SPECIAL ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

UNCLAS TEL AVIV 002294 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. U.S.-Israel Relations: -------------- Key stories in the media: -------------- The Jerusalem Post quoted GOI officials as saying yesterday that the Moscow conference on the Middle East may be in jeopardy as a result of Russia's support for the U.N. Human Rights CouncilQs (UNHRC) endorsement of the Goldstone Commission report accusing Israel of war crimes. Russia, along with India and China, voted in favor of the endorsement at Friday's meeting, sending the report to the U.N. General Assembly for further consideration. The Jerusalem Post quoted an Israeli official as saying that the Moscow conference may be in peril now, not because Israel is trying to punish Russia, but rather because the diplomatic process -- as PM Benjamin Netanyahu warned -- would be harmed as a result of the PAQs pushing the Goldstone Report forward. The Jerusalem Post reported that following its vote on Friday, Moscow delivered a letter directly from FM Sergey Lavrov saying that while it voted for the resolution, Russia opposed referring the issue to the Security Council, from where it could theoretically be sent to the International Criminal Court. Yesterday The Jerusalem Port quoted the Israeli Foreign Ministry as saying that the UNHRC resolution endorsing the Qone-sidedQ Gaza report harms regional peace efforts. The media reported that Jewish Knesset members from across IsraelQs political spectrum condemned the UNHRCQs endorsement of the Goldstone report. Major media reported that in an interview with the Swiss daily Le Temps, just before FridayQs vote, Judge Richard Goldstone himself criticized the wording of the resolution, saying it had been wrong to target only Israel while failing to condemn Hamas. Yesterday HaQaretz reported that PM Benjamin Netanyahu does not want Ankara serving as mediator in any future diplomatic negotiations with Syria, in view of the crisis in relations between Israel and Turkey. The Jerusalem Post and Israel Radio quoted Intelligence Minister Dan Meridor as saying yesterday in Washington that Israel is Qvery closeQ to making a deal to restart negotiations with the Palestinians. He was speaking during a keynote address at the Washington Institute for Near East PolicyQs fall conference. HaQaretz (English Ed.) reported that one week before the conference in Washington of left-leaning lobby group J Street, Israel's ambassador to the U.S., Michael Oren, is still not saying whether he will attend or not. J Street was quoted as saying that President Shimon Peres has written a welcoming letter to conference participants, with his apologies for not being able to attend. HaQaretz and other media reported that PM Netanyahu told Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero last Thursday that talks between Israel and the U.S. over construction in the settlements on the West Bank had ended. Netanyahu was quoted as saying: QWe solved the matter of the settlements with the Americans. I cannot say more than that. If you are interested in hearing more details, ask in Washington. HaQaretz wrote that it is not clear what Netanyahu meant and what the details of the "solution" are, but this is the first time that Netanyahu has made such a statement. HaQaretz quoted sources in Jerusalem as saying that Netanyahu spoke about the matter after his representatives Mike Herzog and Yitzhak Molcho reached agreements in Washington during their talks last week. HaQaretz reported that Zapatero told Netanyahu of his visit to the White House two days before his arrival in Jerusalem. He was quoted as saying that he was obsessed with Obama, and that there will never be another chance where a man who professes values such as his will be president, and that everyone must help him realize his vision. Yesterday The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli envoys negotiating with the U.S. over a settlement freeze and restarting peace talks are set to arrive in Washington in coming days to continue discussions with the Obama administration. The daily also reported that U.S. National Security Advisor James Jones called on Israel to open the crossings into Gaza and for the bolstering of a Palestinian plan to build the institutions of statehood over the next two years. Leading media cited LebanonQs claim that Israel aerially blew up spying devices that it had planted in Lebanon. Other media cited HizbullahQs claim that it destroyed the equipment. HaQaretz and other media quoted the IDF SpokesmanQs Office as saying that once again Hizbullah is trying to deflect international attention form its Qcontinued and increasing violations of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701. HaQaretz reported that Professor Yoram Tsafrir, one of IsraelQs leading archaeologists, has publicly condemned the Israel Antiquities Authority's failure to object to a plan to construct a building over a site in the Western Wall plaza where a well-preserved ancient Roman road was recently excavated. Tsafrir was quoted as saying at a conference that the construction will cause Qgenerations of weepingQ over the serious damage to the site. The Jerusalem Post reported that on Saturday, in an address at an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) dinner, U.S. Attorney-General Eric Holder decried the continued phenomenon of anti-Semitism in America as well as the stigma felt by many Muslim Americans. Yesterday The Jerusalem Post reported that the ADL is pushing for David Tenenbaum, a Jewish engineer for the