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Cablegate: Israel Media Reaction

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

111058Z Jul 05

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 TEL AVIV 004277

SIPDIS

STATE FOR NEA, NEA/IPA, NEA/PPD

WHITE HOUSE FOR PRESS OFFICE, SIT ROOM
NSC FOR NEA STAFF

JERUSALEM ALSO FOR ICD
LONDON ALSO FOR HKANONA AND POL
PARIS ALSO FOR POL
ROME FOR MFO
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: IS KMDR MEDIA REACTION REPORT
SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION


--------------------------------
SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT:
--------------------------------

1. Mideast

2. London Bombings

-------------------------
Key stories in the media:
-------------------------

Major media (banner in Ha'aretz) reported that a
delegation of senior Israeli officials that left for
Washington over the weekend will ask the U.S.
government this evening for some USD 2.2 billion in
special aid for the disengagement plan. Ha'aretz
quoted GOI sources in Jerusalem as saying Sunday that
this week's talks will focus on the details of the aid
package, as the U.S. has already assured Israel in
principle that it will provide funding for the military
outlays related to the plan and for developing the
Negev and Galilee -- areas that would get two thirds of
the money.

Leading media (Maariv's banner announces the "end of
the U.S.-Israel crisis") reported that the U.S. and
Israel will sign a memorandum of understanding on
security exports today, and that Defense Minister Shaul
Mofaz will come to the U.S. next week to finalize the
agreement. Maariv and other media reported that
Defense Ministry D-G Amos Yaron will visit the U.S.,
"where he will be received honorably, restoring the
luster to his tarnished reputation," after tending his
resignation.

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The media (lead stories in Jerusalem Post and the
religious newspapers) reported that, nearly three years
after construction began on the security barrier going
up between Israel and the West Bank, the government on
Sunday set September 1 as the deadline for the
completion of the Jerusalem barrier, which will leave
55,000 Arab residents of the city on the Palestinian
side. Hatzofe banners: "Sharon Divides Jerusalem."
Ha'aretz reported that FM Silvan Shalom met Sunday with
Alvaro de Soto, the UN envoy to the Middle East, and
asked him to prevent the Palestinians from carrying out
their plan to hold a General Assembly meeting on the
West Bank separation fence.

Leading media reported that an interview of Mofaz,
conducted for the first time on Sunday by Al Jazeera-
TV, is likely to be broadcast today. Mofaz reportedly
emphasized the importance of settlement blocs and the
Jordan Valley to Israel. Israel Radio said that Mofaz
told the TV station that disengagement coordination
talks with the Palestinians are going well. Ha'aretz
and Jerusalem Post reported that Mofaz told the TV
station that Israel has given the Palestinians approval
to start building a seaport in Gaza and begin planning
a new airport there as well, and that he called on the
Arab world to give the Palestinians economic and
humanitarian aid. The media also said that the Arab
states should moderate support for terror. Ha'aretz
reported that Mofaz met on Sunday with Quartet
representative James Wolfensohn to discuss coordinating
the disengagement plan with the Palestinians. The
newspaper says that Israeli officials are under the
impression that PA Civil Affairs Minister Muhammad
Dahlan has been meeting with different Israeli
ministers to extract promises from each one. Israel
Radio reported that Dahlan and Gen. Yosef Mishlav, the
coordinator of GOI activities in the territories,
agreed that the crossings between Israel and the West
Bank will remain open during the disengagement.
Ha'aretz quoted Palestinian Minister of National
Economy Mazen Sinnokrot as saying on Sunday that an
agreement has been reached between Israel and the PA
regarding the positioning of European observers at the
future border crossings between Israel and the PA, and
between the PA and Egypt. Israel Radio quoted a
Palestinian source -- cited in the Palestinian daily Al-
Ayyam -- as saying that Egypt is ready to amass the
rubble from the ruins of the evacuated Gaza Strip
settlements in the Sinai.

