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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 09 TEL AVIV 005672 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA, NEA/IPA, NEA/PPD 
 
WHITE HOUSE FOR PRESS OFFICE, SIT ROOM 
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HQ USAF FOR XOXX 
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USCINCCENT MACDILL AFB FL FOR POLAD/USIA ADVISOR 
COMSOCEUR VAIHINGEN GE FOR PAO/POLAD 
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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.  Muslims in European Society 
 
¶3.  UN Reform 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
All major media highlighted the meeting between 
President Bush and PM Sharon at the UN on Wednesday, 
following the President's address to the UN General 
Assembly.  Yediot and Maariv front-paged a handshake 
between the two leaders.  Leading media noted that 
while in New York, Bush only met with Sharon, British 
PM Tony Blair, and China's President Hu Jintao. 
 
The media reported that Bush told Sharon that he knew 
disengagement "was hard, but I admire your courage." 
Bush was quoted as saying: "Now is the time for 
Palestinians to come together and establish a 
government that will be peaceful with Israel.  And Gaza 
is a good chance to start."  Commentators wondered if 
that sentence also implied that further steps were 
required of Israel.  Bush also told Sharon he was sure 
he would win the elections.  Leading media quoted Bush 
as saying: "I am not interfering [in Israeli politics], 
but I am sure that if Gaza is quiet, it will help you." 
Jerusalem Post led with Sharon's comment to Bush that 
there will be no further steps in the diplomatic 
process if Gaza is not quiet. The media quoted Sharon 
as saying that Israel will not return to the 
Philadelphi route.  Ha'aretz reported that Sharon told 
reporters after his meeting with the President that 
Bush has agreed that if the PA does not assert control 
over the Gaza Strip, the peace process will be unable 
to continue. 
 
Leading Israeli news web sites, Israel Radio, and IDF 
Radio reported that this morning, the High Court of 
Justice unanimously upheld a petition submitted by 
Palestinian residents of several West Bank villages and 
ruled that the state must reconsider within reasonable 
time an alternative route for the separation fence in 
the area of the northern West Bank settlement of Alfei 
Menashe.  A nine-justice panel headed by Supreme Court 
President Aharon Barak said the IDF must come up with 
new solutions that would not adversely affect the 
quality of life of Palestinian residents as severely as 
the current route does.  IDF Radio cited the 
satisfaction of a representative of the Association for 
Civil Rights in Israel over the ruling.  Fourteen 
months after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) 
released its ruling on the fence, the High Court was 
expected to say whether it accepts the Hague ruling as 
binding on Israel and define the ramifications of the 
ICJ decision for the High Court.  Israel Radio said 
that the High Court's expected decision would 
facilitate its ruling on 44 pending petitions against 
the construction of the fence.  The leading web site 
Ynet and Israel Radio reported that the High Court 
sharply criticized the ICJ ruling.  The justices said 
that the ICJ's conclusion regarding the issue of the 
separation fence in the West Bank is not a 'res 
judicata' (a judged matter) and does not necessitate 
the determination that all parts of the fence are 
contrary to international law.   The radio quoted Chief 
Justice Aharon Barak as saying that it was rendered on 
an incomplete factual basis.  The station quoted 
Barak's deputy, Justice Mishael Cheshin, as saying that 
the ICJ demonstratively and strangely ignored the 
security and terror problems that afflicted Israel.  In 
a different context, Jerusalem Post quoted outgoing 
Defense Ministry Director General Amos Yaron as saying 
that the fence will be completed by the end of the 
year. 
 
Jerusalem Post reported that PA Chairman [President] 
Mahmoud Abbas issued a stiff warning Wednesday to 
various armed militias responsible for the growing 
state of anarchy and lawlessness in PA-ruled 
territories.  Yediot reported that the PA promised on 
Wednesday to close the opening in the fence along the 
Philadelphia road.  Israel Radio quoted an Israeli 
military source as saying that Egypt will eventually 
seal the Gaza-Egypt border, and that the PA is aware 
that the present situation is not conducive to 
progress.  Ha'aretz cited the IDF's concern about not 
only massive arms smuggling into Gaza, and consequently 
into the West Bank, but also, and particularly, about 
Al-Qaida operatives being able to enter Gaza freely. 
Yediot reported that Mahmoud Zahar, Hamas's leader in 
the Gaza Strip, told the Italian daily Corriere Della 
Sera that some Al-Qaida operatives have already 
infiltrated the Strip. 
 