U.S. Army, to get his day in court after being unjustly targeted for alleged ties with Israel. The Jerusalem Post reported on the first days in office of Joel Lion, the new spokesman and consul for media affairs at the Israeli Consul-General in New York. Lion, who is also an Orthodox rabbi, told the newspaper, QIsrael is something inventive. Israel is something moving. Israel is something spiritual. Israel is not only conflict. Yediot reported that Israel, which has not built enough desalination plants, intends to import water from Turkey. The unexplained murder of six members of the Oshrenko family in their Rishon Lezion apartment on Saturday morning led the headlines over the weekend and into the beginning of the week. The family emigrated from Uzbekistan in the nineties. Some media said that the QRussian or Caucasian mafiasQ could have carried out the slaughter. Media reported that Israel asked Russian and Uzbek law-enforcement authorities for assistance. All media reported on yesterdayQs suicide bombing in southeast Iran that killed at least 42 people -- including five senior Revolutionary Guard commanders. The Jerusalem Post described the work of an Israeli aid team in the typhoon-stricken Philippines. -------------- ¶1. Mideast: -------------- Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. "My Mission -- and Motivation" Judge Richard Goldstone, head of the U.N.-mandated Gaza Fact-Finding Mission established to investigate alleged crimes committed during Operation Cast Lead earlier this year, wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (10/19): QI would have been acting against those principles and my own convictions and conscience if I had refused a request from the United Nations to investigate serious allegations of war crimes against both Israel and Hamas in the context of Operation Cast Lead. As a Jew, I felt a greater and not a lesser obligation to do so. It is well documented that as a condition of my participation I insisted upon and received an evenhanded mandate to investigate all sides and that is what we sought to do. I sincerely believed that because of my own record and the terms of the mission's mandate we would receive the cooperation of the Israeli government. Its refusal to cooperate was a grave error.... Israel missed a golden opportunity to actually have a fair hearing from a UN-sponsored inquiry. Of course, I was aware of and have frequently spoken out against the unfair and exceptional treatment of Israel by the UN and especially by the Human Rights Council. I did so again last week. Israel could have seized the opportunity provided by the even-handed mandate of our mission and used it as a precedent for a new direction by the United Nations in the Middle East. Instead, we were shut out. II. "Just What Did Goldstone Expect?" Former Legal Adviser to the Foreign Ministry and former Ambassador to Canada Alan Baker, who participated in the negotiation and drafting of the Interim Agreement between Israel and the PLO, wrote in the Jerusalem Post (10/19): Q[Judge Richard Goldstone] criticizes Israel's decision not to cooperate with his Fact-Finding Mission, but naively ignores the very one-sided and politically hostile mandate of the mission as set out by the United Nations Human Rights Council, that determined in advance that Israel had committed war crimes. Any concession towards impartiality that he claims to have received from the president of the HRC never materialized into a change in the council's mandate, which remained rabidly one-sided and politically loaded. Similarly he strangely ignores the fact that one of the senior members of his mission -- Prof. Christine Chinkin -- had, during the course of the fighting in Gaza, already voiced her opinion in the most public manner through the British media, accusing Israel of war crimes. In such circumstances, how, in all logic, could any reasonable observer familiar with the United Nations and its inquiry procedures expect Israel to cooperate with such a politically prejudiced and gravely flawed inquiry? In doing so, Israel would have been perceived to have accepted the substantive elements of the Human Rights Council's initial criticism.... Israel must act to control [the] damage [caused by the Human Rights Council] by establishing an inquiry manned by a prominent retired Supreme Court justice and serious military and legal experts. Such a move would instantly neutralize and deflate international criticism; it would provide a viable claim of non-admissibility to any attempt to prosecute Israel or Israeli leaders before international or national courts and tribunals. III. "Hilltop Double-Talk" The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (10/18): QWhile Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tries to battle the Goldstone report in the name of Israel's right to self-defense, and his envoys and the U.S. administration discuss terms for renewing negotiations with the Palestinians, his government is developing infrastructure in dozens of West Bank settlements.... The real problem is not the breaking of promises to the U.S. administration and Israeli public, but the severe damage that construction in the settlements is doing to Israel's most important interests. Every new home or road compromises the probability of a partition plan based on forming a Palestinian state in the West Bank. Every hilltop construction approved by Netanyahu and Barak perpetuates the occupation and accelerates the gallop toward a binational state and the elimination of Zionism. Under the cloak of their double-talk, the Prime Minister and Defense