Cablegate: Israel Media Reaction

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

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 08 TEL AVIV 002272

SIPDIS

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 FOR ICD
LONDON ALSO FOR HKANONA AND POL
PARIS ALSO FOR POL
ROME FOR MFO

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: IS KMDR SETTLEMENTS
SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

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

1. Mideast

2. Somalia

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Key stories in the media:
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Major media reported that at 10 Downing Street on
Monday, British PM Tony Blair refrained from endorsing
PM Ehud Olmert's plan for a unilateral withdrawal,
although he recognized that the absence of a viable
partner on the Palestinian side would mean "another
reality." Media quoted Olmert as saying at the joint
press conference with Blair that he told Blair that an
offer a few years ago by an Israeli PM to withdraw from
90 percent of the territories and the settlements would
have been considered a miracle. Ha'aretz quoted a
British official as saying that Olmert can be satisfied
over the fact that he presented the Palestinians with a
choice between accepting the conditions set by the
international community or accepting reality, which
might cause them to be blamed for refusing Israel's
terms. Yediot reported that when asked whether
Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh might be an assassination
target, Olmert told reporters that "nobody involved in
terrorism is immune. I do not have to declare names."

Ha'aretz (Akiva Eldar) reported that in light of the
international opposition to further unilateral steps by
Israel, the GOI has begun to draft an alternative plan
that would essentially convert Olmert's unilateral
convergence plan into a bilateral move carried out in
conjunction with PA Chairman [President] Mahmoud Abbas.
The newspaper wrote that according to the plan now
being drafted by the Prime Minister's Office and the
Foreign Ministry, Israel would propose to Abbas that
they reach an agreement to establish a Palestinian
state with provisional borders in Gaza plus about 90
percent of the West Bank. The provisional border in
the West Bank would match the route of the separation
fence, with one exception: Israel would retain security
control over the Jordan Valley. Ha'aretz said that in
this way, Israel hopes to present the convergence plan
as an implementation of Phase II of the road map peace
plan, thereby acceding to the demands of the US,
Jordan, Egypt, and others that Israel resume
negotiations with the PA under the Roadmap. Under this
proposal, the parties would proceed to Phase II without
waiting for the completion of Phase I, which calls for
dismantling the terrorist infrastructure. FM Tzipi
Livni confirmed to Ha'aretz that she told senior
ministry officials last week that "currently, Abbas is
not a partner for a final-status agreement, but he
could be a partner for other arrangements, on the basis
of the Roadmap's phased process." Ha'aretz quoted one
participant in this meeting as saying that Livni spoke
explicitly about an agreement to establish a
Palestinian state with provisional borders. Phase II
of the Roadmap presents the "option" of an independent
Palestinian state with provisional borders, "as a way
station to a permanent status settlement."

Ha'aretz reported that Defense Minister Amir Peretz has
decided to reexamine the route of the separation fence,
especially around Jerusalem, in order to reduce both
damage to Palestinian property and the project's costs.

Israel Radio quoted a member of Olmert's entourage as
saying in London that IDF fire did not kill the
Palestinian family on a Gaza beach Friday. Leading
media reported that the IDF investigation into the case
has found that the times of the firing of IDF shells
and the explosion do not match; the examination of
shrapnel removed from the bodies of three wounded
victims hospitalized in Israel is likely to reinforce
the conclusion that the explosion was caused by a bomb
rather than a shell; based on photographs, the crater
left on the beach by the blast seems to have been made
by an explosion from below (a mine), not a hit from
above (a shell); intelligence gathered by Israel found
that Hamas has been systematically mining the northern
Gaza beach in an attempt to keep Israeli commandos from
landing there again. Ha'aretz wrote that the main hole
in the army's evidence is the missing sixth shell, the
first to be fired and whose landing site has not been
determined. The newspaper reported that the
Palestinians are likely to investigate the incident on
their own and that they are expected to contradict the
results of the IDF probe. Yediot reported that on
Saturday, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called
Olmert, asking that Israel provide a proper response to
the Gaza incident, and that Annan was surprised when
Olmert told him about the scope of Qassam rocket
attacks against Israel. The Jerusalem Post and other
media quoted Peretz as saying that the Palestinians
"have to understand we have the capability to deliver
much more painful answers [to Qassam rockets]." All
media reported that on Monday and this morning, about
17 Qassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip landed in
the Sderot area. An Israeli woman was slightly wounded
and a car was destroyed. Israel Radio and leading
media websites reported that this morning, an IAF
missile strike on a van carrying a Palestinian rocket-
launching squad on Tuesday killed at least nine people
and wounded 20 to 25 others. The squad members
allegedly belonged to Islamic Jihad.

