast: -------------- Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. "DonQt Descend from the Summit" The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (9/24): QIt is to be hoped that the triumphal crowing from Netanyahu's camp after the summit does not mean the Prime Minister interprets Obama's decision to pull back from his demand for a total settlement freeze as a carte blanche for construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.... Israel also has no interest in making Obama look like a weak leader who cannot impose his will on a small, friendly state. The United States holds the key to restraining the Iranian nuclear threat, and is also Israel's bulwark against imposed political solutions.... The New York summit was an important step, but by no means sufficient. Now is the time to move forward from mere handshakes to real action. II. "The Go Kart Policy" Channel 2-TV commentator Amnon Abramovich wrote in the mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (9/24): QIn his Cairo speech, Obama managed to sway Arab public opinion in his direction, but was unable to budge any Arab leader by a millimeter. Even from the King of Saudi Arabia, who depends on him for his physical existence, Obama was unable to extract passage for Israeli planes. It is worth mentioning that the firm formulation that President Obama made in his U.N. speech last night -- to end the occupation that began in 1967 -- was adopted by the Likud government headed by Ariel Sharon seven years ago already in the framework of the Roadmap. And nothing happened. The conflict here is complicated also because there are no partners. The Israeli Prime Minister trembles as if he had spent the night in the Settlers Council's protest tent. And Abu Mazen, who was given, at the time, an inordinate proposal from Ehud Olmert, did not even get back to him purely as a courtesy. Without employing all the levers, all the might and pressure on both sides, how will the U.S. President truly know that he has no partners? III. "On ObamaQs Block" Senior commentator Ari Shavit wrote in Ha'aretz (9/24): QThis region must be given evolutionary, and not revolutionary, treatment. The key word is: process. Not a KO punch, but a long and thorough chipping away that will gradually change Palestinian society and at the same time lead to the end of the occupation. No one is more suited to the task than Obama. This talented community worker will have to see this blighted and violent neighborhood for what it is. Instead of wasting time on doomed efforts to get Netanyahu and Abbas on the road to an illusory Peace-Now solution, Obama should initiate a gradual, deep and cautious process, one that will relentlessly partition the country. IV. "The QHalf-FullQ Aspects of ObamaQs Speech" Diplomatic correspondent Herb Keinon wrote on page one of the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (9/24): QThat the settlement line received the loudest applause of the president's speech ... should not distract anyone from the interesting nuances that redounded very much in Israel's favor. For instance, the President did not call -- as some in Israel had worried about -- for two states along the 1967 lines.... Likewise, the President -- unlike in his Cairo speech -- made no mention of Jerusalem, other than to say it was one of the issues that would be discussed in the permanent-status negotiations. Another nuance in yesterday's address was his reference to Israel as a Jewish state, something that has been interpreted as shorthand for an appreciation that descendants of Palestinian refugees, in any future agreement, will be allowed to return to a future Palestinian state, and not to Israel. And, finally, Obama also gave voice to his exasperation with the failure of the Arab world to heed his call and make any gestures toward normalizing ties with Israel, or do anything concrete to move the diplomatic process forward.... [Regarding his condemnation of incitement, the PresidentQs] message was clear: it was time for the Arabs to stop saying one thing in private, and another in public, but to act publicly on what they say privately. From the [Israeli] Government's point of view, that comment more than compensated for his remark that continued settlement construction was illegitimate. ¶V. QThe Great Betrayal Far left columnist Gideon Levy wrote in Ha'aretz (9/24): QWhy is it okay to talk to Iran but not to Hamas?.... As Israel's isolation in the world only grows, and the danger of Iran threatens the country, Israel's best friend must pressure its ally and save it from itself. Instead, we got another condemnation of the Goldstone Commission report, this time from the new American Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, who had held the promise of major change. It's not too late. True, the initial momentum has been lost, but now, following this week's Qsummit of rebukes,Q America must hurry up and rebuke itself and mainly ponder how to get out of the booby trap to which it has