SPECIAL ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

UNCLAS TEL AVIV 002270 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: SPECIAL ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION -------------- SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: -------------- ¶1. Mideast ¶2. Israel-Turkey Relations -------------- Key stories in the media: -------------- Yediot (Shimon Shiffer) reported that, following the failure in obtaining a settlement construction freeze and Arab gestures towards Israel, the U.S. administration is drafting a new diplomatic outline: inviting the sides for negotiations on the core issues -- borders, Jerusalem, and the refugees. The daily reported that the Americans have informed Israelis and Europeans of the move, which Yediot says is likely to be announced by President Obama after he receives the results of Senator MitchellQs mission from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The Jerusalem Post reported that a resolution that the PA and a group of countries intend to submit today to the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC),which will deliberate over the Goldstone report, makes no mention of Palestinian violence against Israelis, such as the eight years of rocket attacks from Gaza against southern border communities. The newspaper reported that PLO Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva Ibrahim Khraishi told The Jerusalem Post that there were enough votes in the council to endorse the resolution and move it on to New York, where it would carry more weight. Khraishi was quoted as saying that Palestinians were keen to use international law to stop the "occupation," which has led to grave "violations of human rights." HaQaretz quoted Palestinians as saying that if their proposal does not garner support, it could bring about the collapse of PA President Mahmoud AbbasQs government. Leading media reported that yesterday at the U.N. Security Council, the U.S., Britain, and France requested that Israel conduct an investigation of its own into Operation Cast Lead. Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was quoted as saying in an interview with Maariv that the Goldstone report must be taken into account but that it should not become an obstacle to peace. (Zapatero also told Maariv that his family has Jewish (QMarranoQ) roots.) Major media reported that at a U.N. Security Council debate on the Middle East that was not expected to take action, Israel's Ambassador to the U.N., Gabriela Shalev, dismissed the Goldstone report as a waste of the council's time, saying that the document "favors and legitimizes terrorism." Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Alejandro Wolff was quoted as saying that Washington had serious concerns about the report, including what he said was its "unbalanced focus on Israel." But he repeated the U.S. view that Israel should look into it. "We take the allegations in the report seriously," he told the council. "Israel has the institutions and the ability to carry out serious investigations of these allegations and we encourage it to do so." Wolff said that Hamas was a "terrorist organization" that was neither willing nor able to investigate its own behavior. All media reported that yesterday the state-run Turkish TV channel TRT1 broadcast the first episode of a series on a Palestinian family living in the West Bank, in which IDF soldiers are variously seen killing a baby and a young girl, and lining up Palestinians to be shot before a firing squad. Israel Hayom banners: QTurkish Blood Libel.Q The Israeli Foreign Ministry called in Turkey's envoy to register a protest. FM Avigdor Lieberman, currently holding meetings in Austria, issued a statement saying the airing of this show, on a government-controlled station, represented the "gravest form of incitement." Lieberman was quoted as saying: "This series, which has absolutely no connection to reality, and which presents IDF soldiers as murderers of innocent children, is not fit to be broadcast even in the most hostile countries, and certainly not in a country that has full diplomatic relations with Israel.Q Israel Radio cited the Turkish newspaper Zaman as saying that Turkey will ask Israel to disburse up to $4million in compensation for an alleged delay in the delivery of drones. HaQaretzQs Web site and Israel Radio cited the French weekly Le Canard Enchaine as saying that Israel is preparing to attack Iran after December. The magazine quoted French sources as saying that Israel has reportedly ordered combat rations for its elite army units from a French supplier and IDF reservists overseas have been ordered to return to their units between November and December,. According to the report, during his brief visit to France, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi told his French counterpart, Jean-Louis Georgelin, that "Israel will not bomb Iran, but may carry out ground operations in the area." The French source further reported that Israel is planning to assassinate scientists linked to the Iranian nuclear program and take military action against Hamas and Hizbullah. The Jerusalem Post quoted a senior GOI official as saying that Israel has passed on unequivocal messages to the PA that it will not quietly accept a Palestinian unity government that would neither denounce violence, recognize Israel, nor accept previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. The official declined to say what measures Israel would take or whether it would cut off ties with the PA as a result. The Jerusalem Post reported that yesterday the U.S. House of Representatives passed Iran sanctions legislation, trying to add pressure to the Iranian regime even as the administration has emphasized diplomacy with Tehran. The bill authorizes state and local governments to divest from firms with investments of $20 million in IranQs oil and gas sectors, relieving some of the legal barriers currently in place. The Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli flag was displayed at the first International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) conference in Abu Dhabi this week. All media highlighted State Comptroller Micha LindenstraussQs special report on the travel of DM Ehud Barak, his entourage, and other leading military figures to the Paris Air Show last June. Accommodations during the visit cost 944,000 shekels (around $236,000),not including flights, food, or any other expenditures. All media are critical of the splurge, including HaQaretzQs editorial, which calls on the Defense Ministry to reimburse the monies. HaQaretz reported that the IDFQs Home Front Command will begin distributing new gas mask kits to the civilian population beginning in January. The plan is to hand out 4.5 million kits within three years. HaQaretz cited a suit filed last week in the Tel Aviv Magistrate's Court, according to which a Palestinian taken by ambulance to JerusalemQs Hadassah University Hospital in 2006 was denied entry by hospital security, which may have been a factor in his death en route to another hospital The media reported that U.S. born Judge Neal Hendel is one of three new Supreme Court Justices who were sworn in yesterday In a feature story about involvement