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

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 TEL AVIV 006261 
 
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: 
-------------------------------- 
 
Mideast 
 
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Key stories in the media: 
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All media reported that the Likud Central Committee 
Thursday voted, 62 to 38 percent, in favor of the 
inclusion of the Labor Party and the two ultra-Orthodox 
parties (Shas and United Torah Judaism) in the 
government.  Israel Radio reported that PM Sharon 
called Labor Party Chairman Shimon Peres to invite 
Labor to unity talks.  Both Yediot and Maariv banner: 
"'Yes' to Unity."  Hatzofe's banner: "Sharon Won: 
Rigging Was Carried Out in Broad Daylight."  Israel 
Radio Thursday reported that the Labor Party, reaching 
a compromise between the positions of Shimon Peres and 
Ehud Barak, decided to hold primaries in June 29, 2005. 
Maariv quoted Peres associates as saying that he might 
not run for Labor chairmanship. 
 
Jerusalem Post notes that Thursday, in radio 
interviews, Sharon suddenly started talking about the 
"plan to leave Gaza," instead of the "unilateral 
disengagement plan" as he had named his initiative 
until now.  Yediot reported that Israel plans to 
transfer areas in the northern Gaza Strip to full 
security responsibility of the PA even before the 
disengagement in July 2005.  One of the goals of the 
move is to examine the PA's ability to rein in the 
anarchy in these areas. 
 
Ha'aretz cited an AP story that Egypt confirmed 
Thursday that it will gain tariff-free access to the 
U.S. market for some key goods under a joint Israeli 
deal. 
 
Egyptian Charge d'Affaires in Israel Tareq al-Quoni was 
quoted as saying in an interview with Ha'aretz: "We are 
certain that the Syrians are serious in their 
intentions to renew negotiations and we believe the 
Israel should consider this favorably."  Nahum Barnea 
of Yediot, who this weekend attended a Washington 
meeting organized by the Brookings Institution's Saban 
Center for Middle East Policy, reported that all 
present and past influential Americans who spoke at the 
gathering -- including former U.S. president Bill 
Clinton, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, and 
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz -- warned 
against Israel holding talks with Syria.  Maariv 
reported that the Knesset has readied technical 
arrangements for a possible visit by Syrian President 
Bashar Assad. 
 
Jerusalem Post cited the Israeli defense establishment 
as saying that it can start building over 180 km of the 
security fence in the strategic West Bank.  However, 
the newspaper says that Sharon is delaying the final 
approval of the route so as not to upset settlers. 
Ha'aretz cited the state's arguments in response to a 
petition by West Bank villages shut in a conclave by 
the fence: the state says that not only are they not 
harmed by the fence, but that they "benefit from it." 
 
Yediot cited a warning by the GOI's anti-terror HQ that 
Israelis traveling to Iraq are putting their lives at 
risk. 
 
Israel Radio reported that Thursday the EU ratified its 
European Neighborhood Policy, but that Israel still has 
to sign it.  The radio says that Israel is expected to 
give up reservations on a WMD clause included in the 
treaty, in exchange for the many benefits provided in 
the agreement.  In another development, French 
Ambassador to Israel Gerard Araud told IDF Radio 
Thursday that Israelis suffer from "mental 
disturbances" in their attitude toward France.  He was 
protesting against what he said was anti-French 
sentiment in Israeli society and media.  The media 
reported that the Foreign Ministry protested to France 
over Araud's remarks. 
 
Leading media reported that Thursday the IDF killed 
four Palestinians it claims were smuggling arms in the 
Gaza Strip, but that it failed in an attempt on the 
life of Jamal Abu Samhadana, the head of the Popular 
Resistance Committees in Rafah. 
 
Leading media reported that Thursday a column of 1,000 
vehicles dubbed the "convoy of determination" made its 
way from Israel to the Gush Katif settlement bloc in 
the Gaza Strip.  Ha'aretz web site reported that 
settlers on Thursday uprooted 117 olive trees in the 
Palestinian village of Jayyus, adjacent to the Zufin 
settlement near Qalqilya. 
 
Leading media reported that an IDF investigation into 
the killing of Islamic Jihad activist Mahmoud Kmel by 
members of a naval commando ("Shayetet 13") has 
concluded that the actions of Shayetet 13 suffered from 
operational, not moral flaws.  Ha'aretz quoted soldiers 
who shot the injured man from 40 meters as saying they 
thought he had a second weapon. 
 
Leading media reported that Wednesday a jury in a 
Chicago federal courthouse ordered four Islamic 
charities accused of raising money for Hamas to pay USD 
156 million dollars in damages to the parents of David 
Boim, a teenager slain in the West Bank in May 1996. 
 
Jerusalem Post quoted four members of the Norwegian 
Nobel Peace Prize Committee, who awarded the 1994 Prize 
to Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat, as 
saying that they had made the right choice, and that 
Rabin's assassination, rather than Palestinian 
terrorism, was the prime factor in the collapse of the 
Oslo process. 
In a feature about National Security Advisor and 
secretary of state-designate Condoleezza Rice, Hatzofe 
 
SIPDIS 
calls her the "jewel in the crown." 
 
All media reported that two Israeli scientists -- 
Profs. Avram Hershko and Aaron Ciechanover -- will be 
awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in Stockholm 
today, along with the American Irwin Rose. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Jerusalem and settlements correspondent Nadav Shragai 
wrote in independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz: "Prime 
Minister Ariel Sharon's victory in the Likud convention 
destroyed the strategy adopted in recent months by 
almost all of the disengagement's opponents." 
 
Diplomatic correspondent Ben Caspit wrote on page one 
of popular, pluralist Maariv: "It seemed impossible, it 
was difficult, it went slowly, but it finally happened: 
the Prime Minister succeeded in taming his party." 
 
