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

111058Z Jul 05

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 TEL AVIV 004277 
 
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.  London Bombings 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
Major media (banner in Ha'aretz) reported that a 
delegation of senior Israeli officials that left for 
Washington over the weekend will ask the U.S. 
government this evening for some USD 2.2 billion in 
special aid for the disengagement plan.  Ha'aretz 
quoted GOI sources in Jerusalem as saying Sunday that 
this week's talks will focus on the details of the aid 
package, as the U.S. has already assured Israel in 
principle that it will provide funding for the military 
outlays related to the plan and for developing the 
Negev and Galilee -- areas that would get two thirds of 
the money. 
 
Leading media (Maariv's banner announces the "end of 
the U.S.-Israel crisis") reported that the U.S. and 
Israel will sign a memorandum of understanding on 
security exports today, and that Defense Minister Shaul 
Mofaz will come to the U.S. next week to finalize the 
agreement.  Maariv and other media reported that 
Defense Ministry D-G Amos Yaron will visit the U.S., 
"where he will be received honorably, restoring the 
luster to his tarnished reputation," after tending his 
resignation. 
 
The media (lead stories in Jerusalem Post and the 
religious newspapers) reported that, nearly three years 
after construction began on the security barrier going 
up between Israel and the West Bank, the government on 
Sunday set September 1 as the deadline for the 
completion of the Jerusalem barrier, which will leave 
55,000 Arab residents of the city on the Palestinian 
side.  Hatzofe banners: "Sharon Divides Jerusalem." 
Ha'aretz reported that FM Silvan Shalom met Sunday with 
Alvaro de Soto, the UN envoy to the Middle East, and 
asked him to prevent the Palestinians from carrying out 
their plan to hold a General Assembly meeting on the 
West Bank separation fence. 
 
Leading media reported that an interview of Mofaz, 
conducted for the first time on Sunday by Al Jazeera- 
TV, is likely to be broadcast today.  Mofaz reportedly 
emphasized the importance of settlement blocs and the 
Jordan Valley to Israel.  Israel Radio said that Mofaz 
told the TV station that disengagement coordination 
talks with the Palestinians are going well.  Ha'aretz 
and Jerusalem Post reported that Mofaz told the TV 
station that Israel has given the Palestinians approval 
to start building a seaport in Gaza and begin planning 
a new airport there as well, and that he called on the 
Arab world to give the Palestinians economic and 
humanitarian aid.  The media also said that the Arab 
states should moderate support for terror.  Ha'aretz 
reported that Mofaz met on Sunday with Quartet 
representative James Wolfensohn to discuss coordinating 
the disengagement plan with the Palestinians.  The 
newspaper says that Israeli officials are under the 
impression that PA Civil Affairs Minister Muhammad 
Dahlan has been meeting with different Israeli 
ministers to extract promises from each one.  Israel 
Radio reported that Dahlan and Gen. Yosef Mishlav, the 
coordinator of GOI activities in the territories, 
agreed that the crossings between Israel and the West 
Bank will remain open during the disengagement. 
Ha'aretz quoted Palestinian Minister of National 
Economy Mazen Sinnokrot as saying on Sunday that an 
agreement has been reached between Israel and the PA 
regarding the positioning of European observers at the 
future border crossings between Israel and the PA, and 
between the PA and Egypt.  Israel Radio quoted a 
Palestinian source -- cited in the Palestinian daily Al- 
Ayyam -- as saying that Egypt is ready to amass the 
rubble from the ruins of the evacuated Gaza Strip 
settlements in the Sinai. 
 
On Sunday, Ha'aretz reported that Mofaz and PA Interior 
Minister Gen. Nasser Yousef have reached an agreement 
to coordinate the disengagement between Israel and the 
PA.  The newspaper says that Yousef undertook to deploy 
armed troops as a buffer between the settlements and 
the built area of Khan Yunis, from which mortar shells 
and rockets have been fired at Israeli targets.  Yousef 
also reportedly promised to prevent mass looting in the 
evacuated Gush Katif settlements. 
 