by Israelis in Central and South America, Maariv told the story of Yehuda Leitner, who is accused of trying to help exiled Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. Leitner says he was in his kibbutz at the time. -------------- ¶1. Mideast: -------------- Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. "The Iceberg" Senior commentator Ari Shavit wrote in the independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (10/15): QThe Right is the primary culprit of Israel's legitimacy crisis. With the occupation, the settlements and brutality, religious nationalism has fed the destructive forces that seek to trample the natural rights of Jews and Israelis. But the Left has also contributed its part to the legitimacy crisis. Those on the radical Left did not always make certain that opposition to Israeli policies would not turn into reservations about Israel's very existence.... On one hand, there is an urgent need for a creative, daring diplomatic initiative that would prove that Israel is truly and genuinely striving to end the occupation. Without such an initiative, the world will not listen to Israeli justice, which today remains a concept largely invisible to the world. On the other hand, there is a need to enlist Israeli and Jewish elites in the struggle to once again strengthen the foundations of Israel's legitimacy. This diplomatic and moral effort is no less important than the struggles that produced the Balfour Decaration and the UN partition resolution. If suc an effort is not launched immediately, and does ot soon succeed, Israel will become an internatinal pariah. II. "A Defeat Foretold" Chief conomic Editor and senior columnist Sever Plotker rote in the mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aaronot (10/15): QOperation Cast Lead did not resut in the liberation of Gilad Shalit, it did not opple Hamas, it did not boost the moderates (the economic revival in the Palestinian cities boosted them),it did not stop the Qassam rocket fire (the rocket fire was stopped after Israel agreed to hold its fire and resigned itself, for all intents and purposes, to the existence of an arms smuggling network that utilized tunnels) and failed to achieve even a single one of its stated objectives, barring the one that found expression in those two words, 'savage response' [citing Tzipi LivniQs words in an interview yesterday]. From a political standpoint, the ramifications of Operation Cast Lead are destructive.... Even if no one from Israel is tried at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, the Goldstone report is going to remain seared in the minds of the Western intellectual elites and the incited masses across the Muslim world. That charge sheet against Israel, one of the most egregious ever written, will haunt us for years to come. There isn't an eraser that will elide the mark of Cain that the report has left stamped on our foreheads. An infuriating report, a coarse blood libel -- but an existing fact. III. "Saving Abu Mazen" Palestinian affairs correspondent Avi Issacharoff wrote in HaQaretz (10/15): QWhile [Mahmoud] Abbas would be happy to see Israel's cabinet and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu suffer political damage, the decision to approach the U.N. Human Rights Council is intended first and foremost to hurt Hamas in the eyes of the Palestinian public and to save Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen) from more harsh criticism.... However, it seems there is some substance to Hamas' claims against Fatah. Abbas, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's cabinet -- everyone, in short -- is blasting Israel over Operation Cast Lead. But their own hands are far from clean in this regard. Quite a few senior Fatah officials, including ones close to Abbas, urged Israel to intensify its attacks on Hamas during the operation. Now they are accusing Israel of war crimes. IV. "It Looks Like Law, but It's Just Politics" South AfricaQs Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein, who also has a PhD in human rights law, wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (10/15): QThe [Goldstein] report uses the veneer of respectability that comes with legal methodology, and with the presence of an internationally respected judge, to gain credibility. Law is a very powerful weapon to give respectability to contemptible actions and opinions. The South African Apartheid Government was very legalistic in its approach to racial oppression, and was punctilious about promulgating proper laws, and about maintaining a fully functioning judiciary to give the fagade of respectability to its repugnant policies.... One aspect of the evidence, presented to but not accepted by the Goldstone Mission, was that of Hamas leader Fathi Hammad, who said: QThis is why we have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if we are saying to the Zionist enemy: We desire death while you desire life.Q These procedural and substantive injustices demonstrate the complete lack of integrity and fairness of the process. It looks like law, but it is not. It is just politics. The Goldstone Mission is a disgrace to the most basic notions of justice, equality and the rule of law. And it is dangerous. Injustice will only lead to more death and destruction. The Talmud says QThe world stands on three things: truth, justice and peace.Q These three values are linked. There can never be peace without justice and truth. The Goldstone Mission is unjust and wanting in truth. It has, therefore, harmed the prospects for peace in the Middle East. -------------- ¶2. Israel-Turkey Relations: -------------- Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. "DonQt Kill A Turk. Rest" Diplomatic correspondent Ben Caspit wrote on page one of the popular, pluralist Maariv (10/15): Q[The headline is a play on a Hebrew expression, Qto kill a Turk and to rest,Q which is to say: to do one thing at a time.] We need to begin to get used to the fact that Turkey is changing -- a substantive, profound, strategic change. That isnQt good, but it is something that can be lived with.... The traditional focal points of power in Turkey have gradually grown weaker. The army no longer controls the country the way it used to. The diplomatic elite has also been pushed aside. Instead, Islam has come to occupy the central rubric, and along with it has arisen a neo-Ottomanism, which talks about restoring TurkeyQs lost glory, casting its gaze inward at the Middle East and the neighboring Muslim countries at the expense of the West and Europe. That change is social, deep and real. II. "Turkey -- the QSick ManQ Again" Veteran journalist and television anchor Dan Margalit wrote in the independent Israel Hayom (10/15): QA contortion of madness is gripping Recep Tayyip ErdoganQs leadership. He behaves as if he were drugged, in need of increasing doses of narcotics with an anti-Semitic flavor.... Erdogan perhaps thinks he can return Turkey to the days of the Ottoman Empire, which disappeared at the end of World War I and will not return.... For many years noted European statesmen called [Turkey] the Qsick man on the Bosporus.Q Recent indications on the diplomatic scene are evidence that this is how it can now be called. CUNNINGHAM