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 000417 
 
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.  Iran: Nuclear Program 
 
¶2.  Bush Inauguration 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
Israel Radio reported that FM Silvan Shalom will meet 
with Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice 
tomorrow. 
 
All media reported on Monday's "historic" UN General 
Assembly session to mark the liberation of the Nazi 
death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau (lead stories in all 
media except the ultra-Orthodox newspapers). 
Paraphrasing a remark made by Nobel Peace Prize 
Laureate Elie Wiesel at the session, Maariv bannered: 
"Has the World Learned a Lesson?" 
 
Israel Radio reported that today the PA will deploy 
forces in the southern Gaza Strip, and that it is 
expecting Israel's response so that it can position 
them in the entire area.  The radio cited Hamas as 
saying that it has hardly any disagreement with Mahmoud 
Abbas (Abu Mazen) regarding the hudna (truce), which 
Hamas says depends on Israel's actions. 
 
All media reported that, at his annual presentation to 
the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of 
threats facing Israel, Mossad Director Meir Dagan 
warned Monday that by the end of this year, Iran will 
have reached the point of no return in its technology 
for manufacturing nuclear weapons, and that it will be 
able to build a nuclear bomb three or four years later. 
Dagan also said there are hints of nuclear programs 
underway in other Middle Eastern countries, such as 
Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia, and that the terror 
threat on Jewish interests in the Diaspora is 
increasing.  Speaking on Israel Radio this morning, MK 
Yuval Steinitz, Chairman of the Knesset's Foreign 
Affairs and Defense Committee, urged the West to thwart 
Iran's nuclear program. 
 
Maariv reported that USAID intends to purchase the 
Katif Bloc's greenhouses in the Gaza Strip, and that it 
has published a USD 9-million tender on the matter. 
The newspaper notes Israel's satisfaction over this 
development, since it could finance some of the costs 
of the disengagement and the compensation to settlers. 
Israel Radio quoted a senior Israeli source as saying 
that Israel should evacuate the residents of the 
northern Gaza Strip village of Dahaniyeh, since they 
are considered collaborators with Israel. 
 
Jerusalem Post reported that, while confident Russia 
will not finalize a deal selling shoulder-held anti- 
aircraft missiles to Syria during President Bashar 
Assad's current trip to Moscow, Israel is concerned 
that Moscow may mount the missiles on armored personnel 
carriers and sell them in a few months' time.  Ha'aretz 
quoted Assad as saying in Moscow that Syria is 
interested in promoting the peace process with Israel, 
and not in the missiles.  Maariv reported that Mossad 
Director Meir Dagan told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs 
and Defense Committee Monday that the voices of peace 
coming out of Damascus are only slogans. 
 
Jerusalem Post reported that Diaspora Affairs Minister 
Natan Sharansky is expected to assert today, at a news 
conference timed to coincide with events linked to the 
anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, that the 
PA, even under new chairman Abbas, is engaged in the 
"promotion of genocide" against the Jewish people. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that Binyamin region brigade 
commander Col. Mickey Edelstein has confirmed to 
Machsom Watch, a voluntary women's group that monitors 
checkpoints, that starting in July, East Jerusalem 
Palestinians will be denied freedom of movement into 
Ramallah. 
 
Israel Radio reported that the state is appealing to 
the High Court of Justice in a bid to reverse a lower 
court's ruling on Monday that Tali Fahima, who was 
accused of "abetting the enemy," be released from 
detention and placed on house arrest. 
 
Yediot reported that the IDF is disbanding its "hesder" 
units (in which yeshiva students combine military 
service with religious studies).  The religious 
soldiers will be scattered among other units.  The 
newspaper cites the IDF's concern that entire 
homogeneous religious units could have refused to serve 
evacuation orders during the implementation of the 
disengagement plan.  However, Yediot cited senior 
sources in the IDF Manpower Branch as saying that the 
move is not related to the disengagement.  In a 
different development, Ha'aretz reported that the IDF 
is reestablishing its psychological warfare unit, after 
a lengthy period in which the unit was dormant.  It 
operates mostly in the Palestinian arena. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that the Israel/Palestine Center for 
Research and Information (IPCRI) has suspended its 
peace education program due to financial woes.  In a 
letter to dozens of Jewish and Palestinian teachers 
from 70 schools in Israel and the West Bank, IPCRI 
explained that the tsunami in Asia and war in Iraq have 
led to a sharp decline in the donations received by the 
institution. 
Ha'aretz and Maariv reported that the Jewish Leadership 
faction in the Likud, headed by far Right activist 
Moshe Feiglin, has been distributing tens of thousands 
of copies of a booklet calling for non-violent civil 
disobedience and non-violent civil rebellion as the 
ways to combat the disengagement plan.  Jerusalem Post 
and Hatzofe reported that Likud D-G Arik Brami asked an 
internal party' court Monday to oust Feiglin from the 
party.  Leading media reported that on Monday, Rabbi 
Dov Lior, the Chairman of the Yesha rabbinical council 
of the Jewish settlements in the territories, endorsed 
a sticker justifying Jews who would sacrifice their 
lives to oppose disengagement. 
 
All media reported that on Monday, the Nazareth 
Magistrate's Court acquitted an Israeli Arab woman from 
the Galilee village of Be'ana of all charges of failing 
to prevent the suicide bombing at Meron junction near 
Safed on August 4, 2002, which killed nine people 
besides the bomber.  Bereaved relatives and the state 
prosecution plan to appeal the ruling. 
 
