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

211214Z Dec 04

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 08 TEL AVIV 006472 
 
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.  Israel-European Union Relations 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
All newspapers reported that Monday, comparing 
themselves to such freedom fighters as Martin Luther 
King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, the Yesha Council of 
Jewish Settlements in the Territories backed a call by 
Pinchas Wallerstein, the head of the Binyamin Regional 
Council, for the public to fight the disengagement plan 
even if it means breaking the law.  All media reported 
that A-G Menachem Mazuz ordered the state prosecutor 
Monday to "examine" the leaflet distributed by 
Wallerstein.  Maariv quoted senior Council members as 
saying that the Council will circulate a petition among 
Israelis inside and outside the Green Line, in which 
the signatories will commit themselves to coming to the 
Gaza Strip on the day of the evacuation, opposing it 
forcibly, and exposing themselves to being sent to 
jail.  Leading media reported on a campaign among Gush 
Katif settlers in the Gaza Strip, particularly 
Holocaust survivors, to put on orange stars of David 
reminiscent of World War II-era yellow stars.  Last 
night, Channel 10-TV revealed that thousands of such 
badges have been produced and that they will be 
presented Wednesday in a special ceremony.  Israel 
Radio reported that Avner Shalev, Chairman of the Yad 
Vashem Directorate, urged that symbols and terminology 
taken from the Holocaust not be used in the public- 
political debate.  Ha'aretz quoted Police Inspector 
General Moshe Karadi as saying Monday that public 
opposition could prevent the evacuation of Gush Katif. 
 
Israel Radio quoted President Bush as saying Monday at 
a White House press conference, regarding Syrian 
support for Iraqi insurgents: "We have sent messages to 
the Syrians in the past, and we will continue to do so. 
We have tools at our disposal, a variety of tools, 
ranging from diplomatic tools to economic pressure. 
Nothing is taken off the table."  The radio also quoted 
the President as saying: "I'm realistic about how to 
achieve peace.  And it starts with my understanding 
that there will never be peace until a true democratic 
state emerges in the Palestinian territory."  Bush said 
that the Palestinian elections were the beginning of 
such a democratic process.  Jerusalem Post notes that 
at his news conference Bush endorsed the idea of 
holding a Middle East peace conference in the UK early 
next year. 
 
Israel Radio reported that this morning two anti-tank 
missiles were launched at a synagogue in a northern 
Gaza Strip settlement during morning prayers, hitting 
it directly.  No one was hurt.  Jerusalem Post quoted 
Jerusalem police as saying Monday that a 67-year-old 
American immigrant who was stabbed and wounded outside 
his home in the city's central Abu Tor neighborhood 
late Sunday night was likely the target of a terrorist 
attack. 
While some media say that the national unity government 
will be formed by Thursday, others believe the 
establishment of the new cabinet could be delayed until 
next week.  All media reported that Monday the Knesset 
approved, 56 to 34 and two abstentions, a proposed bill 
allowing the PM to name two deputies.  The bill can 
turn into law only if it garners a majority of 61 votes 
in its next readings.  Maariv reported that Likud 
members are pressuring one of the abstainers, the 
chairman of the Knesset's Constitution, Law and Justice 
Committee, Likud MK Michael Eitan, to endorse the bill. 
Israel Radio reported that the Labor Party's Central 
Committee will meet this afternoon to endorse the 
party's entry into the government and to choose its 
ministers in the new cabinet. 
 
Israel Radio reported that today the Justice Ministry 
will put up on its Internet site the list of the 170 
Palestinian prisoners whom Israel is expected to 
release, in order to come across any objections. 
Jerusalem Post quoted PA officials as saying Monday 
they were deeply disappointed by Israel's decision to 
release only 170 prisoners. 
 
Visiting World Bank President James Wolfensohn was 
quoted as saying Monday in an interview with Ha'aretz 
that disengagement is insufficient if it does not give 
hope to the Palestinians. 
 
