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

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 07 TEL AVIV 006036 
 
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.  Iran Nuclear Program 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
Jerusalem Post quoted officials in Washington as saying 
that Deputy U.S. National Security Advisor Steve Hadley 
will travel to Israel on Sunday for a day of meetings 
with Israeli and Palestinian officials.  The newspaper 
says that Elliott Abrams, Special Assistant to the 
President and Senior Director of the National Security 
Council for Near East and North African Affairs, will 
accompany Hadley on the Israel leg of the trip, which 
will also include stops in Brussels and Bahrain.  This 
morning, Jerusalem Post's web site cited a White House 
official as saying that the White House late Tuesday 
scrapped plans for Hadley's visit to Israel and the 
Palestinian areas, because of scheduling conflicts. 
The newspaper also quoted a U.S. official in Washington 
as saying that former U.S. ambassador to Kuwait Richard 
Jones is among people being considered for the job of 
next ambassador to Israel. 
 
Maariv revealed that in secret contacts between Israel 
and Syria one year ago, Syrian President Bashar Assad 
had agreed to come to Jerusalem and speak to the 
Knesset, setting no preconditions, but that PM Sharon 
ignored his offer.  Ha'aretz, Maariv and Israel Radio 
reported that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's 
spokesman Majed Abed Fatah took back a statement he had 
made about Syria giving up commitments made by the late 
PM Yitzhak Rabin.  The spokesman said that the matter 
was not raised during Mubarak's meeting with Assad in 
Sharm el-Sheikh Tuesday.  Ha'aretz and Yediot also 
reported that Walid Mualem, aide to the Syrian FM, 
denied Abed Fatah's earlier statement.  Leading media 
quoted UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen as saying 
in a rare appearance before the Knesset's Foreign 
Affairs and Defense Committee Tuesday that Israel 
should immediately call Assad's "bluff."  Yediot 
reported that PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) is 
expected to tell Assad at their upcoming meeting in 
Damascus that the Palestinians could curb terrorist 
attacks in Israel, were it not for the activity 
originating from Damascus. 
 
Leading media reported that Shinui is expected to vote 
against the 2005 budget and leave the government today. 
The media cited an announcement by the Shas party that 
it is prepared to support the budget in exchange for a 
change in the order of priorities in it.  Most 
commentators believe that the coalition will not garner 
a Knesset majority for the budget today.  Yediot writes 
that Sharon will contact Labor Party Chairman Shimon 
Peres today in order to bring Labor into the 
government, in which Labor is not expected to receive 
key portfolios.  Yediot cited hopes in the Likud that 
Sharon could form a broad-based coalition with Shas and 
United Torah Judaism, which would count 70 Knesset 
members. 
All media reported that former PM Ehud Barak "stole the 
microphone and the show" (in Jerusalem Post's words) at 
the Labor Party's Central Committee meeting in Tel Aviv 
last night.  Speaking on Israel Radio this morning, 
Peres was very critical of Barak.  The media reported 
that the Labor Party's Central Committee postponed 
until December 12 a scheduled date for the party's 
leadership primary, thereby giving time for the current 
leadership to try to negotiate Labor's entry into the 
government.  The postponement was a defeat for Barak, 
who has been pushing, along with eight Labor Knesset 
members, to advance the primary to April 12. 
 
Ha'aretz and other media reported that Israel has 
accepted Egypt's offer to beef up its forces on the 
border between Sinai and the Gaza Strip, deploying 750 
troops in the area, and to train Palestinian officers. 
The media say that Israel will advise Egyptian FM Ahmed 
Abu el-Gheit and intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who 
are due in Jerusalem today, of its decision.  Jerusalem 
Post says that the talks will focus on the issue of 
arms smuggling to the Gaza Strip.  Ha'aretz reported 
that Sharon told a delegation of American senators 
Tuesday that he would discuss with the Egyptian 
ministers "how Egypt is enlisting to reinstate 
stability in Gaza and to promote Israel's security 
coordination with the Palestinians." 
 
