ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

UNCLAS TEL AVIV 002709 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: -------------- The Hebrew language newspapers this morning all focused on two main stories: The first main story of the day is the cabinet approval of the newly proposed map of national priority areas that includes 90 isolated Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The other major story is a decision by Defense Minister Ehud Barak to remove the Har Bracha Yeshiva, headed by Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, from the arrangement with the IDF that makes it a hesder yeshiva. All Hebrew-language newspapers reported that Israeli cabinet approved yesterday the map of national priority areas, by a majority of 22 to 5. The Labor Party ministers, headed by Labor Party Chairman Barak, were in the minority, while the supporters consisted of ministers from the Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu, and Shas. The map reportedly includes 90 isolated settlements, as well as communities in the Negev and Galilee and Arab towns and villages. On the decision to expel the Har Bracha yeshiva from the special arrangement with the IDF, Defense Minister Barak's office explained that Rabbi Melamed's statements in favor of insubordination in the ranks of the IDF undermined the foundations of Israeli democracy and incited his students. This step was taken by the defense minister after Rabbi Melamed refused to attend a hearing scheduled for him at the defense minister's office. Sources close to Rabbi Melamed said, in explanation of his refusal, that he did not work for the defense minister. Ma'ariv reports that over 60 graduates of hesder yeshivas who serve as IDF reservists signed a petition protesting the decision to cancel the arrangement with the Har Bracha Yeshiva, stating that if the decision was implemented, they would not be able to continue to serve. Yedioth Aharonot wrote that such a firm step by the army authorities was long overdue, adding that a yeshiva such as Har Bracha will "dry up" without the army's financial support. The article calls upon the political-security establishment to continue to stand firm and act against the supporters of disobedience and violent extremists. Ma'ariv suggests that Rabbi Melamed's actions were a calculated provocation intended to spark a crisis, and says that the security establishment fears a direct collision with the entire national-religious camp, which is the source of many infantry officers in the IDF. Block Quotes: -------------- -------------- Mideast: -------------- ¶I. "Finally" Military correspondent Alex Fishman wrote in the mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (12/14): "This is a blow in the padded and well-protected underbelly of the group of extremist rabbis in the heart of Samaria.... Now, for the first time, the defense minister has made it clear to them: ...You can no longer enjoy the best of both worlds- study, serve only half the compulsory service, enjoy the prestige of military service win the national-patriotic honor that you seek, enjoy all the privileges of discharged soldiers, receive financial support for the hesder yeshivas, and also spit in all of our faces.... A hesder yeshiva such as Rabbi Melamed's yeshiva will dry up without the army's financial support. Now the political-security establishment has to stand firm and show no fear. Continue this line. Indict bodies that donate money to disobedient soldiers, employ an iron fist against the burners of cars, stage a pogrom against those who burned the mosque. Yes, and we can doff our hats to the chief of staff and the defense minister, who finally did what should have been done many years ago." II. "Clash Feared with National-Religious Camp" Liberal columnist and television anchor Ofer Shelach wrote in the popular, pluralist Maariv (12/14): "The behavior of Rabbi Eliezer Melamed... evokes a sense of an act planned in advance, with the aim of bringing the relationship between the security establishment and the hesder yeshivas to a crisis.... Barak, who did everything to avoid this confrontation ... was left with no choice.... It is ... clear that (Rabbi Melamed) thinks that he has the power to make the security establishment fold and, on this matter, history is on his side. What Melamed knows with certainty is that more than a few of his colleagues... think as he does and may now face pressure to reveal their position. Conversely, Barak will find it difficult to back down from removing the Har Bracha Yeshiva from the arrangement.... More importantly, Melamed's provocation could ignite the confrontation that the security establishment fears so badly: A direct collision not only with some of the hesder yeshivas, but with the national-religious camp in its entirety, the same camp from which such a large share of the officers in the infantry brigades comes." III. "Your Destroyers Shall Come Forth From Your Midst" Political commentator Shalom Yerushalmi wrote in the popular, pluralist Maariv (12/14): "During the settler demonstration that was held last Wednesday ... several demonstrators distributed an anonymous leaflet in hundreds of copies, under the heading "No entrance for inspectors." The leaflet details the names and places of residence of the Civil Administration inspectors who distribute the freeze orders and come to enforce [the construction freeze] on the ground. Most of these inspectors, apparently, are settlers themselves. "Your destroyers shall come forth from your midst," it said....The reader of the leaflet can reach several conclusions. Firstly, the incitement in the settlements has no limits, even when the people in question are their neighbors, within their own house. Whoever compares inspectors implementing government policy to a kapo and links the temporary freeze orders with anti-Semitism, is an inciter and an instigator. Secondly, (it can be understood that) the settlers became accustomed to enslaving the law enforcement agencies to their own needs, until the government decided for its reasons to also work in the opposite direction. Thirdly, a person who works in the civil service and follows democratic decisions has no place in the settlements. I, in their place, would be horrified.... For decades, the settlers have complained about the rift between them and other parts of the population. They cannot understand why they never succeeded in settling in people's hearts.... Now it becomes apparent that they are actually doing everything possible to disengage from the state, which until today - and today, too - has turned them into its preferred sector and always placed them on the map of national priority." IV. "The price of the 'price tag'" The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (12/14): "The arson attack on the mosque in Yasuf, near Nablus, which by all indications was carried out by settler extremists from one of the neighboring Jewish settlements, should be an immediate wake-up call to law enforcement agencies in the territories. The words of condemnation... are not enough. Now is the time for action.... The burning of the mosque is a link in the chain... of actions the settlers themselves have deemed the "price tag." The police and the Israel Defense Forces faced the murky and threatening wave without taking any genuine action against it.... This seems to indicate that burned scriptures in Yasuf could be only the beginning, if the police and IDF do not respond immediately. The more time that elapses before the perpetrators are arrested, the greater the danger that they will continue with their misdeeds and that the relative calm prevailing in the West Bank will come to an end with Palestinians carrying out acts of revenge. The law enforcement agencies must respond immediately, unequivocally and with a heavy hand, in order to stop those who threaten to ignite a great fire in the territories. Now is the time to charge for the "price tag" policy." ¶V. "The real price tag" The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (12/14): "The motive behind the torching of a West Bank mosque early Friday morning was, as the graffiti left behind attested, "To exact a price." But the vandals who targeted the house of worship in Yasuf struck simultaneously at the sovereign authority of the state... the establishment of the Third Commonwealth in 1948 created an overarching Zionist authority. Those who reject it and turn to violence are flirting with treason. They are men without doubts. Yet there were also those who either refused to condemn the attack.... We want to hear more settler leaders and rabbis say... that the Yasuf attack... is despicable.... Obama (in his Nobel speech)drew no applause when he declared that evil was real and pacifism was not the way to confront it. He resurrected a Kennedy-esque Democratic defense of the use of force, making no apologies for U.S. behavior.... He also said that America reserved the right to act unilaterally - also a tenet of Israel's security doctrine. We were discomfited by the president's oblique implication, in referencing the Arab-Israel conflict, that Jews and Arabs fell back in the same manner on "tribe" and "religion" in confronting modernity. That's patently not true. Yet every time extremist settlers behave badly, the real price tag is that it becomes harder to make the case that the Jewish state is a beacon of enlightenment in a benighted Middle East. CUNNINGHAM