Cablegate: Israel Media Reaction

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SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

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SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT:
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1. Mideast

2. Anti-Terrorism Efforts

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Key stories in the media:
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Leading media quoted State Department Spokesman Ian Kelly as saying
yesterday: QOur position is clear. We support the creation of a
Palestinian state that is contiguous and viable. But we think that
the best way to achieve that is through negotiations by the two
parties. And we understand that people might be frustrated, but ...
we are convinced that this has to be achieved through negotiation
between the two parties....
I canQt say weQre going to veto something we havenQt seen or hasnQt
even been proposed yet.Q The Jerusalem Post and HaQaretz reported
that yeterday a delegation of visiting U.S. lawmakers slamed the
Palestinian plan to pursue unilateral sttehood at the U.N as a
Qwaste of timeQ and said hat the U.S. would likely veto such a
proposal should it come before the Security Council. Leading edia
reported that France also rejects the idea f unilateral Palestinian
statehood.

Yediot (Simon Shiffer) reported that Israel is QstunnedQ over a new
U.S. demand -- to refrain from building in the East Jerusalem
neighborhood of Gilo. The daily reported that U.S. Special Envoy
for Middle East Peace Senator George Mitchell made the demand in a
meeting with Attorney Yitzhak Molcho, the PMQs liaison with the
Americans on negotiations with the Palestinians. Mitchell allegedly
claimed that construction in Gilo might thwart the resumption of
negotiations with the Palestinians. Yediot cited the response of
the Prime MinisterQs Office that there is no difference between
construction in Jerusalem and in Tel Aviv.

Major media reported that yesterday six IDF soldiers in the West
Bank held up a sign proclaiming their unit would refuse to evacuate
West Bank settlements. This marks a shift in right-wing activity
from attacks on Palestinians to protest in IDF ranks. Yesterday's
protest, mounted by six soldiers of the Nachshon Battalion's West
Bank base, followed the demolition of two illegal houses near the
Negohot settlement south of Hebron. Military sources were quoted as
saying that the soldiers were suspended and face a court martial.
Yediot reported that the IDF conveyed a sharp message to the
soldiersQ rabbis, and that it intends to boycott yeshivas that will
support rebels in DF uniform. Israel Radio quoted high-ranking
officers as saying that if it emerged that rabbis of hesder yeshivas
(that combine religious studies and military service) had encouraged
soldiers to disobey orders, the IDF would stop the arrangement with
those yeshivas and their students would be drafted into regular army
service.

The Jerusalem Post and other media cited the International Atomic
Energy Agency's (IAEA) concern about possible further secret nuclear
sites in Iran. Major media reported that IAEA inspectors are
revisiting the suspected Syrian nuclear site of Dir al-Hajer.

The Jerusalem Post and HaQaretz reported that in a clear response to
the pressure from the Obama administration for Israel to halt
construction in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, a group of some 50
American Jews are currently here to weigh purchasing homes in those
areas, and are advising other U.S. Jews to buy there as well. The
delegation, led by New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind, is in the
middle of a four-day tour throughout the Jewish communities in the
West Bank, and will conclude with a cornerstone-laying ceremony in
the East Jerusalem community of Nof Zion tomorrow.

The Jerusalem Post reported that smuggling into Gaza from Egypt
beneath the Philadelphi Corridor has returned to the busy levels
that prevailed before Operation Cast Lead last winter.

HaQaretz cited data compiled by the Council of Higher Education and
released yesterday, Israel ranks fourth in the world in scientific
activity. The data, which dates to 2005, puts Israel behind
Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark in terms of the number of
scientific publications per million citizens.

The media reported that yesterday FM Avigdor Lieberman created a
brief government coalition crisis over what he said was too small a
budget for new immigrants.

HaQaretz cited the satisfaction of Israeli defense establishment
sources over the pace of development of Iron Dome, the short and
medium range rocket defense system.

HaQaretz reported that yesterday Dr. Rafiq al-Husseini, Mahmoud
AbbasQs office director, called on the Arab states to cut their ties
with two French companies -- Alstom and Veolia -- that take part in
the construction of JerusalemQs light railway, whose route passes
through occupied territory.

HaQaretz quoted residents of Ras Hamis, an East Jerusalem
neighborhood east of the separation fence, as saying that two
children died in a house fire two weeks ago while a fire crew had to
wait 200 meters away at a checkpoint for lack of Border Police or
army escort. HaQaretz writes that Israeli fire and ambulance crews
have reported that there have been numerous incidents in which their
crews on the way to emergencies have been attacked by Palestinians.

Leading media reported that yesterday President Shimon Peres
received a mixed welcome in Buenos Aires: beside a warm meeting with
Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, thousands of
people brought together by Islamic groups and left-wing parties
demonstrated against the Israeli President, carrying such banners
as: QPeres -- Nobel Prize in Murder.Q The Jerusalem Post quoted
Peres as saying at a luncheon hosted in his honor by Kirchner that
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Qcarries the mark of Cain.