succumbed. Now, too, only America can (and must) do it. VI. "America ShouldnQt Cuddle Itself in Its Visions" Veteran journalist and television anchor Dan Margalit wrote in the independent Israel Hayom (9/24): QObamaQs America is weaker than at any given time since the end of World War II; this allows Israel to repel some pressure from the White House, but Israel essentially has a supreme interest in the strengthening of the United States and the acceptance of its leadership.... If the United States of the 44th President continues to cuddle itself in his visions, 2009 and 2010 will be recorded as historical parallels of 1936 and the most horrible war that started three years later. It can be fairly assumed that not only the composition of [NetanyahuQs] words [at the speech he will deliver today to the U.N. General Assembly], but the resonance they will find, will determine the worldQs assessment of the intentions of the Jewish state, which is such an important actor on the Middle Eastern scene. VII. "ObamaQs Word" Conservative columnist Nadav Haetzni wrote in the popular, pluralist Maariv (9/24): QFor so many years, Israelis have been told to fold their national flags because of the limits of IsraelQs power.... It has been proven this week in New York that this scenario is not really implementable.... The person who demonstrated the limits of his power was U.S. President Barack Obama.... Had ObamaQs entourage learned the history of U.S. pressure on Israel, it would have adopted a slightly more modest approach. If it had not been blinded by the temporary success in the elections, it would have found out that since the foundation of Israel, no American pressure could defeat determined Israeli resistance. VIII. "The Restraining of Obama" Settler leader Israel Harel wrote in HaQaretz (9/24): QSettlement in Judea and Samaria [i.e. the West Bank] is a solid, permanent and deeply rooted reality. A long and terrible war of terror could not vanquish it, oceans of horrific and cruel propaganda, especially from those within Israeli society who hate it, could not break its spirit. The complete opposite happened. All the more so, external dictates will not rattle its foundations. Functional arrangements for the future of Judea and Samaria have their place, but the starting point is clear: Settlements will not be uprooted and their size will not be limited. Even the restrained Obama has begun to realize this. So when will the extreme left in Israel also restrain itself and realize it? IX. "Played for a Sucker" Liberal columnist Larry Derfner wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (9/24): QWe're laughing at this guy now. Look, Benjamin Netanyahu stared down the President of the United States! The settlers have stopped worrying. All is well again in our little Qvilla in the jungle,Q as Ehud Barak, the government's man of the Left, likes to describe this country. And if Israel is happy -- 21st century Israel, that is, Israel the right-wing monolith -- then the Republican Party is happy, too. We're allies, Israelis and Republicans. If we stare down Obama, the Republicans are encouraged, and vice versa. In the campaign to cripple the Obama administration, to destroy his presidency, Israel is doing much, much more than its share.... This cannot go on. Obama, for the sake of his presidency, cannot allow this to go on. ¶X. QA Continuation Will Follow Political commentator Ephraim Ganor wrote in Russian-language popular pluralist weekly Novosty Nedely (9/24):QThe American President looked like a tough teacher coping with irresponsible students.... He publically reprimanded Netanyahu and Abu Mazen.... The U.S. President spoke with a very serious face and his entire speech expressed a visible dissatisfaction with both IsraelisQ and PalestiniansQ approaches. He expressed a firm intention to bring the sides to the negotiations in the nearest future... The U.S. President succeeded in breaking the resistance of the Palestinians, who were unwilling to start the negotiations until an absolute freeze of settlement construction in Judea and Samaria [i.e. the West Bank].... Despite the toughness demonstrated by President Obama, both Prime Minister Netanyahu and Abu Mazen tried to show journalists accompanying them that actually the U.S. President was unable to achieve anything.... The QtrilateralQ high-level meeting was first of all important for Barack Obama in order to improve his image that has tremendously suffered recently. The feeling that Obama is rather a person of words than deeds is increasing.... His famous election campaign slogan QYes, We Can!Q today seems an empty one with no real basis. The number of the U.S. PresidentQs failures and political malfunctions is continuing to grow.... ObamaQs unenviable situation leads one to expect that he will undertake a maximum of efforts to achieve significant results on the Israeli-Palestinian track, [since] his chances [to succeed] look much more realistic [on this track] than anywhere else. CUNNINGHAM