Maariv reported that Kadima members are planning to
build six villages in the southern Hebron hills, inside
the Green Line, where residents of six settlements over
the Green Line would be relocated. The establishment
of the new communities would take place even before the
evacuation of the settlements.

All media reported that pitched battles between Hamas
and Fatah operatives in Gaza killed two people and
wounded 17 on Monday, while in Ramallah, Fatah gunmen
torched parts of the prime minister's office and the
Palestinian parliament.

Ha'aretz (Akiva Eldar) reported that Washington has
informed Olmert that the success of the Palestinian
President in the referendum on the 'prisoners'
document' is the success of President Bush's
democratization in the Middle East and that this is the
main reason Olmert is shrugging off the referendum.

Yediot reported that Binyamin Netanyahu and Avigdor
Lieberman, respectively chairmen of Likud and Yisrael
Beiteinu, have agreed to start a process to merge their
parties, creating a "counter big bang" in Israeli
politics.

The radio stations and leading news websites reported
that today, police arrested seven residents of the
Israeli Arab town of Shfaram on suspicion of being
involved in the lynching of a Jewish gunman, Eden Natan-
Zada. Natan-Zada killed four townsmen in a shooting
attack on August 2 last year. Israel Radio said that
Israeli Arab Knesset members protested over the
arrests.
All media cited the Lebanese daily As-Safir as saying
on Monday that Lebanese intelligence services claim to
have uncovered a spy network that has been working for
Israel since 1990.

Maariv reported on Israel's success at the Eurosatory
defense exhibition that opened in Paris on Monday.
Among other products, the newspaper listed an all-
weather intelligence picture gathering system offered
by Israel Aircraft Industries and a tank protection
system built by the Rafael Armaments Development
Authority.

Ha'aretz reported that the GOI is planning to establish
a computerized database to monitor all foreigners
entering or residing in Israel. Sasi Katzir, the head
of the Interior Ministry's population administration,
told the newspaper that the new data bank was a joint
initiative by numerous bodies: the interior; foreign;
public security; industry, trade and labor; and justice
ministries; the Immigration Administration and the
Central Bureau of Statistics. Interior Minister Roni
Bar-On and Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter will
eventually present the detailed project for cabinet
approval.

The Jerusalem Post and Maariv reported that in the next
couple of days at Camp David, President Bush will host
a discussion about a gradual withdrawal of US troops
from Iraq. Leading media reported that Al Qaida in
Iraq has named Abu Hamza al-Muhajir to be a successor
to Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.

Maariv reported that on Monday, the US Supreme Court
turned back an appeal Monday from American Jews who
were victims of the Nazi regime in Austria and whose
litigation had tied up payments from a USD 210-million
settlement. The Jerusalem Post reported that Waitstill
Sharp, a minister from suburban Boston, and his wife
Martha, an experienced social worker, will be
posthumously honored as "Righteous Gentiles" at Yad
Vashem on Tuesday. The couple saved Jews in various
European counties during the Nazi occupation. The
Jerusalem Post noted that the Sharps are only the
second and third Americans, after Varian Fry -- who
saved Jews in occupied France -- to receive Yad
Vashem's highest honor.

Ha'aretz reported that the late PM Menachem Begin
played a central role in a failed 1952 attempt to
assassinate then-West German Chancellor Konrad
Adenauer, with the objective of sabotaging the
reparations agreement with Israel, according to the
journal of Eliezer Sudit, one of the men who carried
out the attempted hit. Begin was then head of the
opposition in the Knesset.

All media bannered the collision of a Tel Aviv-Haifa
passenger train with a pickup truck near Beit Yehoshua,
south of Netanya, on Monday, in which five people were
killed and around 80 were wounded. Maariv bannered:
"Disaster Railways."

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

Summary:
--------

Chief Economic Editor Sever Plotker wrote in the
editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot
Aharonot: "The Palestinians will pay a heavy price for
what is viewed by the entire world as terror activity
that is offensive, irresponsible, and also idiotic."

The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post
editorialized: "The PA's prime minister, who just
described as a 'war crime' the tragic deaths on Friday
on a Gaza beach of a Palestinian family ... is openly
and deliberately attempting to commit war crimes
against Israelis."

