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 002469 
 
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 
 
 
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SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: 
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Mideast 
 
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Key stories in the media: 
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This morning, Israel Radio quoted Palestinian sources 
as saying that top Sharon aide Dov Weisglass will meet 
today with chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat and PA 
Minister of Civilian Affairs Muhammad Dahlan to discuss 
coordination of the disengagement plan between the 
sides.  The radio reported that Vice Premier Shimon 
Peres and Palestinian PM Ahmed Qurei will talk about 
the same issue tomorrow. 
 
All media reported that the disengagement from the Gaza 
Strip and northern West Bank is expected to be 
postponed until mid-August, following Tuesday's meeting 
of the special ministerial meeting for implementing the 
disengagement.  The media reported on ongoing 
disagreements within the GOI regarding the date for 
disengagement. 
 
Leading media reported that PA Chairman [President] 
Mahmoud Abbas met Tuesday with Israeli journalists in 
Ramallah ahead of the Passover holiday.  Ha'aretz 
highlighted Abbas's complaint about the criticism to 
which he claims to have been subjected in the Israeli 
media and about the treatment he has received from the 
GOI since he took over at the helm of the PA.  Yediot 
stressed Abbas's promise that the evacuation of 
settlements will take place among security quiet.  The 
media cited Abbas's reassurances to Israel regarding 
the outcome of the elections to the Palestinian 
Legislative Council (PLC) in July. 
 
Yediot quoted PM Sharon as saying at a pre-Passover 
toast with Likud members Tuesday that the "guys from 
Khan Yunis" will plunder the property left behind by 
Israel in the Gaza Strip "within half an hour."  The 
newspaper quoted Sharon as saying that Israel is 
interested in coordination with the Palestinians, but 
that he is not certain whether there is someone to talk 
to.  All media reported that Defense Minister Shaul 
Mofaz was heckled, called a "traitor," and made to feel 
unwelcome during a visit he made to the Katif bloc of 
settlements in the Gaza Strip Tuesday. 
 
Leading media quoted leaders of the northern West Bank 
settlement of Homesh as saying Tuesday that Sharon 
promised representatives of Homesh "all the aid" they 
need to facilitate their relocation to another 
community en masse prior to the evacuation.  Jerusalem 
Post reported that some 45 Gaza Strip families have 
signed up to move to two kibbutzim just northeast of 
the Green Line (around the Strip). 
 
In its lead story, Maariv reported that ahead of the 
disengagement, the IDF has trained sharpshooters who 
will be positioned near evacuation sites, poised to 
"shoot at settlers' legs," should settlers open fire at 
security forces or take hostages among them.  Ha'aretz 
reported that senior army officers have lately 
recommended that one of the leading rabbis in the 
settlements of Samaria (northern West Bank) be put 
under administrative detention.  The recommendation is 
meanwhile opposed by the Shin Bet, which says such a 
move would be an "earthquake" for the extremists, but 
the secret service has not ruled out administrative 
detention as the disengagement approaches. 
 
Israel Radio reported this morning that Israel has 
asked for indirect financial aid ahead of the 
disengagement, and that the Bush administration has 
agreed to grant Jerusalem a USD 3 billion financial 
guarantee until 2008.  Israeli delegates met with the 
U.S. officials in Washington on Wednesday to begin 
talks on financial aid for development in the Negev and 
the Galilee.  Jerusalem is also asking for assistance 
in funding the relocation of IDF bases after this 
summer's planned disengagement from Gaza and some 
settlements in the northern West Bank.  Finance 
Ministry D-G Dr. Yossi Bachar met with U.S. national 
security officials and they discussed forming a joint 
U.S.-Israeli committee to address the matter.  The 
radio said that the U.S. has also agreed to spread 
Israel's financial guarantees over the next three 
years, two years later than was initially scheduled. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that Sharon may meet Secretary of 
State Condoleezza Rice, but not President Bush, during 
his trip to the U.S. next month, where he will take 
part in AIPAC's annual conference. 
 