Israel Radio reported that the U.S. Administration 
intends to transfer USD 20 million to the PA to cover 
the Authority's debts to Israeli companies. 
 
Jerusalem Post quoted Palestinian FM Nabil Shaath as 
saying Tuesday in The Hague that Israel must reopen the 
voter registration offices it closed in East Jerusalem 
several months ago to ensure a free PA election.  The 
newspaper quoted him as characterizing his meeting with 
FM Silvan Shalom as positive, adding that he and his 
Israeli counterpart stuck with general statements and 
did not go into specific details. 
 
All media reported that Tuesday, overturning a previous 
ruling, the High Court of Justice found Shimon Sheves, 
former D-G of the Prime Minister's Office under Rabin, 
guilty of fraud and breach of trust.  Sheves had been 
associated with American consultants James Carville 
Carville, Bob Shrum and Stan Greenberg, who worked for 
U.S. president Bill Clinton and vice-president Al Gore. 
Sheves was also a consultant for Romania's Social 
Democratic Party (PSD). 
 
Ha'aretz reported that PA geographers working in the 
Palestinian Planning Ministry and Negotiation Support 
Unit have concluded that the map of alternate roads and 
passages for Palestinians only, which Israel has asked 
the donor countries to the Palestinians to finance, 
shows that Israel intends to strengthen its hold on 
most of the West Bank and leave the settlements intact. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that Tuesday a Palestinian man 
photographed playing his violin at the Beit Iba 
checkpoint near Nablus in the West Bank earlier this 
month rejected claims by the IDF that he played of his 
own accord. 
 
Jerusalem Post and other media reported that the Judea 
[southern West Bank] Military Court sentenced Abdullah 
Barghouti, a senior Hamas member and master bomb maker 
dubbed "the mechanic," to 67 consecutive life sentences 
for preparing the bombs used in a string of suicide 
bombings in 2001 and 2002. 
 
Jerusalem Post quoted visiting Estonian PM Juhan Parts 
as saying that the EU should behave "more reasonably" 
in regards to UN resolutions on Israel. 
 
Maariv lengthily interviewed Michael (Mike) Scheuer, 
who was the "head of the bin Laden unit in the CIA." 
Scheuer warns that support for Israel endangers 
America's security, and says that Israelis forget that 
the U.S. has a long history of abandoning allies when 
the price of those connections becomes too heavy. 
 
Yediot reported that following heavy pressure by senior 
U.S. officials, Sharon recently appointed a team, to be 
headed by Prime Minister's Office D-G Ilan Cohen, that 
will check whether Israeli tenders and standards laws 
cab be modified so that American companies can compete 
in tenders and projects.  The newspaper says the U.S. 
is "very worried" by the continuing negative trade 
deficit with Israel: in 2003, Israeli exports to the 
U.S. amounted to USD 14 billion, while Israeli imports 
from the U.S. amounted to USD 6.5 billion -- a USD 7.5- 
billion gap.  Yediot quoted Ambassador Dan Kurtzer as 
saying: "We are funding Israel's trade with Europe and 
we really dislike this.  You are selling to the U.S., 
but buying in Europe.  Israel needs to create fairer 
rules of the game vis-a-vis American firms." 
 
Ha'aretz quoted Rep. Bob Beauprez (R-CO) as saying in 
Jerusalem Tuesday that America's Orthodox Jewish 
community has begun a long-term "love affair" with the 
Republican Party. 
Ha'aretz and Jerusalem Post reported that Homeland 
Security Secretary Tom Ridge has presented his 
resignation to President Bush. 
Jerusalem Post printed the full eulogy by Secretary 
Powell of the former U.S. diplomat Joseph Sisco. 
 
