ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

UNCLAS TEL AVIV 000175 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. Anniversary of President ObamaQs Swearing-In: -------------- Key stories in the media: -------------- All media quoted the German weekly Der Spiegel as saying that Iran will produce an atomic weapon within a year and that it is trying to reduce the size of the weapon so that it can mount it on a missile. Israel Radio quoted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as saying that IranQs time of DECISION has arrived. The radio reported that Israel is trying to have a deal between Iran and a German gas firm canceled and that another contract was annulled. IDF Radio quoted DM Ehud Barak as saying that lack of peace is IsraelQs greatest threat, not IranQs nuclear program. The Jerusalem Post reported that the PA is QstudyingQ U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace Senator George MitchellQs proposal to restart talks at a ministerial level. Makor Rishon-Hatzofe quoted leading Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat as saying that reports on the resumption of the negotiations are inaccurate. IDF Radio quoted PA President Mahmoud Abbas that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is pressuring him to renew the talks. Information and Diaspora Affairs Yuli Edelstein said in an interview from New York with Israel Radio that Israel does not intend to draft a document of its own to counter the Goldstone Report. Several major media had discussed this possibility. HaQaretz cited a Foreign Ministry report that the humiliation of the Turkish Ambassador to Israel has worked and that Ankara got the message; the dossier points a finger at Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan for anti-Semitic remarks. Makor Rishon-Hatzofe quoted associates of DM Barak as saying that the comment the Minister made yesterday at a session of the Labor PartyQs Knesset faction about Qvoices in the Israeli Left that, instead of encouraging the parties, are strengthening doubts among the Palestinians,Q referred to former Meretz Chairman Yossi Beilin. HaQaretz reported that IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi is heading to Brussels for a NATO military conference. The Jerusalem Post reported that Congressman HOWARD Berman, Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, defended PM Benjamin Netanyahu and placed the onus for restarting peace talks on the Palestinians. Yediot reported that Tim Laas, a U.S. security officer at the Consulate-General in Jerusalem, told representatives of the foreign and defense ministries that the U.S. does not agree to let Israeli security staff inspect its vehicles in the country. The Jerusalem Post reported that yesterday Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, head of the Old Yosef Chai yehiva in the Yitzhar settlement near Nablus, was clled for questioning by police over the alleged nvolvement of six of his students in the arson of West Bank mosque on December 11. All media rported that yesterday PM Benjamin Netanyahu's wifeSara sued Maariv, its editor-in-chief Yoav Tzur, nd journalist Ben Caspit for libel and defamatio of character, claiming that the daily newspaper "is maliciously trying to humiliate her." Sara Netanyahu seeks damages of one million shekels (around $250,000) from Maariv. Last Friday the paper wrongly reported that she had fired a 70-year-old gardener at the Prime Minister's Residence. In another development, the media reported that the former employee of the PMQs wife at the Netanyahu residence in Caesarea, who accused her of bad treatment and low remuneration, filed a complaint with the police, saying that someone had threatened to kill her children. All media reported that yesterday the Knesset approved by a large majority a comprehensive pardon bill for hundreds of right-wing people who transgressed the law during the disengagement from Gaza and the northern West Bank. Some Israeli commentators speculated, counter to the view of the Lebanese Government, that the explosion of the Ethiopian Airlines plane off the coast of Beirut was caused by malice. Leading media reported that current visits to Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia by Israeli leaders are meant to return Eastern EuropeQs diplomatic support for Israel. Israel Radio reported that Knesset Member Said Naffaa (Balad National Democratic Assembly) has asked the KnessetQs House Committee to grant him immunity from prosecution over his trip to Syria in 2007. Naffaa claims that his trip was part of his duties to the public that elected him. Attorney General Menachem Mazuz rejected the attempt to turn the indictment into an issue pertaining to the entire Druze community in Israel. Mazuz was quoted as saying that this case most clearly represents a contact of the severest type with a foreign agent. Media quoted Polish Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek as saying in an interview with an Italian Catholic news website, Pontifex Roma, that Jews had "stolen" the tragedy of the Holocaust for propaganda purposes. He later recanted his comment. The media reported that last night the field hospital opened by Israel in Haiti closed its doors. The Jerusalem Post wrote that as of yesterday, 1,102 Haitians had been treated at the facility. Among that number, 13 women gave birth naturally, three babies were delivered using Caesarian sections, and 314 operations were performed. Fifteen people remained hospitalized at the facility and they will continue to receive treatment over the next few days until the Qpull-outQ of IDF forces is complete. Israel Hayom notes that, contrary to the OECD, The Wall Street Journal praises IsraelQs economic policy. Channel 10-TV reported that the International Monetary Fund has urged Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer to stop buying U.S. dollars. -------------- Mideast: -------------- Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. QThe Bulldozers ArenQt Dozing Senior op-ed writer Akiva Eldar commented in Ha'aretz (1/26): QTwo months after the government DECISION on November 26 to freeze construction in Jewish settlements for 10 months, you'd have to be blind, an idiot, or a member of the Yesha Council of Jewish Settlements in the Territories to use the term QfreezeQ to describe the real estate situation in Judea and Samaria [i.e. the West Bank]. Two days ago, when Netanyahu planted a tree in Gush Etzion, he promised to place many more trees in the Ariel bloc as well, which is 20 kilometers east of the Green Line. In the case of Ariel, Netanyahu kept his word even before he gave it; as he was speaking yellow bulldozers were feverishly working on a new site for Ariel's industrial zone.... Two days ago HaQaretz documented bulldozers at work [in that region] (and also in the Barkan industrial zone). The spokesman of the Civil Administration [which depends on the IDF/Defense Ministry] explained that the Qenforcement efforts and issuing of injunctions is done in accordance with all the relevant considerations and priorities.Q It seems that the freeze on