ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

UNCLAS TEL AVIV 000077 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. Israel-Turkey Relations ¶3. Anniversary of President ObamaQs Swearing-In -------------- Key stories in the media: -------------- All major media led with the aftermath of the earthquake in Port au Prince, the capital of Haiti. Leading media cited President ObamaQs response to the disaster. The media reported that several Israeli visitors to the country survived, that some others are missing, and that Israel and the Jewish Diaspora are organizing to bring a search and rescue team to Haiti, in conjunction with American or European authorities. Israel Radio reported that, in an interview with CNN, Haitian President Rene Preval counted Israel as one of the nations assisting his country. HaQaretz reported that the IDF is waiting for the stateQs decision regarding the character of the rescue mission. Israel Radio reported that Magen David Adom (the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross) is waiting for agreement by the American Red Cross to enter Haiti. The radio reported that Israel has decided to set up a field hospital in Haiti rather than send a rescue team. All media reported that yesterday Deputy FM Daniel Ayalon apologized in writing to Turkish Ambassador Ogur Celikkol for the way he treated him on Monday. Maariv wrote that Israel wanted to humiliate but found itself humiliated. The Jerusalem Post wrote about the Qdiplomatic shot in the footQ that was Qheard around the world. Media reported that President Shimon Peres convinced FM Avigdor Lieberman and PM Benjamin Netanyahu to issue an apology. Israel Radio reported that Netanyahu had agreed in principle to convey IsraelQs rebuke to Turkey but not with the manner Ayalon handled it. HaQaretz and the radio quoted Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who acknowledged the receipt of the apology as saying that Turkey will not change and that Israel must amend its relations with the Palestinians and Syria. Major media quoted Erdogan as saying that it was "the expected and desired response." Israel Radio reported that Ayalon told the Knesset that the affair will eventually benefit Israeli-Turkish relations. Speaking on the radio this morning, influential Kadima Knesset Member Haim Ramon said that Ayalon should apologize to the Israeli nation for the unwarranted humiliation it inflicted on it. Ramon also regretted what he said was NetanyahuQs approving attitude toward Ayalon. Maariv reported that the Jewish community in Turkey is enlisting against Ayalon. Yediot and Israel Radio reported that the soldiers who waved banners against evacuation of settlements will be removed from the Qhesder arrangement in which they combine military service and religious studies. In an unprecedented decision, these soldiers will be obligated to serve three full years in the IDF, instead of the shorter army service required of hesder soldiers. HaQaretz reported that Israel is prohibiting Palestinian lawyers and the relatives of Palestinian detainees from reaching a military tribunal via the Beitunia checkpoint west of Ramallah. The prohibition, which has been in effect for the past three days, means that Israeli police are requiring Palestinians to use the Qalandiyah crossing 20 kilometers away, where they must produce an entry permit to Israel -- which can take weeks to obtain -- if they want to enter an Israeli military tribunal that is on West Bank land. The court lies 300 meters south of the Beitunia roadblock, and was built on land that is part of Beitunia. The restriction contravenes a recent High Court of Justice decision opening Route 443 to Palestinian traffic All media reported that yesterday the leader of the Islamic Movement (Northern Branch),Sheikh Raed Salah, was sentenced to nine months in prison for assaulting a policeman and taking part in a violent demonstration in February 2007 near JerusalemQs Temple Mount. The media reported that yesterday State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss released an extensive report on the shortcomings of the defense establishment, focusing on logistical and manpower problems in the IDF. The comptroller also said that the Arabs in Israel are exposed to deliberate anti-Israeli propaganda on Arabic satellite television, especially Al Jazeera and the Hamas and Hizbullah television channels. The Jerusalem Post reported that Jared Maslin, an American Jewish journalist who worked as a senior English-language editor at the MaQan Palestinian news agency was denied entry into Israel on Tuesday and that he is scheduled to be deported today. Security sources told the daily that Qsuspicious signsQ were identified on Maslin, adding that the suspicions were passed on to the Interior Ministry. The Jerusalem Post reported that an American Muslim organization is denying charges leveled by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) that a national conference held to combat extremism actually promoted anti-Semitic and anti-Israel sentiment. The ADL claimed that the Muslim American Society and the Islamic Circle of North America gathering held in December Qhas proven to be a sham and a cover for anti-Semitism and extremism. The Jerusalem Post cited a Brandeis University report, QSearching for the Study of Israel,Q according to which the past three years have seen a huge jump in the number and variety of courses about Israel taught in top U.S. universities. -------------- ¶1. Mideast: -------------- Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. QThe Big Bang of 2010 Senior commentator Ari Shavit wrote in the independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (1/14): QIf the political system had worked properly, Netanyahu would be leading a moderate right-wing party, while Tzipi Livni would be heading a moderate left-wing party and Ehud Barak a centrist party. After a brief election campaign, the leaders would have brought all three parties into a single sane Zionist government.... [But] Netanyahu is trapped in the hands of the Likud's extremists, Livni is trapped by Kadima's Likudniks, and Barak is trapped in a party that loves him just as much as he loves it. All three are unable to implement their true political worldviews. None of them can offer a clear way or decisive solutions. An irrelevant Likud, a Labor that has lost its