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 001419 
 
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.  Syrian-Lebanese Track 
 
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Key stories in the media: 
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The media say that today's meeting between Defense 
Minister Shaul Mofaz and Egyptian President Hosni 
Mubarak in Sharm el-Sheikh that will focus on Israeli- 
Palestinian negotiations and implementation of the 
disengagement from Gaza will be overshadowed by the 
failure of two meetings between Israeli and Palestinian 
officers Wednesday to finalize the details of an 
agreement on the transfer of security responsibility in 
Jericho to the PA.  Israel Radio quoted Egyptian FM 
Ahmed Abu el-Gheit as saying that one of the purposes 
of the Mofaz-Mubarak meeting is to find out why Israel 
is delaying the pullout from Palestinian cities. 
Ha'aretz quoted senior IDF officers as saying that 
Egypt's mediation between the PA and Hamas does not 
help to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. 
 
Major media (lead story in Jerusalem Post) reported 
that the Right is targeting PM Sharon in the illegal 
outpost scandal.  Jerusalem Post recalls that "U.S. 
Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer was going nowhere in trying 
to wade through the complex maze of issues surrounding 
the outposts," and that the U.S. had considered sending 
a team of its own to do the work.  The newspaper quoted 
sources among the Likud "rebels" as saying Wednesday 
that if Sharon's Gaza Strip withdrawal plan cannot be 
stopped politically, then legal means will be used to 
try to incriminate Sharon and force him to resign 
before the disengagement can take place. 
 
Maariv reported that the Legal Forum for the Land of 
Israel, a group of lawyers and accountants voluntarily 
helping the Gaza Strip settlers, has recently completed 
an architectural plan for relocating all of the Katif 
Bloc settlements to the area of the Nitzanim sand dunes 
between Ashkelon and Ashdod.  Ha'aretz reported that 
delegations of rabbis and Jewish public figures and 
activists from the U.S. are expected in the coming 
weeks to visit the Katif Bloc settlements with the aim 
of expressing solidarity with residents slated for 
evacuation under the disengagement plan.  Maariv 
reported that Agrexco, the government company for 
agricultural exports, has found that the evacuation of 
the Gaza Strip and the halt in the agriculture 
production of the Katif Bloc will cause the state 
fiscal losses of 120 million shekels (about USD 27.9 
million) a year. 
 
All media reported that on Wednesday, Shas party mentor 
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef played down the comments he made 
Tuesday against Sharon.  Jerusalem Post quoted a senior 
source in the Prime Minister's Office as saying that 
Rabbi Yosef's comments "are the wrong words in the 
wrong atmosphere." 
 
Israel Radio reported that this morning, security 
forces killed a senior Islamic Jihad militant who was 
barricading himself in a building near Baka el- 
Sharkiyeh, east of the Green Line.  He was allegedly 
involved in the February 25 Tel Aviv bombing. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that anti-aircraft units from the 
U.S. Army and the IDF will hold an extensive joint anti- 
aircraft exercise in Israel today.  The forces will 
practice the coordinated operation of anti-aircraft 
systems, including the Arrow anti-ballistic interceptor 
missile and the Patriot air defense missiles. 
 
Maariv reported that MK Ahmed Tibi (Hadash-Ta'al) met 
last month in Washington with senior State Department 
officials, requesting that U.S. aid to Israel be 
conditioned upon 20 percent of it being allotted to the 
Israeli-Arab sector. 
 
Citing AP, Ha'aretz quoted the family of British 
filmmaker James Miller as saying that the IDF has 
decided not to prosecute the soldier responsible for 
Miller's May 2003 death in the Gaza Strip. 
 
All media reported that Omar Karameh is expected to 
return to the post of Lebanese PM, from which he had 
resigned last month, and that a 100,000-strong pro- 
Assad, "people power" demonstration took place in 
Damascus Wednesday.  Israel Radio reported that Walid 
Jumblatt, Lebanon's most prominent opposition figure, 
is visiting Moscow.  Yediot headlined that the 
"independence Intifada" in Lebanon was on the decline. 
 
Yediot reported that the director general of the 
Jordanian Health Ministry told Aharon Cohen, president 
of the Contractors Association, that Israeli 
construction companies will build a hospital in Jordan. 
 
Yediot cited a New York Times report that that a 
federal investigation committee led by retired judge 
Laurence Silberman found that the U.S. intelligence 
agencies know too little about the nuclear programs of 
Iran and North Korea. 
 
Leading media (banner in Yediot) note that the dollar's 
exchange rate -- 4.299 shekels Wednesday -- is at its 
lowest point in two years. 
 
Erratum: A sentence in Wednesday's media reaction 
report was incomplete.  It should have read: "Ha'aretz 
reported that Shalom asked Secretary Rice that there be 
no shift in the West's stance on Hamas, even if Hamas 
participates in the Palestinian elections as a 
political party, and that Rice promised that the U.S. 
position has not changed." 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "In 
all likelihood, Israel's eastern border will be a lot 
closer to the Green Line than it believes.... More so 
than anything, the Sasson report should be seen as the 
beginning of a new era." 
 
Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized: 
"[The present situation of the settlers] is a result of 
[successive Israeli governments'] failing to craft a 
coherent policy in deciding exactly which areas over 
the former 1967 borders are essential to this country's 
security and national interests." 
 