Jerusalem Post and other media cited the Industry, 
Trade and Labor Ministry as saying Monday that Israel 
and Jordan are set to sign an upgraded trade agreement 
Thursday, aimed at reducing customs in bilateral trade. 
 
Jerusalem Post cited criticism by visiting Czech FM 
Cyril Svoboda of the EU's penchant for always trying to 
"balance" its statements regarding the Israeli- 
Palestinian conflict.  Yated Ne'eman notes that the 
Czech Republic has included Hizbullah in its list of 
terrorist organizations. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that the IDF is planning to hand over 
Megiddo prison in northern Israel, with its 1,300 
Palestinian prisoners, to the Prison Service in the 
coming months as a first step in what the army hopes 
will give the Prison Service responsibility for all 
security prisoners. 
Maariv reported that over 100 parents of soldiers have 
signed a petition calling for refusal to serve in the 
territories.  Yediot reported that a group of parents 
whose children were killed during their military 
service sent a letter to the directors of 250 high 
schools, asking them to convey the following message to 
parents of youngsters about to be enlisted in the IDF: 
"Don't be naive like we were.  Check very carefully 
every stupid order that commanders will give your 
children."  Yediot quoted military sources as saying 
that those comments are unacceptable. 
 
Jerusalem Post reported that a radar for the joint U.S. 
Israeli mobile laser gun, called the Nautilus, will be 
deployed shortly near Sderot to track incoming Qassam 
rockets. 
 
Israel Radio reported that Monday residents of the 
northern West Bank settlement of Yitzhar disconnected 
the water supply of an IDF outpost nearby. 
 
All media reported that British PM Tony Blair will 
arrive today and visit Israel and the PA.  Yediot says 
that PM Sharon will tell Blair that Israel will support 
the convening of an international conference in London, 
provided it only deals with the advancement of reforms 
in the PA, and not with diplomatic or security issues. 
Some media noted that Blair declined to lay a wreath on 
the late PA chairman Yasser Arafat's grave in Ramallah. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that the Israel Navy is examining two 
new medium-size missile boats, Saar 5+, and a new Barak 
8 sea-to-sea missile system for defending ships over 
ranges of more than 100 km, after incoming Adm. David 
Ben Bashat decided to cancel a plan to acquire 10,000- 
ton warships.  Ha'aretz adds that the Navy is also 
considering joining the U.S. Coast Guard or Navy in the 
planning of new missile boats. 
 
Yediot reported that today a group of over 500 Israeli 
and American plaintiffs, who were victims of terrorist 
actions in Israel, will file a USD 3.5-billion suit in 
a Brooklyn court against banks in the U.S., which it 
believes helped fund those acts.  Last Thursday, Yediot 
had mentioned that the plaintiffs sought USD 2 billion. 
Jerusalem Post only mentioned that 117 plaintiffs filed 
a suit against the Jordan-based Arab Bank. 
 
Ha'aretz and Jerusalem Post reported that a U.S. 
federal judge in Miami Beach approved an agreement 
between the USG and Hungarian Holocaust survivors, 
settling what has become known as the "Gold Train" 
affair.  The newspaper quoted Washington insiders as 
saying that the agreement is likely to include the U.S. 
Administration's agreement to a USD 25 million 
compensation payment to fund humanitarian aid to ill 
and poverty stricken Hungarian Holocaust survivors. 
However, Ha'aretz said that sources at Jewish 
organizations close to the talks declined to comment on 
the sums involved. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that Monday in Haifa, 300 women 
attended the first national conference of Jewish and 
Arab businesswomen, organized by the Center for Jewish- 
Arab Economic Development in conjunction with the 
Konrad Adenauer Foundation. 
 