Political commentator Nehama Dueck wrote in mass- 
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (December 10): 
"The Likud took another step Thursday towards parting 
from the Greater Israel dream.... Yesterday's result 
showed that [Sharon's] strategy was correct." 
 
Veteran print and TV journalist Dan Margalit wrote in 
Maariv: "Israel is now in a state of intoxication.... A 
world of hope has suddenly opened up.... One needs to 
pray that the government won't let this window of 
opportunity lock itself again." 
 
Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized: 
"Egypt brings to the current situation two elements no 
one else has in the context of the Palestinian problem: 
regional leadership and available land." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
¶I.  "Anti-Disengagement Strategy Collapses" 
 
Jerusalem and settlements correspondent Nadav Shragai 
wrote in independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (December 
10): "Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's victory in the 
Likud convention destroyed the strategy adopted in 
recent months by almost all of the disengagement's 
opponents.... The anti-disengagement activists are 
still pinning their hopes on the Likud rebels, but it 
is hard to believe that they would vote no confidence 
in Sharon, and force elections, after the party 
convention rejected this option.... If [persuasion 
activity among the ultra-Orthodox parties and the 
Likud] fails, the right wing will probably take the 
course outlined in the last edition of the settlers' 
publication Nekudah by the highly respected Rabbi 
Ya'akov Medan, of [the settlement of] Alon Shvut. 
Medan wrote 10 days ago: "Sharon has been shown as one 
who is afraid of the nation and wants a violent 
struggle.  Now we must prepare for a physical struggle 
of tens of thousands of people who will stop the 
uprooting and destruction with their bodies." 
 
II.  "Taming the Shrew" 
 
Diplomatic correspondent Ben Caspit wrote on page one 
of popular, pluralist Maariv (December 10): "It seemed 
impossible, it was difficult, it went slowly, but it 
finally happened: the Prime Minister succeeded in 
taming his party.... The shrewish party has been tamed, 
the twitching has receded and the body is slowly but 
surely beginning to accept the transplant.... Sharon 
will try to bring [the senior Labor Party members] in 
with portfolios, so that they will stay.  Shas will 
receive a 'coordinated disengagement' speech on 
Thursday in Herzliya, in order to assist [its mentor] 
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef to change his ruling and join as 
well.  Sharon needs to finalize things this week 
quickly, firmly and elegantly, otherwise he will get 
bogged down again, perhaps for the last time.  This is 
the time to work fast or to cease to be." 
 
III.  "Now to Work" 
 
Political commentator Nehama Dueck wrote in mass- 
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (December 10): 
"The Likud took another step Thursday towards parting 
from the Greater Israel dream.  The Central Committee 
authorized Sharon to bring the Labor Party into the 
government, and in fact gave him carte blanche to 
implement the disengagement plan.  The significance is 
known and clear: dismantling settlements in Samaria 
[the northern West Bank] and a pullout from Gaza after 
three decades of Jewish settlement.  Precisely a year 
ago, the Prime Minister launched the disengagement plan 
in a speech he gave at the Herzliya Conference.  Next 
Thursday he will go to this forum once again.  The 
speech is not yet ready, but the message is clear. 
Sharon marked a target, showed leadership and led.  And 
even if the tactics were not always successful, 
yesterday's result showed that the strategy was 
correct." 
 
IV.  "A Propitious Hour" 
 
Veteran print and TV journalist Dan Margalit wrote in 
Maariv (December 10): "Contrary to the Left's claim, 
there had been no Palestinian negotiating partner since 
2000, but the determined war against terror, which was 
based on the correct assumption that there's no one to 
talk to in Ramallah, produced a new reality in the Arab 
world -- that there is someone to talk.... The official 
Palestinian leadership is quietly asking the U.S. and 
Egypt to rein in the Iranians and Hizbullah in the West 
Bank and Gaza.  The senior Israeli officials are well 
aware of this fact.  It is particularly important.... 
Cairo and London are interested in an international 
conference.  Washington is cautious about answering 
positively, but it doesn't completely reject the idea - 
- certainly not when Egypt took a hasty step by 
declaring, one day before the voting started at the 
Likud Central Committee, that it would convene an 
international conference that has not been agreed 
upon.... Israel is now in a state of intoxication.... A 
world of hope has suddenly opened up.... One needs to 
pray that the government won't let this window of 
opportunity lock itself again. 
 
¶V.  "The Egyptian Way" 
 
Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized 
(December 10): "Egypt cannot be expected to retreat 
from its traditional demand that the Palestinian state 
be established mainly on lands previously ruled by 
Israel.  However, it is no secret that even if and when 
the Palestinians obtain the entire West Bank and Gaza 
Strip, it will be a tall order to contain within those 
small and disjointed areas a viable state and a 
functioning economy.   This is where a newly 
conciliatory Egypt can come in.   Egypt brings to the 
current situation two elements no one else has in the 
context of the Palestinian problem: regional leadership 
and available land.... Egypt certainly owes this to no 
one... [But] in the dunes where Israel once began 
developing the Yamit settlements, until they were 
demolished on the eve of their relinquishment to Egypt, 
Egypt can today offer to donate its own contribution to 
Palestinian statehood in the form of a coastal strip 
that would extend from the Gaza Strip toward Port Said. 
Such an out-of-the-box initiative would prod both 
Israel and the Palestinians to make concessions they 
might otherwise shun, and inspire foreign investors to 
develop the northern Sinai, so it can ultimately 
linchpin a vast Riviera stretching from Alexandria to 
Beirut.  Perhaps the drama of Anwar Sadat's visit to 
Jerusalem cannot be duplicated, but there are other 
ways Egypt might inspire the world with its dedication 
to the cause of peace." 
 
KURTZER