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UNCLAS TEL AVIV 001904 
 
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 ICD 
LONDON ALSO FOR HKANONA AND POL 
PARIS ALSO FOR POL 
ROME FOR MFO 
 
SIPDIS 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OPRC KMDR IS
 
SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION 
 
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SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: 
-------------------------------- 
 
Mideast 
 
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Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
All media reported on the indictment yesterday of Rawi Sultani, a 
23-year-old Israeli-Arab from Tira, northeast of Kfar Saba, who was 
allegedly recruited by Hizbullah in the summer of 2008 when he 
traveled to Morocco to attend a Balad (National Democratic Assembly) 
Party summer camp and later reportedly traveled to Poland to meet 
another Hizbullah agent.  Sultani was charged with giving Hizbullah 
information on IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi AshkenaziQs gym. 
Ashkenazi was apparently targeted by Hizbullah for assassination 
following the killing of Imad Mughniyah, the groupQs Qchief of 
staff.Q  Yesterday, Balad officials expressed concern that they 
would be pressured to close down party-sponsored summer camps for 
young activists.  The media quoted Balad faction chairman Knesset 
Member Jamal Zahalka as saying that his party will not change its 
legitimate political activities.  A participant in one of the camps 
told Channel 2-TV that they were intended to strengthen the 
Palestinian identity of young Balad activists.  He said they learned 
in the camps about the "catastrophe" caused by Israel's creation, 
and how to protest against the West Bank security barrier.  National 
Union Knesset Member Michael Ben-Ari called upon Attorney-General 
Menachem Mazuz to make Balad an illegal party, which was done in the 
1980s to the Kach party of the late Knesset Member Meir Kahane, with 
whom Ben-Ari was close.  The media pointed at the weaknesses of 
protection around the Chief of Staff, recalling the case of the 
theft of AshkenaziQs credit card data and a handgun from his office 
a few weeks ago. 
 
HaQaretz reported that Washington will announce the renewal of talks 
between Israel and the PA through a trilateral summit of President 
Obama, PM Benjamin Netanyahu, and Palestinian President Mahmoud 
Abbas.  The meeting would take place on the sidelines of the U.N. 
General Assembly late this month; two years would be allotted to 
completing talks on a peace agreement.  HaQaretz and The Jerusalem 
Post reported that yesterday President Shimon Peres confirmed to Fox 
News that such a summit was being considered.  HaQaretz reported 
that U.S. officials briefed representatives of several EU countries 
last week on the diplomatic vision Obama will present at the U.N. 
The Jerusalem Post quoted a PA official as saying yesterday that 
President Abbas will not agree to the resumption of peace talks with 
Israel unless Israel freezes all construction work in the 
settlements. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that the government will Qunleash a 
public diplomacy blitz in the U.S. on SundayQ aimed at nothing less 
than reframing the Israeli-Arab conflict.Q The newspaper cited 
statement put out by FM Avigdor Lieberman's office according to 
which government ministers Moshe Ya'alon, Yossi Peled, Dan Meridor, 
and Benny Begin, as well as Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and 
former Consul-General in New York Alon Pinkas, will begin on Sunday 
-- in a staggered fashion -- fanning out across the U.S., meeting 
with political and media figures, policy-makers, campus groups, and 
Jewish organizations, in an effort to explain the government's 
positions.  During the campaign, which will last until mid-October, 
various members of the group will be in each of the following 
cities: Washington, New York, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, 
Philadelphia, Detroit, Las Vegas, Houston, Los Angeles, San 
Francisco, and Miami.  The Jerusalem Post quoted Lieberman as saying 
at the preparatory meeting held yesterday said that even though 
recent polls showed that the American public continued to view 
Israel as an important strategic ally, there was a need to 
strengthen this connection because of the importance Israel 
attributed to its relationship with the U.S.  These comments 
appeared an effort to distance this campaign from the diplomatic 
cable sent recently by Israel's Consul-General in Boston, Nadav 
Tamir, who said the Jewish state was losing ground in American 
public opinion.  Lieberman took issue with that conclusion.  The FM 
said there was a need to present the "historical facts" to Americans 
and to refute long-entrenched opinions, such as that "settlements 
are an obstacle to peace."  Lieberman said it was important to 
explain that Arab aggression toward Israel began before there were 
any settlements, and -- in fact -- before the creation of the state, 
and that the true conflict in the region was not between Jews and 
Arabs, but rather between moderates and extremists. 
 
The ultra-Orthodox HamodiQa quoted FM Lieberman as saying yesterday 
at a meeting with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana that Israel 
will not remain indifferent if Palestinian PM Salam FayyadQs 
unilateral plan to establish a Palestinian state is promoted. 
 
The Jerusalem Post quoted Israeli officials as saying yesterday that 
DM Ehud Barak hopes to reach an agreement with settler leaders that 
E 
will enable the evacuation of 23 unauthorized outposts in the West 
Bank without the need for military or police intervention.  The 
officials talked to the newspaper following a face-to-face meeting 
Barak held at his Tel Aviv office with leading members of the Yesha 
Council of Jewish Settlements in the Territories. 
 
Yediot reported that Judge Noam Solberg, a 47-year-old religious 
settler, is Justice Minister Yaakov NeQemanQs candidate for the post 
of attorney-general.  The newspaper says that High Court of Justice 
President Dorit Beinisch, who did not want Solberg in her court, 
might accept him as attorney-general.  Yediot reported that NeQeman 
might split the attorney-generalQs functions between that of 
attorney general and that of head of the general prosecution. 
 
