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 001677 
 
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.  Mideast 
 
¶2.  Campaign Against Terrorism 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
PM Sharon's disengagement plan: 
-Leading media (Ha'aretz, citing GOI sources) reported 
that Wednesday Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and other 
senior security officials most likely convinced Sharon 
that his disengagement plan should include a complete 
withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, but, at most, a pullout 
from only a handful of settlements in the West Bank, 
which Maariv says Sharon is considering carrying out 
first.  Ha'aretz quoted its sources as saying that the 
maximal alternative -- evacuating 17 West Bank 
settlements in addition to the Gaza pullout -- had 
basically been dropped, mainly because of the growing 
opposition in the Likud.  Yediot reported that Sharon 
responded to a suggestion by Mofaz that workers from 
Gaza continue working in Israel after the disengagement 
by saying: "Let them work in Egypt or Jordan."  Yediot 
cited the belief of a senior defense source that the 
plan's authorization and negotiating process will 
continue until September 2005.  Other media reported 
that the plan is likely to be implemented in December 
¶2005.  Ha'aretz reported that the Right is divided over 
the legitimacy of refusing orders to evacuate the 
settlements -- if and when the disengagement is passed. 
Yediot reported that the Justice Ministry will 
establish a special "dialogue" team with the Gaza Strip 
settlers and initiate a basic law that would tackle 
legislative issues that could result from the 
evacuation, such as harming settlers' property rights. 
-Jerusalem Post quoted FM Silvan Shalom as saying 
Wednesday that PM Sharon will deal with renegade 
ministers lobbying against his disengagement policy in 
the next few days.  The newspaper noted that Shalom 
spoke one day after Construction and Housing Minister 
Effi Eitam (National Religious Party) spoke out in the 
U.S. against the plan and on the same day that 
Transportation Minister Avigdor Lieberman (National 
Union) met at his initiative with U.S. Ambassador 
Daniel Kurtzer (a meeting also reported by other 
media).  Lieberman reportedly told Kurtzer that the 
plan will not be approved by the cabinet, will endanger 
the government, and could possibly present problems for 
the U.S. Administration.  Lieberman told Israel Radio: 
"A meeting with the U.S. ambassador, as with other 
ambassadors, is an exchange of information, opinions, 
and assessments."  Lieberman said he gave Kurtzer the 
same assessment of the plan that he has given Sharon 
and which he has presented to the Knesset.   "I am glad 
that the U.S. Ambassador listens to all the 
assessments, and not only those from the Prime 
Minister's Office.  It is good that the Americans have 
a complete picture," he said.  Jerusalem Post noted 
that a U.S. Embassy official confirmed the meeting, 
saying it is normal practice for Kurtzer to 
periodically meet with different government ministers 
for an exchange of views. 
-Ha'aretz quoted a Palestinian source as saying that 
Wednesday Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's senior 
adviser Osama El-Baz delivered an "ultimatum" to PA 
Chairman Yasser Arafat, according to which the PA must 
regain control of the Gaza Strip, or else Egypt would 
withdraw from actively intervening in the implications 
of Israel's withdrawal plan from the Strip.  Jerusalem 
Post also cited Egyptian pressure on the PA. 
 
Israel Radio reported that last night the IDF pulled 
out from the confines of Rafah, where it unsuccessfully 
looked for smuggling tunnels.  Leading media reported 
that four Palestinians, two of them children (Ha'aretz: 
armed teenagers), were killed.  The media reported on 
numerous violent incidents throughout the territories. 
Maariv led by citing the concern of security sources 
that terrorists could be planning to hijack buses.  All 
media reported that the suicide bombers who blew 
themselves at Ashdod Port Sunday had hidden in a 
modified container that had transported candies to the 
Gaza Strip and re-entered Israel through the Karni 
crossing.  Leading media quoted police officials as 
saying that five terrorist attacks were thwarted in 
Jerusalem over the past two weeks. 
 
Israel Radio reported that last night the D-G of the 
Prime Minister's Office met with Palestinian Finance 
Minister Salam Fayyad in order to discuss the USD 100- 
million monthly transfer of tax money Israel owes the 
PA. 
 
Israel Radio reported that, based on the Syria 
Accountability Act, the U.S. Administration will soon 
announce that it is imposing sanctions on Syria for its 
support for terror.  The station quoted Deputy 
Secretary of State Richard Armitage as saying on a U.S. 
 
SIPDIS 
radio station that these would be very forceful 
sanctions, and that Syria had helped little in the 
battle against al-Qaida but that at the same time, 
along with Iran, it had supported Hizbullah and Hamas. 
 
Leading media reported that one Palestinian was killed 
and 21 others were wounded in a gun battle that erupted 
in the center of Gaza City Wednesday morning between 
Hamas activists and PA policemen. 
 
Yediot reported that in four Palestinian cities the IDF 
has seized notebooks of Palestinian children decorated 
with "dreadful pictures" of terrorist attacks and 
suicide bombers.  Yediot and other media also reported 
that scrapbooks filled with photographs of "shahids" 
(martyrs) constitute the "biggest hit" among 
Palestinian children. 
 
Ha'aretz and Jerusalem Post reported that Wednesday the 
High Court of Justice, which debated various West Bank 
fence-related petitions, ordered the state to respond 
to claims that the current route of the West Bank fence 
does not meet Israel's security needs and that it 
simply causes harm to Palestinian villagers.  The 
Council for Peace and Security, a peace advocacy group 
representing top-level Israeli reserve officers and 
intelligence officials, had presented the claims to the 
court. 
 