Ha'aretz and Yediot reported that the International 
Monetary Fund (IMF) has applauded both fiscal and 
monetary policies that have helped Israel foster a 
return to growth after three years of "depress 
activity.  However, the IMF notes that many challenges 
still lie ahead. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that close associates of UN Secretary- 
General Kofi Annan have asked Israel to use its 
influence with key Jewish organizations in the U.S. to 
enlist the Jewish-American community in support of 
Annan. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that some Egyptian and Saudi 
intellectuals have criticized the decision not to allow 
films by Israeli Arabs to participate in the 
international film festival held earlier this month in 
Cairo. 
 
Ha'aretz interviewed Prof. Anne Marie Slaughter, the 
dean at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and 
International Affairs at Princeton University, who 
attended the Herzliya Conference.  Slaughter, a critic 
of Bush's policy, said: "I agree with the 
administration that a democratic Middle East is a very 
important, crucial goal." 
 
In Ha'aretz, Prof. Ephraim Yaar and Prof. Tamar 
Hermann, who are behind Tel Aviv University's Peace 
Index survey, presented the results of parallel polls 
in the PA and Israel: 44 percent of Palestinians, 70 
percent of Israeli Jews and 58 percent of Israeli Arabs 
are more optimistic about the chances of peace 
following Yasser Arafat's demise. 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "The 
time has come to reduce the settler phenomenon to its 
true proportions and to cease being afraid of it." 
 
Senior columnist Nahum Barnea wrote on page one of mass- 
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "When leaders 
of the Council of Settlements recruit Mahatma Gandhi 
and Martin Luther King to justify their battle, we can 
only smile.... The settlers are battling for the 
occupier, the strong, the armed." 
Veteran print and TV journalist Dan Margalit wrote in 
popular, pluralist Maariv: "Wallerstein and his 
supporters in Judea and Samaria [i.e. the West Bank] 
are leading Israel to anarchy." 
 
Nationalist, Orthodox Hatzofe editorialized: "[The 
settlers] are lawfully continuing their daily struggle, 
without eying imprisonment, as suggested by Mr. 
Wallenstein." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
¶I.  "Have No Fear" 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized 
(December 21): "To the settlers' cries that they are 
being 'transferred' and that Ariel Sharon's government 
is undemocratic -- two claims whose truth or falsehood 
is not even worth debating with a public that has been 
acting outside democracy for 30 years -- the government 
must first and foremost respond wisely.  The time has 
come to reduce the settler phenomenon to its true 
proportions and to cease being afraid of it. 
Lawbreakers should be dealt with using the same tools 
that are applied to ordinary lawbreakers, who do not 
enjoy governmental protection.  Settler activists from 
the rest of the country must be prevented from going to 
[the Gaza Strip settlement bloc of] Gush Katif by every 
means possible, starting now." 
 
II.  "Love Hurts" 
 
Senior columnist Nahum Barnea wrote on page one of mass- 
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (December 21): 
"The distress felt by the leaders of the Yesha Council 
of Jewish Settlements in the Territories is 
understandable.  For months they have been declaring 
'we have love and it will triumph,' even though there 
is not a trace of love among them at the moment, only 
anger, which only continues to mount the more they feel 
that they are losing, not triumphing -- in their battle 
against disengagement.  Their handiwork is drowning in 
the sea, and Sharon is singing.  Monday, after the 
pathetic crisis with Peres had ended more or less, 
Sharon took another significant step toward the 
implementation of the disengagement plan....  The 
letter by [settler leader Pinchas] Wallerstein was 
directed primarily inwards, to his constituency.  Its 
immediate goal was to let off steam, to demonstrate to 
the infuriated settlers that their leaders have not 
gone into a coma.  His colleagues on the Council of 
Settlements, who had preferred to use pleasant means up 
until now, dragged their feet and lined up behind him. 
This is what we can expect to see in the coming months: 
a furious, hurt community, some of which has despaired 
and is prepared to take any violent action, and a 
leadership that is forced to line up behind the threats 
of the militants.  This is a dangerous borderline game 
and, judging by past experience, is liable to end in 
disaster.  But there is almost no other way to play 
it.... But when leaders of the Council of Settlements 
recruit Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King to 
justify their battle, we can only smile.  The latter 
battled for the enslaved, for the oppressed, for the 
downtrodden.  The settlers are battling for the 
occupier, the strong, the armed." 
 