The media reported that 30 of the 108 children of Ethiopian origin 
whom three semi-private Petah-Tikva schools refused to accept will 
begin their studies in those schools today. 
 
All media marked 70 years of the outbreak of World War II.  Maariv 
reported that yesterday former Polish President Lech Walesa told the 
newspaper in Gdansk that his country is Qstuck with the Russians 
and that it is important for Poland to improve relations with 
Israel.  The Jerusalem Post reported that Polish Ambassador to 
Israel Agnieszka Magziak-Miszewska, who together with the 
Association of Polish Jews in Israel will today attend a ceremony at 
the Tel Aviv Museum, noted that 120,000 Jewish soldiers served with 
the Polish army in its attempts to resist the Nazi onslaught. 
 
Citing the Swedish news agency TT, The Jerusalem Post quoted Swedish 
FM Carl Bildt -- currently on a trip to Kabul -- as denying that he 
discussed with Italian FM Franco Frattini a possible resolution to 
the Israeli-Swedish friction at an upcoming informal meeting of 
European foreign ministers. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that Danny Attar, the Jewish Chairman of 
the Gilboa Regional Council and his Arab deputy Eid Saleem, and 
Qadoura M. Qadoura, the Governor of the neighboring PA city of 
Jenin, are visiting the U.S. to promote Jewish-Arab coexistence. 
 
-------- 
Mideast: 
-------- 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "President Obama: Pro-Israeli, Pro-Palestinian, Pro-Peace" 
 
Gershon Baskin, Co-Director of the Israel/Palestine Center for 
Research and Information, wrote in the conservative, independent 
Jerusalem Post (9/1): QThe U.S. position has always been that 
Israelis and Palestinians have to want peace more than the third 
parties do.  Well, the people in the region do want it, they just 
don't know how to do it and have lost faith that it is even 
possible.  The recent reports of increased law and order and 
economic growth in the West Bank brought a glimmer of hope to the 
Israeli public, but then came the Fatah convention which was 
perceived as backtracking to the days of Palestinian rejection of 
Israel's right to exist.  It is time to face reality -- Israelis and 
Palestinian cannot do it by themselves.  If President Obama is 
successful in creating the conditions for a renewal of negotiations, 
they will surely fail soon after they begin.  Prime Minister 
Benjamin Netanyahu and President Mahmoud Abbas will not get beyond 
the first substantive discussion on any one of the main strategic 
issues: security, borders, Jerusalem or refugees.  It is not because 
they don't want to -- I strongly believe that both Abbas and 
Netanyahu want to bring peace and security to their people -- they 
are simply not capable of seeing eye-to-eye on any of the main 
issues.  President Obama will have no choice but to advance the 
negotiations by putting the United StatesQ own vision of peace with 
a detailed plan on the table.... President Obama should not be 
deterred by the noise that those who oppose peace on both sides 
make.  The majority of Israelis and Palestinians really do want 
peace and if these principles are accepted, President Obama will be 
perceived as being pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian and pro-peace. 
 
II.  "Diplomatic Entanglement" 
 
Former Meretz leader and former Justice Minister Yossi Beilin wrote 
in the independent Israel Hayom (9/1): QNetanyahu insists on 
continuing to build in Jerusalem and some of the settlements; the 
U.S. doesnQt want to be caught up in an absurd situation in which, 
for the first time in 42 years, just as its policy on settlements is 
so unwavering, a compromise will be created, producing legitimacy 
for some of them.  How does one resolve this predicament?  Netanyahu 
should unilaterally announce a construction freeze.  The U.S. will 
announce that it notes his statement, that it doesnQt accept 
construction in Jerusalem and the settlements, but that it views the 
statement as progress that will allow the continuation of the 
negotiations.  The PLO will announce that IsraelQs decision isnQt 
sufficient but that it allows the return to negotiations.  On one 
hand, this move wonQt make the Americans and the Palestinians 
legitimize any continued Israeli building; on the other hand, it 
wonQt push all of us into a Qno exitQ corner.  The duration of the 
freeze could match the time that U.S. administration will allot the 
negotiations for an Israeli Palestinian peace treaty. During this 
period, the U.S. can demand that the Arab states partially implement 
the Arab [peace] Initiative.  The U.S. itself will have to be more 
intensely involved in the negotiating process than Senator Mitchell 
has been so far. 
 
III.  "Important Diplomatic Developments" 
 
Zalman Shoval, a senior Likud member and former ambassador to the 
U.S., wrote in the independent Israel Hayom (9/1): QThe very 
possibility that the American [peace] plan may become public -- 
assuming it will earn automatic support from European and other 
states, without its key clauses having previously been coordinated 
with Israel -- will pose almost unprecedented challenges to IsraelQs 
policy.... The American intent to conclude the negotiations Qin two 
yearsQ is more confused than [likely U.S. efforts to seek a 
permanent-status agreement straightaway].  It bears out the fact 
that policy-makers in the administration suffer from a typical 
American anti-historic syndrome that states that there is no problem 
without a solution in a set amount of time.  This is happening 
instead of the Americans focusing on an effort to manage the 
conflict, promoting steps that would remove the threatening nuclei 
of flames, and then gradually moving forward to a situation of 
de-facto peace between the sides. 
 
CUNNINGHAM