Leading media reported that Sharon met at the UN with 
Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom he 
discussed the Iranian nuclear program, and with Turkish 
PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  Ha'aretz reported that the 
U.S. also lobbied the UN against Iran's nuclear 
ambitions.  Sharon also shook hands and briefly talked 
with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.  Israel 
Radio quoted Sharon as saying he has been invited to 
visit Tunisia for a long time, but that the visit has 
not taken place because the Tunisians refuse to admit 
Sharon's armed bodyguards. 
 
Leading media reported that, during the night, dozens 
of youths infiltrated the evacuated northern West Bank 
settlement of Sa-Nur, and that the police subsequently 
evacuated them. 
 
Major media reported that former IDF chief of staff 
Moshe Ya'alon has decided to cancel a visit to London 
scheduled for next week, following an arrest warrant 
issued against him on charges of "war crimes." 
 
Israel Radio reported that in a speech before the 
Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Qatari FM 
Hamad bin Jasim bin Jabir Al Thani praised Israel's 
decision to withdraw from Gaza, and called on the Arab 
states to make gestures toward Israel and to hold talks 
with the U.S. and Israel to advance chances of peace in 
the region.  The minister warned that if the PA is 
unable to control events in the Gaza Strip, no progress 
could be made in the diplomatic process. 
 
Jerusalem Post reported that on Wednesday, the 
Palestinian Religious Scholars Society issued a fatwa 
forbidding normalization with Israel.  The fatwa came 
in response to a surprise ruling earlier this week by 
Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi, head of Egypt's Al-Azhar 
Mosque University, in favor of normalization with 
Israel. 
 
Hatzofe printed a picture of Internal Security Minister 
Gideon Ezra bidding farewell to U.S. Ambassador to 
Israel Dan Kurtzer. 
Leading media reported that President Bush has rejected 
Sharon's request that he pardon convicted spy Jonathan 
Pollard. 
 
Ha'aretz, Yediot, and Jerusalem Post reported that the 
tourism ministers of Israel, the PA, Egypt, and Jordan, 
who met in the Egyptian resort of Hurghada on 
Wednesday, called on the U.S. and additional countries 
to rescind their travel warnings on the region. 
 
Jerusalem Post reported that Iraqi politician Mithal al- 
Alusi returned to Israel this week to speak about the 
importance of standing firm against terror.  Although 
he escaped an assassination attempt in Iraq, his two 
sons were killed in a similar attack. 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Senior columnist Nahum Barnea wrote from New York on 
page one of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot 
Aharonot: "On Wednesday, [Sharon] heard from President 
Bush exactly what he wanted to hear -- that Gaza is the 
test." 
 
Columnist Ari Shavit wrote in independent, left-leaning 
Ha'aretz: "The exclamation point that Ariel Sharon 
placed at the gates of Gaza has been replaced by an 
unprecedented Palestinian question mark." 
 
Very liberal columnist Yehuda Litani wrote in Yediot 
Aharonot: "Now, as the fog of disengagement dispels, we 
see that the spirit of Sheikh Yassin still rules 
between Gaza and Rafah, and very soon, also between 
Jenin and Hebron." 
 
Yediot Aharonot editorialized: "[Some Israelis] think 
that a good Arab is a dead Arab, and [others] think 
that full guilt for the conflict between us and the 
Palestinians rests on our shoulders." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
¶I.  "Gaza in New York" 
 