Jerusalem Post reported that the Foreign Ministry 
called in Belgium's Ambassador Jean-Michel Veranneman 
de Watervliet on Monday to protest a meeting that his 
colleague, the Belgian Ambassador to Lebanon, held last 
week with Hizbullah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. 
 
Ha'aretz cited Israel Airports Authority (IAA) 
assessments that the Karni cargo terminal suffered 4 
million shekels (around USD 915,000) in financial 
damage as a result of the terrorist attack on January 
¶13.  The newspaper quoted a senior IAA officer as 
saying Monday that the government must relieve the 
Authority of the responsibility of operating the border 
terminal with the Palestinians. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that the Knesset's Constitution, 
Justice and Law Committee is working quickly to prepare 
an amendment to the State Judicial Inquiry law to 
prevent publication of the classified sections of the 
Agranat Commission report on the Yom Kippur on January 
¶28. 
 
Leading media reported that the fundamentalist Orthodox 
Russian newspaper Rus Pravoslavnaya ran a letter asking 
the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation to 
open an investigation against all Jewish organizations 
throughout the country on suspicion of spreading 
incitement ("murderous rituals") and provoking ethnic 
strife.  Israel Radio reported that, in a letter to the 
Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, 20 
members of the Russian Duma have demanded that all 
Jewish organizations in Russia be outlawed.  The media 
reported that FM Silvan Shalom, Natan Sharansky, and 
Russia's Chief Rabbi Berl Lazar have urged the Russian 
authorities to take action against the anti-Jewish 
detractors. 
 
Jerusalem Post printed a Jewish Telegraphic Agency 
report on American Jews of Iraqi descent, and their 
mixed reactions to the January 30 election. 
 
Jerusalem Post and Ha'aretz quoted Deputy Education 
Minister Rabbi Michael Melchior (Labor-Meimad) as 
saying that the Education Ministry policy that refuses 
to recognize undergraduate diplomas issued by U.S. 
universities (such as Yeshiva University) that accept a 
year of yeshiva study in Israel as degree credits, is 
wrong and will be overturned.  (Ha'aretz quoted 
Melchior as saying that it will be canceled by the end 
of this month.) 
 
-------------------------- 
¶1.  Iran: Nuclear Program: 
-------------------------- 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized: 
"Threats [of military action] should spur Western non- 
military sanctions that, if they are comprehensive, 
swift and drastic, could still address the problem as 
effectively at a lower risk and cost." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
"Sanctions First" 
 
Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized 
(January 25): "Despite the across-the-board 
declarations by George W. Bush, by John Kerry during 
his campaign, and by European leaders that an Iranian 
nuke is 'unacceptable,' it is an inevitability that the 
world will learn to live with.  Yet the assumption that 
nothing can be done is premature, both on the 
diplomatic and military levels.  Indeed, American and 
Israeli talk of military options should be understood 
as giving the diplomatic track its last and best 
chance.  Unfortunately, much like before the war in 
Iraq, the chief opponents of military action are, by 
their own hand, removing all other options.  The G-3 -- 
Britain, France and Germany -- seems set on a course of 
continuing to give Iran second chances and waving 
ineffective trade carrots until it is too late.  One 
might be excused for concluding, given how accepting 
the G-3 is of Iran's obvious lies and obfuscation, that 
these countries are more concerned about staving off 
American action than they are about ending Iran's 
nuclear program.... Iran, despite being treated as a 
pariah by the United States, enjoys normal trade and 
diplomatic relations with most of the world. It has 
much more to lose from sanctions than did Libya, which 
was not nearly as integrated into the world economy.... 
Talk of military action should be taken at face value, 
because there may soon be no choice.  But before that 
happens, such threats should spur Western non-military 
sanctions that, if they are comprehensive, swift and 
drastic, could still address the problem as effectively 
at a lower risk and cost.  If military action becomes 
the only remaining option, Europe will have no one to 
blame but itself." 
 
---------------------- 
¶2.  Bush Inauguration: 
---------------------- 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
The Director of the Interdisciplinary Center's Global 
Research in International Affairs Center, columnist 
Barry Rubin, wrote in conservative, independent 
Jerusalem Post: "Support for democratization [in the 
Middle East] ... may be a proper short-term theme and 
long-term strategy but is not a comprehensive policy." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
"The Next Four Years" 
 
The Director of the Interdisciplinary Center's Global 
Research in International Affairs Center, columnist 
Barry Rubin, wrote in conservative, independent 
Jerusalem Post (January 25): "In his second inaugural 
speech President George W. Bush focused to a remarkable 
extent on promoting democracy in the world. While not 
mentioning specific countries or even regions, this 
policy is obviously directed mainly at the Middle East. 
Thus he has chosen this issue -- and not the war on 
terrorism -- as the central theme of his next four 
years.... Support for democratization ... may be a 
proper short-term theme and long-term strategy but is 
not a comprehensive policy.  During the next four 
years, the Bush administration is going to have to deal 
with issues and crises lying outside of its scope: how 
will it judge Palestinian efforts to stop terrorism and 
get a cease-fire? It is easy to advocate 'helping' the 
moderates, but the U.S. must evaluate whether they are 
succeeding or have failed to bring real change.  What 
will the U.S. do to stop Iran from getting nuclear 
weapons; how will it react if it obtains them?  When 
will the U.S. begin a withdrawal from Iraq, and what 
will it do if the newly elected government is hostile 
and bloody fighting continues there?  In what ways will 
U.S. efforts in battling terrorism develop given the 
experience since September 2001?" 
 
KURTZER