On Sunday, Ha'aretz reported that Mofaz and PA Interior
Minister Gen. Nasser Yousef have reached an agreement
to coordinate the disengagement between Israel and the
PA. The newspaper says that Yousef undertook to deploy
armed troops as a buffer between the settlements and
the built area of Khan Yunis, from which mortar shells
and rockets have been fired at Israeli targets. Yousef
also reportedly promised to prevent mass looting in the
evacuated Gush Katif settlements.

On Sunday, leading media quoted British PM Tony Blair
as saying, in an interview with BBC Radio 4 on
Saturday, that "some of the critical issues in the
Middle East" should be "dealt with and sorted out" in
order to uproot terrorism. Leading media reported that
Sharon's bureau would not comment. However, Yediot
quoted diplomatic sources in Jerusalem as saying that
Blair's comment contained "a lot of hypocrisy," and
that they "place the victim on the defendant's bench."
All media reported that an Israeli woman residing in
London might have been a victim in London's bus
bombing.

Ha'aretz reported that the IDF is expected to hand over
control of Bethlehem to the PA this week, and quoted
military sources as saying Sunday that control may be
transferred as early as Tuesday.

Maariv reported that only 450 out 1,000 settler
families in the Gaza Strip have had some contacts with
the Disengagement Administration regarding their
relocation after August 15. For its part, Yediot
reported that approximately 500 families from the
settlement of Neve Dekalim, the largest in Gush Katif,
are looking into the possibility of moving to live as a
bloc in Ahuzat Etrog, a community near Kiryat Malachi,
east of Ashdod.
On Sunday, Ha'aretz and other media reported that a 15-
year-old Palestinian youth was shot to death on Friday
by a guard employed in a private firm protecting the
construction of the security fence, close to Beit
Likya.

On Sunday, Yediot and Jerusalem Post reported that the
parents of Assaf Deri, an Israel killed last year by
police in Burbank, Calif., are suing the local police
for USD 51 million dollars. The parents, who live in
Israel, claim that Assaf was shot only because he
looked like a Muslim.

------------
1. Mideast:
------------

Summary:
--------

Liberal op-ed writer Yael Gewirtz opined in the lead
editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot
Aharonot: "The Israeli leaders' awakening from the
intoxicating smell of tight occupation carries a hefty
price tag."

Block Quotes:
-------------

"Wrapping Splits"

Liberal op-ed writer Yael Gewirtz opined in the lead
editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot
Aharonot (July 11): "Slowly, but consistently, Israel
has been acting to determine its borders and to
disengage from a needless security and economic
burden.... The Israeli government will erect a wall
that will leave outside [Jerusalem] tens of thousands
of Palestinian residents and leave tens of thousands of
others inside. When you annex arbitrarily, you have to
cope with a situation made necessary by an arbitrary
separation: the government and the Jerusalem
Municipality will have to provide health, education and
administration services to the 55,000 Palestinians who
will now remain beyond the fence.... A wall is built
with hard materials; it is impossible to wrap the
damage done to East Jerusalem residents with a humane
gesture, as if this were an environmental work by the
artist Christo. The [government's] decision is harsh
and infinitely complex to carry out. The Israeli
leaders' awakening from the intoxicating smell of tight
occupation carries a hefty price tag. Returning the
reality to what it used to be is expensive -- almost to
an impossible degree."

--------------------
2. London Bombings:
--------------------

Summary:
--------

Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized:
"Nobody knows what fundamental Islam wants to achieve,
and its excuses for terror attacks change from time to
time."

Chief Economic Editor and senior columnist Sever
Plotker wrote in the editorial of mass-circulation,
pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "The guilt has already begun
to be shifted away from the murderers and onto others.
By so doing, the groundwork is being laid for the
terror attacks yet to come."

Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized:
"Critics focus on what the West does. But the real
'root cause' for Islamists is what the West is."

Senior Middle East affairs analyst Zvi Bar'el wrote in
Ha'aretz: "It's easier to send a few brigades to
Afghanistan to cleanse Taliban nests, or run street
fights in Fallujah. It is almost impossible to
eliminate the poverty. But between these two extremes
there is a huge space for cooperation."

