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 004238 
 
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.  G-8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
At midday, Israel Radio reported on a series of 
explosions in London, and that Finance Minister 
Binyamin Netanyahu was supposed to participate in a 
conference near the location of the first blast. 
 
Yediot reported that the directors-general of the Prime 
Minister's Office and the Finance Ministry, who are 
leaving tonight for the U.S., are expected to ask for 
at least USD 500 million to develop the Galilee and 
Negev, and the relocation of settlers to be evacuated 
during the disengagement. 
 
Hatzofe quoted an Israeli source close to military 
talks with the PA as saying that the Palestinians made 
their demand that Israel also withdraw from Netiv 
Ha'asara, north of the Gaza Strip, well with the goal 
of reaching a 'land swap' agreement with Israel.  This 
deal would give them an extra-territorial Palestinian 
road through the Negev, from the Gaza Strip to the West 
Bank, in return for 'conceding' their demand for an 
Israeli withdrawal from the Netiv Ha'asara area. 
 
Jerusalem Post quoted chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb 
Erekat as saying that there are presently no plans to 
arrange a meeting between Abbas and Sharon, although 
there is an urgent need for such a summit ahead of the 
disengagement.  Ha'aretz led with threats made 
Wednesday in an interview with a local Gaza news agency 
by Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior Hamas official in the 
Gaza Strip, of both confrontation with the PA and 
continued attacks on Israel from Gaza after the 
disengagement.  Al-Zahar reportedly said that Hamas had 
"lost faith" in PA Chairman [President] Mahmoud Abbas. 
 
Israel Radio reported that, for the first time, one of 
the two command centers that are to participate in 
evacuation of the settlements in the Gaza Strip will 
conduct this morning a comprehensive training exercise 
in preparation for the disengagement.  Leading media 
reported that on Wednesday, the rabbis of the 
settlements urged disengagement opponents to start 
marching toward Gush Katif today. 
 
Jerusalem Post and Ha'aretz reported that on Wednesday, 
in the hope of avoiding additional High Court petitions 
on the security fence and speeding up its construction, 
PM Sharon accepted a revision to the route aimed at 
easing the lives of Palestinians.  The new route, 
proposed by Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, envisions two 
"fingers" enveloping the settlements of Ariel and the 
Emmanuel-Kedumim bloc in place of one wider expanse 
encompassing them all.  Jerusalem Post quoted National 
Security Adviser Giora Eiland as saying that the 
security fence around Jerusalem could be completed 
within months and "Jerusalem can be closed as 
originally intended," provided all legal hurdles are 
overcome. 
 
Israel Radio reported that the IDF identified and shot 
at two armed men in the Nablus refugee camp of Balata, 
killing one of them.  They reportedly were preparing to 
shoot at a bus of Israeli worshipers en route to 
Joseph's Tomb in Nablus.  Ha'aretz reported that one 
Palestinian gunman was killed and a second man was 
wounded on Wednesday in an exchange of fire with an IDF 
force in the southern Gaza Strip. 
 
Echoing other media reports, Jerusalem Post writes that 
Israel has apparently decided to adopt a "zero 
tolerance" stance regarding any attempts to infiltrate 
the border from Lebanon.  The newspaper quoted a UN 
source as saying: "It looks like this is a very firm 
approach by the IDF, and we have no reason to believe 
anything to the contrary." 
 
Ha'aretz and Jerusalem Post reported that last night, 
Mofaz ordered the establishment of a special 
administration that would coordinate all the work 
related to the setting up and operating of the various 
border crossings between Israel and the PA in the West 
Bank and Gaza Strip. 
 
Jerusalem Post quoted Romanian FM Mihai Razvan 
Ungureanu, who wrapped up a visit to Israel, as saying 
Monday that in the larger EU, his country will be an 
"honest broker" in the Middle East. 
 