Israel Radio reported that in an interview with 
Lebanon's LBC-TV Tuesday, President Bush demanded that 
Syria stop supporting Hizbullah and close the 
organization's offices in Damascus.  The President was 
also quoted as saying that Lebanon will not be a free 
country as long as an armed militia operates on its 
territory.  Israel Radio cited a response by Hizbullah 
Secretary-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah as saying 
 
SIPDIS 
that his group will not disarm as long as Israel 
threatens Lebanon. 
 
Jerusalem Post reported that Qatar's Ambassador to the 
UN, Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser, met several days ago 
with Israel's Representative to the UN, Danny 
Gillerman, to petition Israel to support its candidacy 
for the UN Security Council. 
 
All media, except the ultra-Orthodox ones, reported on 
the election of Pope Benedict XVI (German Cardinal 
Joseph Ratzinger) on Tuesday.  Leading media quoted 
Jewish figures who are integrally involved in relations 
with the Vatican, and know Ratzinger personally, as 
saying that he will continue the positive relations 
toward Israel and the Jews that characterized the 
papacy of Pope John Paul II, noting that the new pope 
visited Israel several times.  However, Yediot quoted 
Vatican experts as saying that the new pontiff does not 
view dialogue with the Jews as a top priority.  A 
Yediot headline read "White Smoke, Black Past."  The 
newspaper and other media cited the "problematic 
biography" of Ratzinger, who briefly was a member of 
the Hitler Youth in the early 1940s. 
 
Yediot and Jerusalem Post reported that IDF Chief of 
Staff Moshe Ya'alon made a confidential visit to Jordan 
Tuesday, where he met with King Abdullah and Gen. 
Khalid Jameel al-Sarayirah, chief of the joint staff of 
the Jordanian armed forces. 
 
Citing the London-based Jane's Defense Weekly, 
Jerusalem Post reported that Russia has allegedly 
offered to donate to the PA two Mi-17 transport 
helicopters to replace those that Israel destroyed in 
¶2001. 
 
Leading media reported that on Tuesday, citing concerns 
over "national security," Interior Minister Ophir Pines- 
Paz extended by one year travel restrictions imposed on 
nuclear whistleblower Mordecai Vanunu. 
 
This morning, Israel Radio reported that Uriel 
Yitzhaki, Israel's Consul-General to The Hague, was 
arrested Tuesday evening as he arrived in Israel for a 
visit on suspicion of accepting bribes in exchange for 
issuing Israeli passports to people who were not 
entitled to them. 
 
Ha'aretz cited an unprecedented report published 
Tuesday by the ministerial committee for the 
restoration of Jewish property, headed by Minister of 
Diaspora Affairs Natan Sharansky, which estimated the 
material damage caused to the Jewish people during the 
Holocaust at USD 230 billion to 320 billion.  The 
estimate does not include reparations for the suffering 
of survivors, or for the murder of 6 million Jews.  The 
report's authors call on the GOI to remove obstacles to 
the process of restoring Jewish property, not only in 
Europe but in the U.S. and Israel as well. 
 
All media reported that a Jerusalem District Court 
judge ruled Tuesday that alleged underworld kingpin 
Zeev Rosenstein can be extradited to the U.S., where he 
will be tried for drug-trafficking offenses. 
Israel Radio reported that Abbas will meet today with 
U.S. envoys David Welch and Elliott Abrams, who will 
try to set a date for Abbas's visit to Washington. 
 
Jerusalem Post cited a document made public by the Gaza 
District on Tuesday, according to which the number of 
permits issued to Palestinians from the Gaza Strip 
seeking to enter Israel for humanitarian needs has 
doubled. 
 
Ha'aretz and Jerusalem Post reported that on Tuesday, 
the High Court of Justice accepted the IDF's position 
that it could not reopen nine Palestinians stores 
located underneath Beit Hadassah in downtown Hebron for 
security reasons.  However, the court suggested to the 
IDF that it consider paying compensation to the shop 
owners. 
 