Nationalist columnist Uri Dan wrote in popular, 
populist Maariv: "As far as the Jews in the Land of 
Israel [Israel, including the territories] are 
concerned, there is no such thing as 'illegal 
outposts,' because Jews have the right to settle 
everywhere." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
¶I.  "The Game Is Up" 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (March 
10): "If there is one thing that the Sasson report [on 
illegal settler outposts] teaches us more than 
anything, it is the fact that the game is up, and the 
era of settlement establishment has finally come to an 
end.  The reason for this is that the principal patron 
of the settlement movement became prime minister, and 
began taking world public opinion into 
consideration.... The insistent demand from Washington 
to afford the Palestinian state to be established with 
'territorial contiguity' that will not be hampered by 
settlements, coupled with the fact that George Bush and 
Condoleezza Rice make sure of mentioning this 
expression at every opportunity, will lead in the end 
to the evacuation of all the settlements that get in 
the way of acceptable contiguity.  In all likelihood, 
Israel's eastern border will be a lot closer to the 
Green Line than it believes.... More so than anything, 
the Sasson report should be seen as the beginning of a 
new era.  The timing of the evacuation of the outposts 
-- before or after the disengagement -- pertains 
primarily to the operational ability of the police and 
army to deal with their evacuation now, and is not the 
main issue." 
 
II.  "The Sasson Report" 
 
Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized 
(March 10): "The settlement movement and its supporters 
... have long advocated a policy of 'a hill at a time,' 
which to a considerable degree has succeeded in 
creating 'facts on the ground' in Judea and Samaria 
[i.e. the West Bank].  Unfortunately, this approach has 
also led them to often adopt an 'end justifies the 
means' approach, as evident in the practices described 
by the Sasson Report.  However, whatever short-term 
advantages this has gained the settlement movement, it 
has cost them in the long-term in both local and 
international support.  A legitimate case be made for 
much of the settlement activity in Judea and Samaria, 
but not if it is carried out as part of an end run 
around official procedures and the law.  But more so, 
it is the government itself, the current one and almost 
every one preceding it for the past decade, that 
allowed this situation to develop.  This is a result of 
failing to craft a coherent policy in deciding exactly 
which areas over the former 1967 borders are essential 
to this country's security and national interests, and 
what action should be taken to ensure eventual Israeli 
sovereignty there.  Disengagement, in a way, is an 
attempt to take such a decision retroactively, and for 
that reason is all the more wrenching." 
 
III.  "A Libel" 
 
Nationalist columnist Uri Dan wrote in popular, 
populist Maariv (March 10): "As far as the Jews in the 
Land of Israel are concerned, there is no such thing as 
'illegal outposts,' because Jews have the right to 
settle everywhere.  The right term could be 
'unauthorized outposts' -- i.e. those that were not 
lawfully authorized by the legal government, or those 
that the government has decided to evacuate.... Only in 
Israel can government shoot a bullet in its own head, 
as some legal officials and judges are enthused about 
the fact that the International Court of Justice will 
value them as the prophets of universal justice.  A 
country that began with an immigration that the British 
defined as 'illegal,' and in which {Attorney Talia] 
Sasson expounds her belief that the settlement drive is 
'illegal,' could end up as an illegal country." 
 
 
-------------------------- 
¶2.  Syrian-Lebanese Track: 
-------------------------- 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Middle East affairs commentator Guy Bechor, a lecturer 
at the Interdisciplinary Center, wrote in mass- 
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "In the long 
range the problem can only be resolved in a real -- 
apparently imposed -- reform, including democratic 
elections that would return the Sunnis to power [in 
Syria]." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
"The Assad Family's Tricks Continue" 
 
Middle East affairs commentator Guy Bechor, a lecturer 
at the Interdisciplinary Center, wrote in mass- 
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (March 10): 
"Bearing in mind the series of Syrian ruses in Lebanon, 
including the one that is still to occur, the entire 
issue of negotiations with Israel appears under a 
different light.  Many Israelis now understand that 
public Syrian declarations are not necessarily true and 
that, as in Lebanon, each Syrian move is only meant to 
protect regime and community interests at the most 
basic level -- all the more so considering the fact 
that both countries -- Israel and Lebanon -- lack 
legitimacy in Damascus's eyes, by their very nature. 
They are supposed to be parts of 'Greater Syria.'  As 
far as Syria is concerned, the same modus operandi 
apples to both countries: dispatching Syria- 
subordinated terrorists in order to impose dictates.... 
The U.S. has not yet decided what to do against Bashar 
Assad's defiant regime on the eve of the elections for 
the Lebanese parliament.  But it would be fair to 
assume that should the Syrians pull out from Lebanon, 
they would still run their apparatus by remote control. 
This is what they do with the Palestinians.  At this 
time, international pressure -- including isolation and 
ostracism -- should no doubt be applied to the Damascus 
regime.  However, in the long range the problem can 
only be resolved in a real -- apparently imposed -- 
reform, including democratic elections that would 
return the Sunni majority to power [in Syria].... Only 
then will it be possible to reach a true cessation of 
Syria's involvement in Lebanon, the end of the support 
for the Palestinian terrorist organizations, and the 
creation of the first opportunity of a true Israeli- 
Syrian arrangement.  It appears that the only things 
that can be expected until then are deceptions." 
KURTZER