All media reported that last night in Baghdad at least 
29 people were killed and 50 injured when an 
approximately 1,000-pound bomb went off in front of the 
Mount Lebanon Hotel, not far from the headquarters of 
the U.S.-led coalition. The media cited the suspicions 
of coalition officials that an al-Qaida affiliated 
group may have been behind the bombing.  Maariv 
predicts that the committee investigating the role of 
Israeli intelligence during the Iraq War will once 
again blame the prevailing "preconception" among the 
intelligence bodies and warn that this was one of the 
gravest failures in the history of Israeli 
intelligence.  The newspaper cited a denial by Foreign 
Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Yuval Steinitz, 
who also chairs the investigative committee.  The 
committee is also checking into the fact that Israel 
only learned about Libya's nuclear plans from the U.S. 
 
Leading media reported that Wednesday Yossi Beilin, the 
newly elected leader of Yahad, the successor party to 
Meretz, called on the Labor Party not to crawl before 
Sharon.  Leading media reported that Wednesday Labor 
Party Chairman Shimon Peres reiterated statements that 
his party has no intention of joining the government 
coalition.  Leading media reported that Justice 
Minister Yosef (Tommy) Lapid called on the State 
Comptroller to investigate who funded Beilin's election 
campaign, and whether foreign funding he received for 
the promotion of the Geneva Accord was not siphoned off 
into his personal election campaign. 
 
Globes quoted Jacob Toren, the Chairman of RAFAEL, the 
Israel Armament Development Authority, that, due to a 
50 percent cut in orders from the IDF, the authority is 
expected to move a significant part of its production 
and development activities to the U.S. 
 
Globes and Ha'aretz reported that an agreement for 
Israeli participation in the 16-billion euro Galileo 
European satellite navigation system project was signed 
Wednesday in Jerusalem.  Globes also noted that the 
European Parliament has approved Israel's participation 
in the Sixth Framework Program of the EU for R&D. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: 
"Posturing and threats do not enhance Israel's 
deterrent power.  They can actually backfire, leading 
to a general escalation and producing one of two bad 
results: enhancing the credibility of the Palestinian 
version of Israel's withdrawal under force, or the 
failure of the plan to withdraw from Gaza." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
"How to Get Out of Gaza" 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (March 
18): "The Palestinians have a powerful interest in 
presenting a different version of the narrative of the 
withdrawal from Gaza.  Sharon wants to present it as 
the tale of an independent Israeli decision whose 
purpose is to improve Israel's military capabilities in 
years to come.  Hamas and its cohorts want to frame the 
withdrawal in a different context, presenting it as a 
triumph of Palestinian power that culminated in the 
removal of Jewish settlements and the expulsion of the 
IDF.  The terror attacks, which peaked early this week 
in the double suicide bombing at the Ashdod port, are 
intended to restore to the Palestinians both 
operational initiative in the field, and the ability to 
dictate the narrative to the world.... Since it is 
tremendously difficult for security forces to thwart 
terror attacks once suicide bombers and explosives have 
been smuggled into Israeli territory, Israel does not 
have the luxury of abandoning operations in the Gaza 
Strip altogether.  Under such circumstances, selective 
assassinations of those responsible for planning future 
terror strikes and for implementing them (as opposed to 
punishing those responsible for past attacks) are an 
unavoidable necessity.  The same is true of ground 
operations when there is no way of carrying out precise 
strikes against defined targets.... Operations proposed 
by military officials to the political leadership are 
less problematic than the verbal wrapping in which 
government spokesmen have packaged the plans for 
marketing to the public.  Posturing and threats do not 
enhance Israel's deterrent power.  They can actually 
backfire, leading to a general escalation and producing 
one of two bad results: enhancing the credibility of 
the Palestinian version of Israel's withdrawal under 
force, or the failure of the plan to withdraw from 
Gaza." 
 
------------------------------- 
¶2.  Campaign Against Terrorism: 
------------------------------- 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Nationalist writer Uri Dan, a close associate of Prime 
Minister Sharon, opined in conservative, independent 
Jerusalem Post: "To a far greater degree than the 
terrible attacks by Muslim terrorists perpetrated in 
Jerusalem, Bali, Casablanca, and Istanbul, the massacre 
in Madrid was intended to tell the stunned Europeans 
that the barbarians are, once again, at the gates of 
Europe." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
"Victory For Muslim Terrorism in Madrid" 
 
Nationalist writer Uri Dan, a close associate of Prime 
Minister Sharon, opined in conservative, independent 
Jerusalem Post (March 18): "'President Bush is totally 
familiar with the grave problem of global terrorism, 
and the free world is fortunate that he is occupying 
the White House,' Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told me 
last Friday at his farm in the northern Negev.  The 
Prime Minister voiced these remarks after hearing the 
reports from Madrid of the terrible massacre 
perpetrated there the previous day by Al Qaida.... It 
won't take long for the new Spanish government to learn 
the hard way that rapid surrender to Muslim terror will 
only encourage additional attacks in Spain by al- 
Qaida.... The defeat of Aznar's government last Sunday, 
72 hours after the massacre in Madrid, was without 
doubt a victory for Muslim terrorism aimed at 
undermining the Western democracies.... If France 
opposed the United States' justified war in Iraq and 
refused to dispatch a single soldier there, why should 
it become a target for Muslim terror?  Because al- 
Qaida's global offensive against the West is 
unconnected to events in Iraq.... To a far greater 
degree than the terrible attacks by Muslim terrorists 
perpetrated in Jerusalem, Bali, Casablanca, and 
Istanbul, the massacre in Madrid was intended to tell 
the stunned Europeans that the barbarians are, once 
again, at the gates of Europe." 
 
KURTZER