Block Quotes:
-------------

I. "Who Will Lose the Terror War?"

Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (July
10): "There is no escape from anti-Western terror,
which has no declared political purpose and with which
nobody can negotiate on the terms to end the crisis,
because there is no one to talk to and nothing to
discuss. Nobody knows what fundamental Islam wants to
achieve, and its excuses for terror attacks change from
time to time. The list of targets consists of
everything identified with the West and especially with
America. The Jews are a target in and of themselves,
and so are all the opponents of fundamentalism wherever
they are, including free Muslims like Salman Rushdie
and the Egyptian ambassador in Iraq, who was executed
last Thursday.... Since September 11, 2001, almost
every Western state has changed its laws, tightened
immigration regulations, increased intelligence means
and created an infrastructure to fight terror. This
has been done to such an extent that there were
complaints of excessive infringement of human and civil
rights. But it seems that ultimately the awareness of
the threat has not changed."

II. "Laying the Groundwork for Terror Attacks Yet to
Come"

Chief Economic Editor and senior columnist Sever
Plotker wrote in the editorial of mass-circulation,
pluralist Yediot Aharonot (July 10): "The following
facts are clear to any reasonable individual who looks
at the waves of terrorism of the 21st century: first
and foremost, this is terrorism that is perpetrated by
Muslims.... Second, it is terrorism that is
perpetrated by rich and educated people, not by the
indigent and uneducated.... Third, the Jihadists
launched a terrorist war against the West because it is
the West, and not in order to 'promote' by so doing the
resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or to
prompt the U.S. to remove its troops from Iraq. Their
one and only motive was and remains to undermine the
pillars of the hated Western culture and to lay bare
its weakness.... Fourth, there is only one way to
fight terrorism: to fight it. To strike at it. To
eradicate it mercilessly. The war on terrorism needs
to be absolute because terrorism is absolute. Until
victory, until the enemy surrenders. Any compromise
with Muslim terrorism, any attempt to understand it --
in other words to forgive it, at least partially -- is
tantamount to moving down the slippery slope against
which Churchill warned in June 1940, when he refused to
begin negotiations with Hitler. A short time after the
mass terror attacks and even before all of the dead
have been identified, the cogs in the machinery of self-
deception in Britain and throughout Europe began to
turn. The guilt has already begun to be shifted away
from the murderers and onto others. By so doing, the
groundwork is being laid for the terror attacks yet to
come."


III. "Root Causes"

Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized
(July 11): "Regrettably, it hasn't taken long for [some
British] politicians and pundits to raise the familiar,
if sterile, 'root causes' argument to 'explain' the
blowing up of carriages on the London Underground and a
double-decker bus in the center of town.... Even Blair
himself has seemed to be backtracking, ever so subtly,
from his initial Churchillian responses on the day of
the bombings.... In the encounter between the Orient
and the Occident, between Islam and the West and, more
recently, in Israel's struggle to survive in the Muslim
Middle East, it may be that errors have been made which
have contributed to the development of Islamic
fanaticism. If so, those errors should be addressed.
We all have an interest in preventing the spread of
murderous extremism. But no such errors can possibly
be cited to so much as imply a justification or
legitimization for the premeditated, indiscriminate
killings of innocents.... Critics focus on what the
West does. But the real 'root cause' for Islamists is
what the West is."

IV. "Drafting a Different Road Map"

Senior Middle East affairs analyst Zvi Bar'el wrote in
Ha'aretz (July 10): "Commentators distinguish between
minor terrorist attacks and serious ones. The bombings
in London fall into the category of minor attacks that
even George Bush and Benjamin Netanyahu can explain: a
war of Islam against the West.... The call for a
universal war against terror sounds good. It creates a
sense of unity of the sons of light against the sons of
darkness. Mainly, it imbues the faith that terror
could be vanquished by military means alone. Granted,
it's easier to bring together representatives of
intelligence services, exchange information, examine
war tactics and hold joint maneuvers. It's easier to
send a few brigades to Afghanistan to cleanse Taliban
nests, or run street fights in Fallujah. It is almost
impossible to eliminate the poverty. But between these
two extremes there is a huge space for cooperation,
which could reduce the support for organizations such
as Al-Qaida and increase the chances of foiling its
attacks."

KURTZER

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