the construction of new industrial zones in national priority zones of the government in the heart of the West Bank is not at the top of the Defense Minister's list of priorities. He apparently was busy upgrading the status of Ariel University Center of Samaria. Netanyahu's colleagues will probably explain to the Americans that aside from the settlers, factories also experience natural growth. II. QA Nutty State Senior columnist and longtime peace advocate Yoel Marcus wrote in the independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (1/26): QThere is no doubt that the settlers and Likud extremists are pleased with Obama's admission of failure. But as far as the state's real interests are concerned, there is no cause for rejoicing. In any case, sooner or later we will have to end the occupation. The only question is under what circumstances. When a Republican is elected instead of the Democratic candidate in Massachusetts -- home to the Kennedy clan and a Democratic bastion -- reducing the Democratic-aligned majority in the Senate from 60 to 59, this is not good news to Obama ahead of the November elections. As Israelis we should not jump for joy when a Democratic administration weakens. For better or worse we gain from America not only defense assistance, but backing on the world stage. Many states court us because of these special relations. Strategically we need a strong, leading America. On the other hand, America needs us too. Obama has positioned us as a central pawn on his peace chessboard with Islam. In the tangle of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Iranian threat, he sees the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a snarl that must be untangled.... Before the President finds the timing for imposing a deadlock-breaking move, Netanyahu would do well to come up with his own initiative to break the impasse. III. QThe Resurrection of the Allon Plan David Newman, Professor of Political Geography at Ben-Gurion University and Editor of the International Journal of Geopolitics, wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (1/26): QPrime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's comments last week to foreign journalists that whatever the final outcome of a peace solution (assuming there is ever one),Israel would insist on retaining control of the border between a Palestinian state and Jordan signaled a return to a way of thinking about the future borders of the country thought to have disappeared over a decade ago.... The idea of retaining control over the border with Jordan is a throwback to the period immediately following the Six Day War.... The Allon Plan, after its author, former Palmah commander, foreign minister, and deputy prime minister Yigal Allon, could best be described as a pragmatic security plan. Recognizing the demographic implications of long-term control of the region, Allon did not want Israel to retain such control over the interior mountainous areas of the West Bank, densely occupied even then by Palestinians. At the same time, he wanted to ensure that the autonomous region remain isolated from direct contact with its Arab neighbors to the east.... Did Netanyahu make his statement based on real security expertise or was it just another attempt to hammer the nails even more strongly into the coffin of peace? IV. QNorthern Code Defense commentator Amir Oren wrote in the independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (1/26): QIf [Syrian President Bashar] Assad decides to imitate Anwar Sadat, who was his father's partner in 1973, and to strike Israel in order to wound it, its air bases, infrastructure and pride, Israel will not be able to prevent him from gaining a psychological and political victory, however heavy a military and economic price he must pay. This is the code of the north that our commanders there are refusing to decipher for the public, who will suffer the consequences. To their credit, it may be said that the generals are unwilling to encroach on the no-man's-land between the military and political echelons, and that they fear divulging to the Syrians the IDF commanders' thinking. But on the negative side, they are shirking their supreme duty -- preventing an unnecessary war. -------------- -------------- ¶2. Anniversary of President ObamaQs Swearing-In: -------------- -------------- Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. QGive the Man a Break Michael Sussman, a former special assistant to the Critic of International Cooperation in the Canadian House of Commons, who is now completing a thesis about modern reform in the Arab Middle East at the Interdisciplinary Center, wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (1/26): QIn a world where actions speak louder than words, Obama has made significant efforts to advance the moral principles we aspire to.... Obama claims that Qchange will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. However, our views of freedom and the rule of law are far from being universally accepted. Convincing people to give way to our beliefs will not come with the click of a pen. To turn our ideals into reality we must undertake the difficult task of understanding the way our adversaries think. We must work hard to show them how freedom, human rights and democracy should prevail. We must not allow the goodness of our principles to be used against us. Change is possible; but it involves hard work. II. QItQs Not Just Israel : How Obama Undermines U.S. Allies Abraham Katsman, an American attorney and political commentator currently living in Jerusalem, wrote in The Jerusalem Post (1/26): QFor those worried that U.S. President Barack Obama is particularly antagonistic toward Israel, there's good news and bad news: the good news is that Israel is hardly Obama's obsession; the bad news is that his administration's conduct toward it is consistent with its pattern of backing away from embattled American allies -- a predictable byproduct of Obama's approach to foreign policy through dictator outreach. Obama, more than any recent president, has made his own personality and identity cornerstones of American diplomacy.... Obama's one-sided pressure against Israel has earned him, according to a Jerusalem Post poll published in June, the assessment of only 6 percent of Jewish Israelis that his administration is pro-Israel. But it's not just Israel.... Is there a threatened ally he has ever stood up for? If I were Taiwan, IQd be worried.... With nothing to show for his efforts, Obama's continued belief in his ability to pacify adversaries by personal appeal is as delusional as it is dangerous. Nations don't have personal friends; they have interests. And American interests are not advanced by presidential groveling, but by creating the right mix of carrots and sticks to induce desired behavior. Obama's willingness to sacrifice embattled allies to appease hostile regimes ultimately weakens America. As Bernard Lewis has said: QA nation can make few mistakes worse than this: to be harmless as an enemy and treacherous as a friend.Q Especially when that nation gets nothing in return. CUNNINGHAM