Jerusalem Post pictures FM Silvan Shalom and U.S. 
Ambassador to Israel Dan Kurtzer shaking hands 
following the signing of a new extradition treaty.  The 
last such compact was signed in 1962. 
 
Jerusalem Post reported that 21 American academics, who 
are here for a week to participate in the Brandeis 
University Summer Institute for Israeli Studies, have 
been exposed to the "good, bad, and ugly view of 
Israel." 
 
A Jordanian official was quoted as saying in an 
interview with Jerusalem Post on Wednesday that Amman 
is reconsidering a promise last month to send an 
ambassador to Iraq.  Maariv reported that Al-Qaida has 
threatened to kill Egyptian Ambassador to Baghdad Eyhab 
el-Sharif, because he served as charge d'affaires at 
the Egyptian Embassy in Tel Aviv between 1999 and 2003. 
All media reported on the visit of Angolan President 
Jose Eduardo Dos Santos to Israel.  Jerusalem Post 
quoted him as saying that Angola is looking to Israel 
to help its economic recovery.  Yediot says that 
Israeli businessmen in the diamond trade are pressuring 
Angola to grant them mining rights. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that a software pirate from northern 
Israel was arrested last Wednesday as part of a 
worldwide operation run by the FBI and Interpol.  In 
another article, the newspaper wonders whether the U.S. 
is supervising the moves of web surfers on the global 
Internet. 
 
Ha'aretz published the results of Tel Aviv University's 
monthly Peace Index, conducted June 28-30: 
-54 percent of Israeli Jews support disengagement (57.5 
percent in the previous month's survey); 41 percent are 
opposed (35 percent in the previous month's survey). 
-56 percent of Israeli Jews feel there is no danger of 
a civil war; 40 percent believe there is such a danger. 
-51 percent of Israeli Jews see the assassination of 
pro-disengagement political leaders as a real danger; 
43 percent are not afraid of it. 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "The 
disengagement of Israeli policy from its religious fuel 
is the real disengagement currently on the agenda." 
 
Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized: 
"Many 'average' Protestants are truly interested in 
helping Israelis and Palestinians reach a fair 
settlement to the conflict.  It is with them, and not 
with officials blinded by anti-Israel political and 
ideological agendas, that Israel and the Jewish 
community need to engage." 
 
Correspondent Dov Kontorer wrote in conservative, 
Russian-language Vesty: "There is no place for dialog 
and civil harmony ... in Sharon's new scheme, which is 
totally oriented toward scaring the disengagement 
opponents." 
 
Foreign News Editor Adar Primor wrote in Ha'aretz: 
"Whether or not Japan uses [its involvement in the 
disengagement] as a jump-off point to the desired seat 
on the Security Council -- it would seem that Israel 
has nothing to lose from Japanese activeness.  On the 
contrary, Israel is likely to benefit from it." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
¶I.  "The Real Disengagement" 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (July 
7): "Israeli society is paying for the deliberate 
confusion that secular politicians created for their 
own convenience between security and the sanctity of 
the land, and for the use they made of the religious 
Gush Emunim movement to realize their secular policy 
goals.  The disengagement of Israeli policy from its 
religious fuel is the real disengagement currently on 
the agenda.... The real question is who sets the 
national agenda, and when the state will wake up and 
begin to look into what students learn at the yeshiva 
in [the West Bank settlement of] Nahliel.  The 
[planned] mass march to Gush Katif, like the scale of 
refusal by religious soldiers, will determine not only 
the future of the hesder yeshivas [in which students 
combine military service with religious studies], but 
primarily whether religious Zionism in its current 
incarnation is not a Trojan horse that has infiltrated 
Zionism in order to destroy it from within." 
 