The Jerusalem Post quoted the head of the IDFQs Gaza Coordination
and Liaison Administration, Col. Moshe Levi, as saying yesterday
that humanitarian aid by various organizations has increased by
close to 900% in 2009.

HaQaretz reported that the Association of Civil Rights in Israel is
planning a march for human rights in Tel Aviv on Friday, December
11. The march is scheduled to coincide with international human
rights week, which starts December 10. The organizers told HaQaretz
that this would be the first such event in Israel. They were quoted
as saying that previous rallies, marches, and protests all were held
in the name of specific group interests.

All media reported that yesterday PM Benjamin Netanyahu announced
yesterday that the duties of the next attorney general will not be
split, as Justice Minister Yaakov NeQeman proposed doing several
weeks ago. Netanyahu's decision is seen as a blow to NeQeman, who
had spent months consulting with Israel's top jurists as he
formulated his plan. Netanyahu told the selection committee that
the next attorney general will fulfill the role in its current
format, and the position will not be split. He said he had not made
a final decision regarding the eventual future of the post,
however.

Leading media reported that yesterday PM Netanyahu withdrew his
request for a Knesset debate about the Qbiometric law.Q Some media
said that this was a one-week postponement. HaQaretz reported that
he feared a humiliation. The newspaper also reported that Israel
has a database of 220,000 West Bank Palestinians -- without a law.

The Jerusalem Post cited a discussion between Israeli and Jordanian
archeologists during UNESCOQs second annual World Heritage Workshop
on QDisaster Risk: Reduction to Cultural Heritage Sites,Q which was
held in Acre last week.

Yediot reported that Italian Jews are organizing against the
candidacy of former Italian PM and FM Massimo DQAlema to the post of
EU policy chief. Yediot also reported that the Israeli Government
is not intervening on this issue.

HaQaretz reported that Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) is moving
certain production lines from Israel to the U.S. T he production
lines are being moved to group company Stark Aerospace, located in
Starkville, Mississippi. Stark is technically a subsidiary of IAI
International, which is the main U.S. subsidiary of the Israeli
firm. Yesterday IAI inaugurated its new Stark plant to manufacture
and assemble drones (small pilotless planes). Stark will also be
making the electronic and electro-optic systems used by the drones.
IAI commented, however, that none of the workers engaged in building
drones in Israel will be fired. They will simply build drones for
other countries.

HaQaretz reported that TIME Magazine called the Jerusalem-born DJ
Kutiman (whose offline name is Ophir Kutiel) the Qmost famous DJ on
YouTube.Q According to TIME, KutimanQs project, ThruYOU, has a
simple premise: to create visual symphonies using random YouTube
footage of school concerts, piano lessons, weirdly intimate
soliloquies and American Idol-esque performances uploaded by people
across the world.

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1. Mideast:
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I. QThe Return of the Illusionist

Senior columnist and longtime dove Yoel Marcus wrote in the
independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (11/17): QAfter uttering one
hope-raising paragraph in the Bar-Ilan speech (Qtwo states for two
peoplesQ), Bibi managed to swiftly erase his statement's impression
by setting conditions, insisting on continuing the construction in
the territories and mainly in angering the U.S. administration.... A
peace agreement with Syria has a price, but isn't it better to reach
the agreement and pay for it now, before Syria is driven to a war
sponsored by Iran? The unsolved mystery is why, if Bibi is so
hesitant, in surveys the answer to the question Qwho is more
suitable for prime minister,Q is 43 percent for Bibi, compared to 5
percent for Barak? The explanation is that the public has become
more right-wing and the Likud more radical. Netanyahu has prepared
a list of delaying tactics. The Palestinians are playing into his
hands by threatening to declare unilaterally a Palestinian state,
which is a recipe for an enforced solution or, heaven forbid, a
third Intifada.

II. QLast Call for the Palestinian Authority

Shaul Arieli, a member of the board of directors of the Council for
Peace and Security and one of the architects of the Geneva
Initiative, wrote in HaQaretz (11/17): QIn Cast Lead Israel decided
to leave control of the Gaza Strip in the hands of Hamas,
understanding that the only alternative was resumption of Israeli
rule there, with all its disastrous implications. The
disintegration of the PA would perhaps generate a storm of exultant
Qwe told you soQ from right-wingers, but it would also obligate
Israel to reassume responsibility for ruling over the lives of more
than two million Palestinians in the West Bank. In the absence of a
suitable candidate to succeed Abbas (assuming that Marwan Barghouti,
who has declared that he will contest the election, could not do so
from his Israeli prison cell), the breakup of the PA is not an
unreasonable scenario.... Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who
time and again speaks of the need to make a distinction between Gaza
and the West Bank, must act to make this concept a reality and to
again give the West Bank Palestinians the sense that there is
benefit in a diplomatic solution. Israel must create the conditions
that will in the short run enable the realization of the Fayyad plan
to build a Palestinian state Qfrom the bottom upQ and in the long
run the resumption of negotiations with an agreed agenda and time
frame for completing negotiations on a final-status arrangement.