On Sunday, leading media quoted British PM Tony Blair 
as saying, in an interview with BBC Radio 4 on 
Saturday, that "some of the critical issues in the 
Middle East" should be "dealt with and sorted out" in 
order to uproot terrorism.  Leading media reported that 
Sharon's bureau would not comment.  However, Yediot 
quoted diplomatic sources in Jerusalem as saying that 
Blair's comment contained "a lot of hypocrisy," and 
that they "place the victim on the defendant's bench." 
All media reported that an Israeli woman residing in 
London might have been a victim in London's bus 
bombing. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that the IDF is expected to hand over 
control of Bethlehem to the PA this week, and quoted 
military sources as saying Sunday that control may be 
transferred as early as Tuesday. 
 
Maariv reported that only 450 out 1,000 settler 
families in the Gaza Strip have had some contacts with 
the Disengagement Administration regarding their 
relocation after August 15.  For its part, Yediot 
reported that approximately 500 families from the 
settlement of Neve Dekalim, the largest in Gush Katif, 
are looking into the possibility of moving to live as a 
bloc in Ahuzat Etrog, a community near Kiryat Malachi, 
east of Ashdod. 
On Sunday, Ha'aretz and other media reported that a 15- 
year-old Palestinian youth was shot to death on Friday 
by a guard employed in a private firm protecting the 
construction of the security fence, close to Beit 
Likya. 
 
On Sunday, Yediot and Jerusalem Post reported that the 
parents of Assaf Deri, an Israel killed last year by 
police in Burbank, Calif., are suing the local police 
for USD 51 million dollars.  The parents, who live in 
Israel, claim that Assaf was shot only because he 
looked like a Muslim. 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Liberal op-ed writer Yael Gewirtz opined in the lead 
editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot 
Aharonot: "The Israeli leaders' awakening from the 
intoxicating smell of tight occupation carries a hefty 
price tag." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
"Wrapping Splits" 
 
Liberal op-ed writer Yael Gewirtz opined in the lead 
editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot 
Aharonot (July 11): "Slowly, but consistently, Israel 
has been acting to determine its borders and to 
disengage from a needless security and economic 
burden.... The Israeli government will erect a wall 
that will leave outside [Jerusalem] tens of thousands 
of Palestinian residents and leave tens of thousands of 
others inside.  When you annex arbitrarily, you have to 
cope with a situation made necessary by an arbitrary 
separation: the government and the Jerusalem 
Municipality will have to provide health, education and 
administration services to the 55,000 Palestinians who 
will now remain beyond the fence.... A wall is built 
with hard materials; it is impossible to wrap the 
damage done to East Jerusalem residents with a humane 
gesture, as if this were an environmental work by the 
artist Christo.  The [government's] decision is harsh 
and infinitely complex to carry out.  The Israeli 
leaders' awakening from the intoxicating smell of tight 
occupation carries a hefty price tag.  Returning the 
reality to what it used to be is expensive -- almost to 
an impossible degree." 
 
 
 
 
 
-------------------- 
¶2.  London Bombings: 
-------------------- 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: 
"Nobody knows what fundamental Islam wants to achieve, 
and its excuses for terror attacks change from time to 
time." 
 
Chief Economic Editor and senior columnist Sever 
Plotker wrote in the editorial of mass-circulation, 
pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "The guilt has already begun 
to be shifted away from the murderers and onto others. 
By so doing, the groundwork is being laid for the 
terror attacks yet to come." 
 
Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized: 
"Critics focus on what the West does.  But the real 
'root cause' for Islamists is what the West is." 
 
Senior Middle East affairs analyst Zvi Bar'el wrote in 
Ha'aretz: "It's easier to send a few brigades to 
Afghanistan to cleanse Taliban nests, or run street 
fights in Fallujah. It is almost impossible to 
eliminate the poverty.  But between these two extremes 
there is a huge space for cooperation." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
¶I.  "Who Will Lose the Terror War?" 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (July 
10): "There is no escape from anti-Western terror, 
which has no declared political purpose and with which 
nobody can negotiate on the terms to end the crisis, 
because there is no one to talk to and nothing to 
discuss.  Nobody knows what fundamental Islam wants to 
achieve, and its excuses for terror attacks change from 
time to time.  The list of targets consists of 
everything identified with the West and especially with 
America.  The Jews are a target in and of themselves, 
and so are all the opponents of fundamentalism wherever 
they are, including free Muslims like Salman Rushdie 
and the Egyptian ambassador in Iraq, who was executed 
last Thursday.... Since September 11, 2001, almost 
every Western state has changed its laws, tightened 
immigration regulations, increased intelligence means 
and created an infrastructure to fight terror.  This 
has been done to such an extent that there were 
complaints of excessive infringement of human and civil 
rights.  But it seems that ultimately the awareness of 
the threat has not changed." 
 