Senior columnist Nahum Barnea wrote from New York on 
page one of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot 
(September 15): "The Palestinians cross Philadelphi 
Road freely while the Palestinian and Egyptian police 
are helpless, they plunder what remains of the Gush 
Katif settlements, allow masked men to display their 
guns in public and do their best to carry out what 
Sharon assessed would happen from the beginning. 
Sharon placed the Gaza trap at the Palestinians' 
doorstep, and as things look now from the prime 
minister's perspective, they fell right into it.... And 
he saw the Gaza trap working. On Wednesday, he heard 
from President Bush exactly what he wanted to hear -- 
that Gaza is the test.  If Abu Mazen fails there, he 
can expect nothing in the West Bank.  America will 
avoid putting pressure on Israel to get moving in the 
West Bank as long as it is displeased by the 
Palestinian Authority's performance in Gaza.  In 
Sharon's view, disengagement created a situation in 
which he couldn't lose, a 'win-win-win' situation.... 
Abu Mazen will not be going to New York.  In general, 
the Arab representation at the current UN General 
Assembly is sparse and low-profile.  The stage is 
almost solely given to Sharon, and no wonder he is 
enjoying every minute." 
 
II.  "Now, It's the Palestinians' Turn" 
 
Columnist Ari Shavit wrote in independent, left-leaning 
Ha'aretz (September 15): "Now, after the last Israeli 
has come home, the disengagement has ceased to be an 
Israeli event....  Now, after the gate of the Kissufim 
checkpoint has been locked, the disengagement has 
become a Palestinian event.  The exclamation point that 
Ariel Sharon placed at the gates of Gaza has been 
replaced by an unprecedented Palestinian question 
mark.... The Palestinians are trying to blur this 
decisive fact.  They are behaving as if nothing has 
happened.  They continue to use the old, anachronistic 
rhetoric that has become so nauseatingly familiar. 
They continue to claim that the Israeli withdrawal is 
incomplete and insufficient.  They continue to declare 
that the struggle will continue until every bit of 
Palestinian land has been liberated.  And even worse: 
by torching the synagogues and storming the Philadelphi 
route, they are signaling that they do not intend to 
behave as a responsible state.... But precisely if the 
Palestinians do want to advance toward further Israeli 
withdrawals, they must quickly ... change their 
ethos.... If they choose life, order and 
neighborliness, the sky is the limit.  If they choose 
death, chaos and victimhood, the road to hell is short. 
But either way, this time, the Palestinians will not be 
able to blame anyone else.  The choice is in their 
hands.  Following the disengagement, it is the 
Palestinians who bear principal responsibility for 
their own fate, their own future and their own 
actions." 
 
III.  "Sheikh Yassin Returns to Gaza" 
 
Very liberal columnist Yehuda Litani wrote in Yediot 
Aharonot (September 15): "Now, after disengagement, 
there is an interim situation, where on the face of it, 
the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud 
Abbas, rule.  However, the real rulers, both in the 
Gaza Strip as well as in the West Bank, are Hamas 
militants. Abu Mazen, who fears them, knows deep down 
that he is incapable of disarming them even though he 
declared two days ago that he would do this immediately 
after elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council 
early next year.... After the thorny path of the 
moderate Palestinian option, the Jordanian option and 
the PLO option, we now face the only option left: Islam 
zealots who believe that the entire land, from the 
Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, must be 
liberated from any Israeli presence.  Even if in public 
they present more moderate positions in the next while, 
in their hearts they believe that the entire land is 
Wakf, a sacred trust that cannot be conceded by even 
one centimeter.  And while a majority of Israelis are 
now willing to make considerable concessions, the 
majority of Palestinians more and more support 
extremist Hamas positions.  Now, as the fog of 
disengagement dispels, we see that the spirit of Sheikh 
Yassin still rules between Gaza and Rafah, and very 
soon, also between Jenin and Hebron." 
 