III. QYes to a Palestinian State

Conservative Op-Ed Page Editor Ben-Dror Yemini wrote in the popular,
pluralist Maariv (11/17): QAfter Netanyahu said yes [to Palestinian
statehood], [the Palestinians] also remembered. Israeli opposition
will give points to the Palestinians and Israel will again be
depicted as refusing an agreement. So Israel should not jump like
donkey from the top of the cliff and shout Qhelp!.Q We must always,
absolutely always, say yes, and only afterwards set conditions.
Because if this is a trap, there is no need for Israel to do exactly
what the Palestinians want and say Qno.Q That would be another
Palestinian victory. And if this is an historic change, then we
should certainly say yes, and only afterwards, of course, say that
the permanent borders and security arrangements and more and more
things -- are not a matter for a unilateral declaration. In an
inversion of what [hard-line PLO leader] Farouk Kaddoumi said, the
problem was never a Palestinian state. The problem was and remains
the right of return. There is no drama in consenting to a
Palestinian state. They have always wanted it, provide this is
greater Palestine by means of the right of return. Israel must
return the ball to them. Yes to a state. No to the right of return
and to greater Palestine.

IV. QSalam FayyadQs Bar-Ilan Speech

Deputy Editor-in-Chief Uri Elitzur, who was director of the Prime
MinisterQs Office during Netanyahu's first term, wrote in the
editorial of the nationalist, Orthodox Makor Rishon-Hatzofe (11/17):
QIt is not the stalemate in the negotiations that led to the idea of
[Palestinian statehood], but the movement around them. What made
the Palestinian leaders threaten a unilateral move was the Bar-Ilan
speech. The man who caused Salam FayyadQs declaration was Benjamin
Netanyahu. The Arabs know that proclaiming statehood will not
change anything in the reality on the grounds. They cannot forcibly
remove the IDF and the settlers; neither can they take over roads
and the air space nor build instruments of state or an independent
economy. A declaration of independence per se will only be words.
What they want to achieve is not an actual state but international
recognition of their state within the borders they have determined
and according to the conditions that they dictate while ignoring
IsraelQs positions.

V. QThick Prophets

Conservative columnist Amos Carmel wrote in the mass-circulation,
pluralist Yediot Aharonot (11/17): Q[Former U.S. President Bill]
ClintonQs mention of [what would have happened had Yitzhak Rabin not
have been assassinated] is pure speculation -- for instance, the
assumption that had he not rightly earned his victimhood, he [was
unlikely to have been reelected.... Perhaps the wise Clinton knows
how it would have been possible to reach a Qjust and lasting peace
within three years.

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2. Anti-Terrorism Efforts:
---------------------------

Block Quotes:
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QA Matter of Justice

The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (11/17):
QIt wasn't Osama bin Laden (OBL) who came up with the idea of using
airliners as ballistic missiles. The scheme had to be sold to him by
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM).... On Friday, U.S. Attorney-General
Eric Holder announced that KSM, the brains behind the 9/11 plot, in
U.S. custody since March 2003, would be put on trial in Manhattan
federal court along with his co-conspirators.... All face the death
penalty. Holder insisted that the decision to forgo a military
trial and place the case before a civilian jury sitting just blocks
from Ground Zero was his decision alone; that President Barack Obama
was informed after the fact because the President, himself a lawyer,
did not want to intrude in the justice system. But aren't the 9/11
attacks more a matter of national security than of criminal justice?
Holder's decision regrettably treats what the conspirators did as a
major crime rather than an act of war. Moreover, it provides KSM
with the opportunity to turn the trial into an enormous Qreality TV
extravaganza, in the words of New York Times columnist David Brooks.
It gives Islamist terrorists fresh incentives to target New York
City. It risks exposing in open court the methods U.S. intelligence
employs to combat Muslim extremists. Finally, although Holder
insinuated that federal prosecutors have ample admissible evidence
against the plotters, an open, possibly televised trial, will divert
attention from the conspiracy to the fact that KSM -- a Qticking
bombQ if ever there was one -- was repeatedly tortured. This will
not play well on Al-Jazeera.... Holder's protestations about a Qshow
trialQ notwithstanding, the U.S. Justice Department -- with
President Obama out of the loop -- may have inadvertently handed KSM
a world-class stage to rationalize 9/11.

CUNNINGHAM

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