II.  "Talk to the Laity" 
 
Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized 
(July 7): "Add the United Church of Christ to the list 
of Protestant churches riding the anti-Israel 
bandwagon.... Engaging Protestant leaders in dialogue 
has not succeeded in preventing political attacks on 
Israel.... It is time, then, for organizations like the 
AJC, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, and the Anti- 
Defamation League to stop wasting their breath on high- 
level meetings with Protestant leaders and turn instead 
to the laity and the local leadership.  It is from 
within those ranks that voices of dissent have come, as 
ministers and concerned churchgoers have begun to say 
to the anti-Israel activists: you don't speak for us. 
It would be wrong, too, to give up on Protestants as 
potential sympathizers, relying only on Evangelical 
Christians for support.  Many 'average' Protestants are 
truly interested in helping Israelis and Palestinians 
reach a fair settlement to the conflict.  It is with 
them, and not with officials blinded by anti-Israel 
political and ideological agendas, that Israel and the 
Jewish community need to engage." 
 
III.  "Repression and Incitement  -- Instead of 
Elections and a Referendum" 
 
Correspondent Dov Kontorer wrote in conservative, 
Russian-language Vesty (July 7): "The emergency 
atmosphere being spread in Israel is intended to make 
up for the decision regarding the deportation of Jews 
from Gaza and northern Samaria [the northern part of 
the West Bank], which obviously lacks legitimacy.... 
Ariel Sharon demands that an even tougher suppression 
of the growing resistance movement....  There is no 
place for dialog and civil harmony ... in Sharon's new 
scheme, which is totally oriented toward scaring the 
disengagement opponents.  The latter, who made a 
conscious choice in favor of a non-violent opposition 
to the Israeli government's destructive plans, are 
facing ... open repression and a biased coverage in the 
local and international press." 
 
IV.  "A Japanese Sun in the Middle East" 
 
Foreign News Editor Adar Primor wrote in Ha'aretz (July 
7): "[Current] Japanese efforts to help the 
Palestinians are combined with their vigorous wooing of 
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.... Koizumi's Japan is 
demanding a new status in the international arena. 
According to American philosopher Robert Kagan, in the 
existing world order, 'the United States cooks the 
meal, and Europe washes the dishes.'  Japan's role, add 
the cynics, is to pay for the culinary event.  But 
Japan is tired of the status of global sucker.... It is 
currently entirely preoccupied with fulfilling a 
supreme goal: obtaining a permanent seat on the UN 
Security Council.  Japan believes that being involved 
in the disengagement will give it international 
stature, which UN representatives in New York will not 
be able to ignore.  Israel's attitude to the Land of 
the Rising Sun is liable to recall its attitude toward 
Europe: more nudniks who want to play with the big boys 
and who get underfoot.  Whether or not Japan uses it as 
a jump-off point to the desired seat on the Security 
Council -- it would seem that Israel has nothing to 
lose from Japanese activeness.  On the contrary, Israel 
is likely to benefit from it." 
 
--------------------------------------- 
¶2.  G-8 Summit in Gleneagles, Scotland: 
--------------------------------------- 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Chief economic editor Sever Plotker opined in the 
editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot 
Aharonot: "The first world can, and must, help the 
third world stand upright.  But ... poverty isn't 
preordained, and the West isn't to blame for it; local 
politicians are responsible for it." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
"The Rich People's Money and the Poor People's 
Politics" 
 
Chief economic editor Sever Plotker opined in the 
editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot 
Aharonot (July 7): "When the G-8 leaders go home, the 
following truth will remain: wise economic assistance 
can rescue a country from backwardness and poverty, but 
it can't produce miracles single-handedly.  The poor, 
and nobody else in their stead, must want to free 
themselves from corrupt and tyrannical regimes, self- 
indulgent elites, and economic policies protecting the 
interests of a few people at the expense of many.  They 
must abandon their apathy and their resignation to 
their condition, and challenge the latter.  The first 
world can, and must, help the third world stand 
upright.  But the third world must first of all raise 
its head and view reality as it is: poverty isn't 
preordained, and the West isn't to blame for it; local 
politicians are responsible for it." 
 
KURTZER