IV.  "Seekers of Absolute Justice" 
 
Yediot Aharonot editorialized (September 15): "The love 
that the members of [the Israeli peace group] Yesh Gvul 
have for their country is so great that they cannot 
bear its flaws. Only a perfect country can match the 
power of their love.  When they find a defect that is 
not immediately rectified, they go looking for 
foreigners to bring the country back to the straight 
and narrow.  The courts to which Yesh Gvul submits its 
complaints, do not dwell in countries free of any moral 
stains. Each of them has a long track of crimes against 
humanity, and perhaps for this reason, they wish to 
cleanse their crimes by means of putting others on 
trial.  This argument is of no interest to the patriots 
from Yesh Gvul.  For them, even those whose hands are 
soaked in blood are fit to scrub our sins and to put 
our leaders to a standard of behavior that is 
impossible in the real world.  In the real world, there 
are people who aspire to achieve their political goals 
at any price, even at the price of mass murder. 
Sometimes there is no choice but to kill them, and 
frequently it is not possible to fish them out of the 
surroundings that provide them with shelter and support 
for their acts.... Two kinds of wise people have ready 
answers to all [related] questions: those who think 
that a good Arab is a dead Arab, and those who think 
that full guilt for the conflict between us and the 
Palestinians rests on our shoulders, because withdrawal 
from the occupied territories will turn the 
Palestinians into innocent lambs, and until that time, 
all the terrorists and those who send them must be 
considered freedom fighters.  This appears to be the 
view of Yesh Gvul.  This explains their lawsuits to 
[Israel's] Supreme Court, and this explains their 
desire to put IDF officers in foreign jails." 
 
-------------------------------- 
¶2.  Muslims in European Society: 
-------------------------------- 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized: 
"Europeans should know ... that the fundamentalist 
Muslim community in Europe which seeks to delegitimize 
Jews and the Jewish state is the same community that 
evidently spawned the murderous bombings in Madrid and 
London." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
"Muslim Intolerance" 
 
Conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized 
(September 15): "It is obvious that values the West 
holds dear, such as fairness, equality, and cultural 
pluralism are simply thrown out the window when 
resisting the intolerance of a billion Muslims is 
weighed against offending a few million Jews.  Further, 
it is assumed that compromising Western values at the 
Jews' expense is simply that -- a Jewish problem.  It 
is not.  The intolerance shown toward Jews can be and 
is shown toward Christians, such as the recent rampage 
against Palestinian Muslims against Palestinian 
Christians in Bethlehem.  The massacres of Christians 
in Sudan are another example, as is the destruction by 
the Taliban of the ancient Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001. 
Europe is hardly immune from such predations, as the 
continent is belatedly discovering.... Across Europe, 
governments have refused to admit the extent to which 
fundamentalist Muslims have been responsible for anti- 
Semitic violence.  Similarly, they have been reticent 
to confront the increasingly brazen fundamentalists 
within their midst.  Europeans should know, however, 
that the fundamentalist Muslim community in Europe 
which seeks to delegitimize Jews and the Jewish state 
is the same community that evidently spawned the 
murderous bombings in Madrid and London.  The fight for 
freedom from Islamist terrorism begins with basic 
insistence on the rights of all non-Muslims, including 
the Jewish people.  The alternative, appeasement, has 
not worked well in the past, and is likely to invite 
even more Muslim intolerance in the future." 
 
-------------- 
¶3.  UN Reform: 
-------------- 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Washington correspondent Shmuel Rosner wrote in 
independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz: "There is no other 
country that shares with the U.S. such an unequivocal 
interest in UN reforms." 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
"Drawing Up a New World Order" 
 
Washington correspondent Shmuel Rosner wrote in 
independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (September 15): 
"Here's an opening sentence that could be used by 
rivals of both Israel and the United States, but at its 
foundation is a fact that cannot be avoided: if the 
American maneuvering succeeds and it manages to find 
agreement for sweeping UN reforms, no country will gain 
from it as much as Israel.  Moreover, there is no other 
country that shares with the U.S. such an unequivocal 
interest in UN reforms.... For some years, the U.S. has 
felt that this organization, which it hosts, is 
isolated and blocked.  Therefore, and not because of 
Israel, it began such a sweeping drive, so obviously 
necessary, to correct it.... After 60 years, the UN is 
going back to the drawing board, while in its corridors 
float the innocent ideas raised by Wilson, who 
envisioned an institutional spirit that would reflect 
the 'moral position of humankind.'  It's not a steering 
committee of global superpowers that the Americans 
want, but an organization that will advance values that 
are not shared right now by all its members: democracy, 
human rights, equality.  Or maybe they simply want to 
destroy the UN.  It's possible to suspect that, too, 
passed through their minds." 
 
KURTZER