A Yediot/Mina Zemach (Dahaf Institute) poll found that: 
-65 percent of Israelis favor a new government; 33 
percent favor a Likud-Shinui-Labor coalition; 17 
percent favor a Labor-supported minority government; 15 
percent favor a government composed of Likud, Labor and 
the ultra-Orthodox parties; 27 percent prefer early 
elections; 8 percent are undecided. 
-If elections were held today, Israelis would vote for: 
Likud: 42 Knesset seats (40 in the current Knesset); 
Labor Party: 23 seats (22); Shinui: 10 seats (15); 
Shas: 9 seats (11); National Union: 9 seats (7); Arab 
parties: 8 seats (8); Yahad: 5 seats (6); United Torah 
Judaism: 5 seats (5); and the National Religious Party: 
4 seats (6). 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Palestinian affairs correspondent and far-left 
Palestinian sympathizer Amira Hass opined in 
independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz: "The question is 
how the decision of the Palestinian cabinet, which even 
obligates the U.S. Agency for International Development 
(USAID), might serve ... against the Israeli policy of 
carving the Palestinian territory into enclaves and 
mutilating the two-state solution." 
 
Nationalist writer Emuna Elon commented in mass- 
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "The Right 
wants elections because it wants to return Yossi Beilin 
and the Geneva Accord to their natural place." 
 
Columnist Shaul Schiff wrote in nationalist, Orthodox 
Hatzofe: "The shrewd Abu Mazen intends to knock down to 
the ground all of Ariel Sharon's dreams, which are the 
basis for his disengagement plan." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
¶I.  "A Surprising Decision by the PA Cabinet" 
 
Palestinian affairs correspondent and far-left 
Palestinian sympathizer Amira Hass opined in 
independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (December 1): 
"Despite the short-term logic in accepting the [Israel- 
engineered] passages plan -- it would enable relatively 
free Palestinian movement in the West Bank after years 
of destructive internal closure -- the [Palestinian] 
cabinet decided to reject it completely.  In this way, 
it signaled to the donor countries not to agree to 
finance the passages nor any other road without the 
approval of a special Palestinian inter-ministerial 
committee.  That is, the cabinet did not only protest 
verbally, but also adopted a practical measure.  This 
is surprising because since 1994, the PA has acted as 
if it is incapable of doing a thing to counter the 
Israeli policy of creating Palestinian enclaves in the 
West Bank and the Gaza Strip.... The Palestinian 
Authority, under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, acted 
as if it were a matter of force majeure, a 
deterministic process that no diplomatic or popular 
struggle could counter.... The question is how the 
decision of the Palestinian cabinet, which even 
obligates the U.S. Agency for International Development 
(USAID), might serve as leverage for a popular struggle 
-- Palestinian, Israeli and international -- against 
the Israeli policy of carving the Palestinian territory 
into enclaves and mutilating the two-state solution." 
 
II.  "Who's Afraid of Moving Up the Elections?" 
 
Nationalist writer Emuna Elon commented in mass- 
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (December 1): 
"Those greedy for 'disengagement' try to disparage the 
Right for wanting to move up the elections, which would 
delay the evacuation of settlements by at least six 
months.  So what?  Why does the Left oppose moving up 
the elections, if not in order to accelerate the 
uprooting?  Yes, the Right wants elections because it 
wants to stop the pullout, to save the settlements, and 
to prevent a catastrophe.  The Right wants elections 
because it wants to return Yossi Beilin and the Geneva 
Accord to their natural place, to take away from the 
Labor Party the mandates Likud -- and not Labor -- won, 
and to let the Israeli people decided -- not in public 
opinion polls but in elections -- for or against a move 
which is one of the most crucial of those ever planned 
by an Israeli government.... Will Sharon please go to 
the people with his disengagement and let's see what 
happens." 
 