Very liberal columnist B. Michael wrote in Yediot
Aharonot: "Just like in the second Intifada, the third
one will also not take place because the Palestinians
plotted and planned it, but because this is what the
IDF decided."

Block Quotes:
-------------
I. "Hamas Understands Only Force"
Chief Economic Editor Sever Plotker wrote in the
editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot
Aharonot (6/13): "While Abu Mazen does indeed aspire to
have the Hamas government collapse and for new
elections to be held, he has opted to achieve his goal
by means of a problematic route, whose outcome is
likely to be the opposite.... Such a referendum will
further fix Palestinian positions for generations and
will tie the hands of any Palestinian leader who wants
to deviate from its outline. Referendums should be
held on actual arrangements reached through enormous
effort and long negotiations, when the public is
capable of weighting their cost versus their benefit.
Israel cannot and should not talk to Hamas. This would
not only be disastrous and a slide down a slippery
slope, but would also stick a knife in Abu Mazen's
back, particularly as long as there still is a
realistic possibility that the Hamas regime will not
with stand the external and internal pressures on it
and will collapse.... The lives of Israelis who live in
communities near the border are now completely forfeit,
and the Qassam rocket fire on them has to stop. That
is the basic duty of the Israeli government; the
Palestinians will pay a heavy price for what is viewed
by the entire world as terror activity that is
offensive, irresponsible, and also idiotic."

II. "Fight Double Standards"

The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post
editorialized (6/13): "For almost six years, the
Palestinian Authority has presided over a terrorist
offensive against Israel, stoking the hatreds and
proving relentlessly disinclined to thwart the attacks.
Until this week, however, the PA leadership had never
directly associated itself with this terrorism.... The
PA's prime minister, who just described as a 'war
crime' the tragic deaths on Friday on a Gaza beach of a
Palestinian family -- possibly hit by an errant Israeli
artillery shell, possibly not -- is openly and
deliberately attempting to commit war crimes against
Israelis.... Israel should formally -- ideally with
other nations -- request an emergency meeting of the UN
Security Council to condemn Palestinian aggression,
demand its cessation and the dismantling of all
terrorist organizations, and recognize Israel's right
to self-defense.... Yet Israel, rather than stating the
obvious facts regarding the attacks against us, often
seems to be lying low in the hope that the world will
not condemn us."

III. "The Army's Agenda"

Very liberal columnist B. Michael wrote in Yediot
Aharonot (6/13): "Thanks to the lies and manipulations
in which the IDF has become entangled in recent years,
we can relate with skepticism and mockery to the
'inquiry' it is now holding to clear itself of blame
from killing the Ghaliya family on the Gaza beach....
The army would therefore be better off dropping this
odd inquiry and simply announcing that the entire
family killed itself.... The primary, real, urgent
problem is the agenda that the army is promoting --
openly, diligently, unrestrainedly, and unreservedly.
An agenda that states that we have to reach a point of
all-out war with the PA government.... It is still not
yet certain that the army has been successful. There
is still a chance to avoid the coming tragedy. But if
nobody is found to finally stop the army in its mad
rush toward a clash, then there is no doubt that the
third Intifada is on the doorstep. And just like in
the second Intifada, the third one will also not take
place because the Palestinians plotted and planned it,
but because this is what the IDF decided."

------------
2. Somalia:
------------

Summary:
--------

Intelligence affairs correspondent Yossi Melman wrote
in independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz: "Last
Wednesday's impressive success of US intelligence --
the pinpointed assassination of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi in
Iraq eclipsed attention from the CIA's biting failure
two days earlier."

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

"The Americans Again Betted on the Wrong Muslims"

Intelligence affairs correspondent Yossi Melman wrote
in independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (6/13): "Last
Wednesday's impressive success of US intelligence --
the pinpointed assassination of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi in
Iraq eclipsed attention from the CIA's biting failure
two days earlier: Mogadishu, the Somali capital. Was
conquered and symbolically 'reunited' by radical Muslim
militias, some of whose leaders do not conceal their
sympathy for bin Ladin and the ideology of global
Jihad.... The big question is whether Somalia will turn
into the new base of terrorism and the inspiration for
jihadists, who will try to duplicated their success
under the auspices of Afghanistan's Taliban regime. It
is the US that will have to answer that question and
cope with it. Judging from the Afghanistan and Iraq
precedents, it is doubtful whether it has the tools to
do so."

JONES

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