II.  "Laying the Groundwork for Terror Attacks Yet to 
Come" 
 
Chief Economic Editor and senior columnist Sever 
Plotker wrote in the editorial of mass-circulation, 
pluralist Yediot Aharonot (July 10): "The following 
facts are clear to any reasonable individual who looks 
at the waves of terrorism of the 21st century: first 
and foremost, this is terrorism that is perpetrated by 
Muslims....   Second, it is terrorism that is 
perpetrated by rich and educated people, not by the 
indigent and uneducated.... Third, the Jihadists 
launched a terrorist war against the West because it is 
the West, and not in order to 'promote' by so doing the 
resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or to 
prompt the U.S. to remove its troops from Iraq.  Their 
one and only motive was and remains to undermine the 
pillars of the hated Western culture and to lay bare 
its weakness....   Fourth, there is only one way to 
fight terrorism: to fight it.  To strike at it.  To 
eradicate it mercilessly.  The war on terrorism needs 
to be absolute because terrorism is absolute.  Until 
victory, until the enemy surrenders.  Any compromise 
with Muslim terrorism, any attempt to understand it -- 
in other words to forgive it, at least partially -- is 
tantamount to moving down the slippery slope against 
which Churchill warned in June 1940, when he refused to 
begin negotiations with Hitler.  A short time after the 
mass terror attacks and even before all of the dead 
have been identified, the cogs in the machinery of self- 
deception in Britain and throughout Europe began to 
turn.  The guilt has already begun to be shifted away 
from the murderers and onto others.  By so doing, the 
groundwork is being laid for the terror attacks yet to 
come." 
 
 
III.  "Root Causes" 
 
Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized 
(July 11): "Regrettably, it hasn't taken long for [some 
British] politicians and pundits to raise the familiar, 
if sterile, 'root causes' argument to 'explain' the 
blowing up of carriages on the London Underground and a 
double-decker bus in the center of town.... Even Blair 
himself has seemed to be backtracking, ever so subtly, 
from his initial Churchillian responses on the day of 
the bombings.... In the encounter between the Orient 
and the Occident, between Islam and the West and, more 
recently, in Israel's struggle to survive in the Muslim 
Middle East, it may be that errors have been made which 
have contributed to the development of Islamic 
fanaticism.  If so, those errors should be addressed. 
We all have an interest in preventing the spread of 
murderous extremism.  But no such errors can possibly 
be cited to so much as imply a justification or 
legitimization for the premeditated, indiscriminate 
killings of innocents.... Critics focus on what the 
West does.  But the real 'root cause' for Islamists is 
what the West is." 
 
IV.  "Drafting a Different Road Map" 
 
Senior Middle East affairs analyst Zvi Bar'el wrote in 
Ha'aretz (July 10): "Commentators distinguish between 
minor terrorist attacks and serious ones.  The bombings 
in London fall into the category of minor attacks that 
even George Bush and Benjamin Netanyahu can explain: a 
war of Islam against the West.... The call for a 
universal war against terror sounds good.  It creates a 
sense of unity of the sons of light against the sons of 
darkness.  Mainly, it imbues the faith that terror 
could be vanquished by military means alone.  Granted, 
it's easier to bring together representatives of 
intelligence services, exchange information, examine 
war tactics and hold joint maneuvers. It's easier to 
send a few brigades to Afghanistan to cleanse Taliban 
nests, or run street fights in Fallujah. It is almost 
impossible to eliminate the poverty.  But between these 
two extremes there is a huge space for cooperation, 
which could reduce the support for organizations such 
as Al-Qaida and increase the chances of foiling its 
attacks." 
 
KURTZER