way, and a crumbling Kadima are causing the national leadership to remain stagnant. A distorted political structure is making the next big bang inevitable.... The silent Israeli majority feels that Zionism is under siege. The threat is posed not only by Iran, Hizbullah and Hamas. The threat lies within ourselves: our moral eclipse, our obtuseness, our lack of feeling, our stupidity. Our loss of faith in our rightness. So all Zionist parties must come to their senses, come together and take action. If Netanyahu proves he can lead the Zionist coalition and unite the Israeli majority, his leadership will have meaning. But to do so he must make sure that the big bang of 2010 is a Zionist one, not a cynical one. II. QMitchell: Blunder or Threat? Washington-based columnist Douglas Bloomfield wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (1/14): QA State Department spokesman denied [Senator George] Mitchell was sending any signals [when he raised the issue of loan guaranteed to Israel], but it's hard to believe that was an innocent, off-the-cuff remark from such an experienced diplomat, politician and judge. Administration credibility was damaged in the eyes of many friends of Israel last year when it demanded a total settlement freeze and only later talked about Arab reciprocity -- which the Arabs privately and publicly rejected. Officials privately admit they're still unable to get the Arabs to pitch in with anything more than gratuitous advice.... Chances of success [of MitchellQs upcoming visit] are low thanks to a collapse of trust between the two sides, weak leadership, deep divisions among the Palestinians and wide gaps between the two sides on fundamental issues. Some question whether the administration really is making a serious new move for peace or just marking time until both Israelis and Palestinians get leaders who are ready to make the tough decisions essential to ending the conflict. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, QThere is a hunger for a resolutionQ of the conflict and called it Qan imperative goal.Q You couldn't tell it by listening to Israeli and Palestinian leaders. III. QTo Be Israeli Today Liberal columnist Larry Derfner wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (1/14): QWhen I try to explain Israel to Americans, I ask them to imagine that 80 percent of their fellow citizens were Republicans. Israel has become a one-party country -- the war party. We're at war with the Middle East, with Europe, with liberal Jews in the Diaspora, and with a pathetically small handful of dissenters at home. We trust no one. We see anti-Semites everywhere. We'd like to build an Iron Dome over this whole country to keep the world out. There's very little oxygen around here; everyone is breathing the air that everyone else has exhaled. This country has been stagnating for a decade. And we've never achieved such unity. IV. QSaudis Seek Illusory 'Third Way' in Regional Diplomacy Jonathan Spyer, a senior researcher at the Interdisciplinary Center, wrote in the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (1/14): QWhile holding fast to their alliance with the Iranians, and in return for nothing, the Syrians have been invited back to the top table of Arab diplomacy. This, the Saudis hope, will allow for the noble task of trying to put Humpty together again -- that is, rebuilding Arab regional diplomacy along the comforting lines of all-together-against-Israel (at least verbally). The problem with all this is that it won't work. If the Saudis or anyone else believe that the pro-Iranian alliance can be stopped in its tracks by handing it victory, they are sorely mistaken. The result of surrender in Lebanon has not been to restore QnormalityQ to that country -- it has been to place it firmly back into the Syrian/Iranian orbit.... In the Middle East today there is the U.S.-led alliance and the Iran-led alliance. There is no third, Arab way. Offering up gifts to Iran's chief Arab partners, meanwhile, will serve not to satiate the Iran-led bloc, but rather to whet its appetite. -------------- ¶2. Israel-Turkey Relations: -------------- Block Quotes: -------------- ¶I. QTime to Pay the Bill Middle East affairs commentator Dr. Guy Bechor, a lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Center, wrote in the mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (1/14): QIt is absolutely not the right of the ruling Islamic party to make Israel an instrument by which it embarrassingly courts the Arab world. It is absolutely not its right to attack Israel, condemn it, and sow anti-Semitic statements. Until today, Israel exercised restraint about this, and that was a mistake. The time has now come to set a price tag for the Turkish administration, if it should continue the incitement, and the Foreign Ministry did well to start doing so.... If the Turkish administration wishes to paint its state in colors of anti-Western defiance, it is entitled to do so. That is its internal affair. If it seeks to sweep the country gradually to Islam, that is also its internal matter. But this must not be permitted to come at the expense of another sovereign state, Israel. If Turkey continues to do so, it will also have to pay for the use that it is making of Israel, and it should take this into account. In the Middle East, as the Syrians, the new friends of the Turks, have taught us -- there are no free lunches. -------------- -------------- ¶3. Anniversary of President ObamaQs Swearing-In: -------------- -------------- Block Quotes: -------------- "America and Obama" Avraham Ben-Zvi, visiting Professor of Political Science at Haifa University and an expert in U.S.-Israel relations, wrote in the independent Israel Hayom (1/14): QAmerican society is still light-years away from full, true equality among the various ethnic groups that compose it.... As America stood to meet this challenge successfully, the disturbing fact has been exposed that the foci of patronizing and discrimination of the other -- as demonstrated [in QGame Change,Q] the shining opus by [American journalists Mark Halperin and John Heilman] -- are found in the halls of power, not in the analphabetic margins of society. Against the background of this reality, there is room for asking whether the Aerica whether the American nation did not celebrate ObamaQs entrance into the White House too quickly. CUNNINGHAM