III.  "Remember the Warring Tribes of Israel" 
 
Veteran print and TV journalist Dan Margalit wrote in 
popular, pluralist Maariv (December 21): "As long as 
the majority [of Israelis] agreed to pay for building 
the settlements and for defending them, to paying a 
high price for putting up roadblocks on the way to 
them; and as long as there could be found citizens like 
me who constantly quarreled with the dissenters from 
the Left who undermined democracy and the IDF's ability 
to perform, [settler leader Pinchas] Wallenstein did 
not find anything wrong in a decision by the majority 
in the government and the Knesset to continue to 
maintain the settlements.... Even if Wallerstein 
manages to deter Sharon at the last minute from 
disengaging from Gush Katif, this will mean that a 
minority will have imposed its will on the majority in 
the name of God and some of the rabbis.  This will put 
an end to the isolation of the extreme-dissenting left 
wing.... Wallerstein and his supporters in Judea and 
Samaria [i.e. the West Bank] are leading Israel to 
anarchy.  The moment that lawbreakers control public 
life, the sides will loot the IDF weapons storehouses, 
each wanting a machine gun of its own.... The 
settlement leaders are in a fierce battle, in the midst 
of a storm.  But they are being asked to behave with a 
level head.  They must take another issue into account: 
if, despite their declaration of civil war, the 
democratic majority wins by virtue of force and 
evacuates Gush Katif, relations between the two sides 
of the Green Line will not revert to what they were. 
The open wound will not heal quickly. " 
 
IV.  "Opposition to Disengagement, But Not Through 
Detention" 
Nationalist, Orthodox Hatzofe editorialized (December 
21): "Even those who oppose the uprooting of Jewish 
settlements from Gush Katif (in the Gaza Strip) cannot 
support [settler leader] Pinchas Wallenstein's letter 
that calls for breaching the evacuation law, even if 
this entails going to jail'.... The way chosen by 
Pinchas Wallenstein is not that of the 'Land of Israel 
Faithful.'  They are fighting the battle honestly and 
lawfully.... No only does Wallerstein's letter not 
contribute to the strengthening of the Gush Katif 
settlers, but it might also weaken the resistance to 
the evacuation, as a result of his call to 'breach the 
law,' even if this involved their incarceration.... 
[The settlers] are lawfully continuing their daily 
struggle, without eying imprisonment, as suggested by 
Mr. Wallenstein." 
 
------------------------------------ 
¶2.  Israel-European Union Relations: 
------------------------------------ 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU's Commissioner for 
External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy, 
wrote in independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz: "The 
Action Plan affords us a remarkable opportunity to 
deepen EU-Israeli relations.... Against the backdrop of 
international events, I sense the timing is 
fortuitous." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
"The European Neighborhood Policy" 
 
Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU's Commissioner for 
External Relations and European Neighborhood Policy, 
wrote in independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (December 
21): "To my delight ... the warmth is now returning [to 
Israel-EU relations].  Changes in the international 
arena, such as the forthcoming elections in the 
Palestinian Authority, a new U.S. Administration and 
indeed a new European Commission, give us a real 
opportunity to look afresh at our relations and examine 
where we would like to go from here.  And we are 
fortunate to have the tool with which to do so.  On 
December 13, the European Union and the Government of 
Israel agreed to an Action Plan, developed as part of 
the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP), which lays out 
a number of areas in which we would like to work more 
closely together.... I believe the Action Plan affords 
us a remarkable opportunity to deepen EU-Israeli 
relations in practical and mutually advantageous ways. 
And, against the backdrop of international events, I 
sense the timing is fortuitous. We will continue to 
disagree on some points, but I am sure that the 
increased level of confidence we have in one another, 
thanks to this plan, will enable us to discuss those 
points more frankly and openly than in the past." 
 
KURTZER