Minister are taking steps that ruin trust and endanger Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state. IV. "ItQs Only the Symptom" Dov Weisglass, who was former prime minister Ariel Sharon's top diplomatic advisor, wrote in the mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (10/19): QIsrael erred by believing that it would succeed in removing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the top of the global agenda by QexplainingQ -- mainly to the Americans -- that it was Qnot important at the momentQ and that [the world] should Qfocus on Iran.Q Israel erred when it believed that it could make people forget the political aspect of the conflict by vigorous activity to ease the living conditions of the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria [i.e. the West Bank] and by advancing an Qeconomic peace.Q This did not work. Everyone sees the conflict as the cause of most of the ills in the diplomatic world, and everyone wants this conflict to end as soon as possible. Therefore, Israel is subjected on all quarters to demands for political progress, and the relationship between its position on the conflict and its diplomatic standing around the world is absolute, direct and immediate. The Palestinians raised allegations of Israeli Qwar crimesQ in the past too, but as long as they were perceived as enemies of peace -- mainly because of their engagement in terrorQIsrael succeeded in fending them off.... Today, matters have changed to an extreme degree. The Palestinian Authority, whose wish to establish and run a state met with scorn until a few years ago, appears now more than ever as a levelheaded and moderate political entity, and as a fit and worthy party to a political arrangement. The Hamas regime in Gaza is not perceived by the world as something that prevents a diplomatic process, but rather as an incentive for accelerating it. Many believe that an arrangement between Israel and the PA will work to curb and weaken Hamas. The world -- possibly prematurely -- is pleased.... [But] the [Israeli GovernmentQs] silence [over the core issues of the conflict] worries and annoys the Palestinians and most of the countries of the world. What angers them the most is the governmentQs halfhearted and evasive treatment of the continued construction of Jewish homes inside Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and the continued development of Israeli settlements even in places that will clearly not be included in Israeli territory in any final status arrangement. The confidence in the seriousness of the Israeli government to achieve a political arrangement with the Palestinians is dwindling. And so the phrase Qthe whole world is against usQ could become a reality. The Goldstone report is a very bad indication of this. ¶V. QUnnecessary Duel Ha'aretz editorialized (10/19): QDefying diplomatic good sense, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that he opposes a resumption of Turkey's efforts to mediate between Israel and Syria in light of the Turks' recent behavior. In his view, Turkey can no longer be described as an Qhonest broker.Q This is an empty threat, mainly because the Netanyahu government has not shown any interest in resuming peace talks with Syria, with or without a mediator. Thus the real harm done by Netanyahu's words lies in his eagerness to repay Turkey, and especially its prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in double measure for its criticism of Israel. This is an unnecessary duel that both sides, Turkey and Israel, ought to try to calm.... I contrast to Israel, Turkey understands the need to distinguish between negotiations and rebukes. And it is not Turkey that will suffer if it is removed from the list of honest brokers. Rather, it is Israel, which is liable to lose an important channel of communications that could facilitate future talks with Damascus. -------------- ¶2. U.S.-Israel Relations: -------------- Block Quotes: -------------- QA Bit More Popular than Assad Columnist Shmuel Rosner, who was HaQaretzQs correspondent in Washington, wrote in the popular, pluralist Maariv (10/19): QWhat is considered in Jerusalem as natural suspicion from the attitude of the incumbent U.S. administration is very worrisome when seen from Washington and New York.... How can it be that [in a recent Jerusalem Post survey] U.S. President Barack Obama only garners few percentile points of support in Israel? How has a U.S. president who keeps reiterating his commitment to IsraelQs security and well-being, and to [the United StatesQ] deep friendship with Israel, have fallen so low in Israeli public opinion?.... Obama made many mistakes in his rapport with the Israeli Government and public. He got bad advice from associates who thought they knew Israel. True in his basic worldview there are elements that create an inherent hardship for Israel. Neither has Obama found the time to take a step indicating steadfast friendship. Thus, is it not surprising to find much lower support that for his two predecessors.... The ease of the past 16 hours may have been exhausted.... It is possible that a pinch of racism somehow added to the uncertainty that Israelis feel toward a black president whose middle name is Hussein. One would better return to reality: Bush and Clinton are gone -- never to come back. America is changing and wonQt always elect a president endowed with a developed pro-Israel instinct. At this point Obama fails to enthuse Israelis, but he is far from being hostile. Forty -- not four -- percent of support would be a much more reasonable amount. CUNNINGHAM