 
 
 
III.  "What Has Abu Mazen Promised Barghouti?" 
 
Columnist Shaul Schiff wrote in nationalist, Orthodox 
Hatzofe (December 1): "Abu Mazen, the West's darling, 
explains in all his private meetings that in order to 
obtain quiet in the Palestinian street, he need 
[Marwan] Barghouti's release.  There no doubt is 
someone on the Israeli side who has promised it.... The 
shrewd Abu Mazen intends to knock down to the ground 
all of Ariel Sharon's dreams, which are the basis for 
his disengagement plan.  Guided by Hosni Mubarak, Abu 
Mazen has already told the outgoing U.S. Secretary of 
State and senior European representatives that he is 
unhappy about the idea of an interim agreement. Backed 
by Mubarak, Abu Mazen strives to achieve a permanent- 
status agreement -- immediately after the elections for 
PA chairmanship.  Any permanent-status move serves the 
interests of the PA; since the entire leadership of the 
West is asking for the '67 borders with slight 
amendments, at the United States' behest, a harsh 
confrontation is expected between Ariel Sharon and 
those Western leaders.  It will be interesting to see 
how [Sharon] will steer the course between his 
deceptive visions and the pressure that will be applied 
on him." 
 
------------------------- 
¶2.  Iran Nuclear Program: 
------------------------- 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Senior Middle East affairs analyst Zvi Bar'el wrote in 
independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz: "Iran is not the 
isolated country the U.S. wanted it to be when it 
imposed sanctions on it.... It is a regime that is not 
happy with the existence of Israel and would like to 
see it disappear, but not at the price of its own 
disappearance." 
 
Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized: 
"Through its nuclear program, Iran's mullocracy has 
managed to almost completely divert attention from its 
aggression and repression, the two attributes that were 
supposed to have made it an endangered species in the 
post-9/11 world." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
¶I.  "The Charm of the Iranian Threat" 
 
Senior Middle East affairs analyst Zvi Bar'el wrote in 
independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (December 1): "Iran 
is not Iraq of 2003. It is a state where most of the 
population is not happy with its economic 
circumstances, but not necessarily opposed to the 
governmental regime. Reformists are no less 
nationalistic than the conservatives.... And can anyone 
say which country is crazier: Iran or Pakistan, which 
has nuclear weapons, India, which threatens Pakistan 
with the use of its nuclear weapons -- and is now 
conducting talks with it -- or maybe North Korea, with 
whom the United States is ready to negotiate?  It is 
also possible to ask, before Israel or the U.S. uses 
the ultimate weapon against Iran, why it is impossible 
[for instance] to pressure China to cancel its USD 100- 
billion gas deal with Iran?.... Even more interesting 
is that Iran has not minded for years doing business 
with friends of Israel.  It even is begging for the 
renewal of diplomatic relations with Egypt, relations 
that Iran cut off in the wake of the Camp David 
accords.  Iran is not the isolated country the U.S. 
wanted it to be when it imposed sanctions on it.  It 
enjoys close ties with most of the countries of the 
world, and the ayatollahs' regime is not made up of 
suicide bombers.  It is a regime that is not happy with 
the existence of Israel and would like to see it 
disappear, but not at the price of its own 
disappearance." 
 
II.  "Safe For Mullocracy" 
 
Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized 
(December 1): "What, after all, is the purpose of 
nuclear weapons for a regime like Iran?  Some seem to 
assume Iran is a rational actor and therefore rule out 
various doomsday scenarios, such as it attacking Israel 
or providing terrorists with a nuclear weapon.  We see 
no reason to make such assumptions.  Yet even if those 
scenarios are taken off the table, Iran is already 
accomplishing two other critical objectives: providing 
an umbrella for its support of terrorism and for its 
own repressive regime.  The Associated Press reported 
this week that 300 men gathered openly in Teheran, in 
the presence of a government official, to sign up to 
become suicide bombers, either against Israelis or 
Americans..... Iran is the world's most open and 
enthusiastic state sponsor of terrorism.  Its regime, 
much like that of the Brezhnev-era Soviet Union, is 
aggressive, hated at home and ideologically bankrupt. 
Yet, through its nuclear program, Iran's mullocracy has 
managed to almost completely divert attention from its 
aggression and repression, the two attributes that were 
supposed to have made it an endangered species in the 
post-9/11 world..... Any deal that makes the world 
safer for Iran's mullahs makes it a lot less safe for 
the rest of us." 
 
CRETZ