Hatzofe reported that in talks with senior Russian 
officials in Moscow over the past two days, a small 
delegation from the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and 
Defense Committee has discussed the neutralization of 
the Iranian threat, and Israeli-Russian security 
cooperation. 
 
Based on an Israeli Internet site that uses statistics 
from the U.S. Senate's web site, Yediot reported that 
during the past six years, Israeli companies and 
organizations -- topped by the Israeli firm Merhav, 
owned by Yossi Meiman --have paid USD 2 million in 
salaries for lobbyists active in contacts with the U.S. 
administration and Congress. 
 
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Mideast: 
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                       Summary: 
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Veteran op-ed writer and the late prime minister 
Yitzhak Rabin's assistant Eytan Haber opined in the 
lead editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot 
Aharonot: "Only a force majeure -- such a terror attack 
of a magnitude we have not yet encountered -- can now 
stop the train [i.e. the disengagement process] that 
has already left the station." 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "All 
the harassment of the Palestinians in this interim 
period ... will only sow more hatred.  Ultimately, no 
separation fence route will be able to defend Israel 
from that hatred." 
 
 
 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
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¶I.  "The Katif Bloc Train" 
 
Veteran op-ed writer and the late prime minister 
Yitzhak Rabin's assistant Eytan Haber opined in the 
lead editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot 
Aharonot (April 20): "One side -- the government, the 
army, the police -- is in awe of the enormous and 
perhaps most difficult task in Israel's history.  While 
this side will not try to call off disengagement, it 
will not shed a tear if the date of execution is 
delayed a bit more and a bit more.  Neither [outgoing 
IDF Chief of Staff Moshe] Bugi Ya'alon, nor [chief of 
staff-designate] Dan Halutz nor [Police Commissioner] 
Moshe Karadi wish to go down in history 'thanks' to 
this plan.  The other side, the settlers, believes, 
hopes and prays that the plan will fade away.  They 
hope for a miracle.... The truth is that only a force 
majeure -- such a terror attack of a magnitude we have 
not yet encountered -- can now stop the train that has 
already left the station.  Sharon ... knows that the 
locomotive is surging forward.  The train will stop 
only long after it runs over anyone standing in its 
way.  Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on the 
eye of the beholder, the train is galloping forward, 
and only those left on the platform in the empty 
station in the Katif Bloc believe that it will either 
stop or return.  Blessed are the believers." 
 
II.  "The Battle For the 'Fingernails'" 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (April 
20): "It could be years before the eastern border with 
the Palestinians is finally settled, but meanwhile, the 
bulldozers and builders are at work -- as has been the 
custom of Israeli greed for the last 38 years of 
occupation -- in an attempt to 'create facts on the 
ground' against all logic and against Israel's long- 
term interests.  Experience shows, as in the case of 
the Katif Bloc, that massive construction does not 
automatically turn an area into an integral part of 
Israel.  This attempt at sleight of hand is going on in 
discussions with the Americans, the Palestinians, the 
settlers and the Israeli public.... To get out of this 
maze, in which Israel and the U.S. do not see eye to 
eye on the future eastern border of the state, it was 
decided to fence in Ariel and other settlements in the 
area but not to connect them to the main security 
fence.  This strange solution, which was given the name 
'the fingernails,' and is a compromise between the 
American opposition to sending the fence like 'fingers' 
toward Ariel and a declaration that the Ariel bloc 
would remain outside the fence, is now on the High 
Court of Justice's agenda.  It turns out that parts of 
those 'fingernails' are on privately owned Palestinian 
land.... The 'fingernails' plan is meant to delay as 
much as possible any future discussion of the 
settlements in the Ariel bloc.  All the harassment of 
the Palestinians in this interim period, harming their 
source of livelihood, their lands, homes and freedom of 
movement, will only sow more hatred.  Ultimately, no 
separation fence route will be able to defend Israel 
from that hatred." 
 
CRETZ