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Viewing cable 06TELAVIV642, ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION

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Reference ID Created Released Classification Origin
06TELAVIV642 2006-02-13 11:21 2011-08-24 01:00 UNCLASSIFIED Embassy Tel Aviv
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 07 TEL AVIV 000642 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA, NEA/IPA, NEA/PPD 
 
WHITE HOUSE FOR PRESS OFFICE, SIT ROOM 
NSC FOR NEA STAFF 
 
SECDEF WASHDC FOR USDP/ASD-PA/ASD-ISA 
HQ USAF FOR XOXX 
DA WASHDC FOR SASA 
JOINT STAFF WASHDC FOR PA 
USCINCCENT MACDILL AFB FL FOR POLAD/USIA ADVISOR 
COMSOCEUR VAIHINGEN GE FOR PAO/POLAD 
COMSIXTHFLT FOR 019 
 
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: 
-------------------------------- 
 
Mideast 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
Israel Radio cited several Arab media as saying that 
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice might visit the 
 
SIPDIS 
Middle East -- Egypt and Saudi Arabia in particular. 
 
Leading media reported (banner in Maariv) that 
President Bush stressed during his meeting with FM 
Tzipi Livni last week that that the U.S. is totally 
committed to creating an international rampart against 
Hamas.  Ha'aretz and other media quoted Secretary Rice 
as saying Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation" that talks 
with Russian leaders had yielded a pledge from them to 
demand, during a proposed meeting with Hamas, that the 
movement recognize Israel and disarm its militia. 
Major media quoted Acting PM Ehud Olmert as saying 
Sunday during the weekly cabinet meeting that the 
moment the new Palestinian parliament is sworn in, the 
PA will turn into a Hamas entity, and then the rules of 
the game will change.  Maariv reported that Olmert's 
diplomatic advisers Dov Weisglass and Shalom Turgeman 
told EU policy chief Javier Solana last week that 
Israel is prepared to grant Hamas a "grace period" 
until it becomes clear whether the group will abide by 
the demands of the international community, and to 
continue Israel's usual pattern of relations with the 
PA.  The Jerusalem Post reported that last week, FM 
Tzipi Livni rebuffed Qatari efforts to mediate with 
Hamas, saying that Israel will have nothing to do with 
the organization until it changes its ways.  The 
Jerusalem Post wrote that the Qatari overture came 
Thursday evening, when Livni was in the U.S.  The 
newspaper said that the Qatari officials who contacted 
her discussed brokering a long-term "hudna" (truce) 
with Israel. 
 
On Sunday, Yediot and Maariv highlighted Defense 
Minister Shaul Mofaz's statement at the meeting of NATO 
defense ministers in Sicily on Saturday that Russia is 
fracturing international unity against a terrorist 
organization that killed hundreds of Israelis and 
injured thousands of others.  Maariv reported that 
Russian Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov told Mofaz that 
it's a fact that Hamas has won power and that the world 
will eventually talk with it. 
 
On Sunday, Ha'aretz quoted Secretary Rice as saying at 
a closed meeting of Quartet representatives in London 
on January 30 that the U.S. is not prepared to meet 
with Hamas, but that it recognizes that there will be 
countries willing to do so.  Ha'aretz wrote that the 
gap between the U.S. and the other Quartet members, 
both over Israeli policy in the territories and Hamas, 
was underscored by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, 
who attended the meeting as a senior monitor of the PA 
elections.  Carter criticized Israel, saying its policy 
had grown more oppressive in recent years and that the 
Quartet had restrained its reactions since the U.S. is 
not pressuring Israel.  The newspaper cited Rice's 
reply that it is necessary to work in the upcoming 
period to stabilize the government of Mahmoud Abbas, 
prevent Iranian involvement, and avoid bolstering the 
wrong elements in the Israeli elections. 
 
On Sunday, Ha'aretz reported that Israel has decided to 
"lower its profile" in response to Russian President 
Vladimir Putin's invitation to Hamas to hold talks in 
Moscow.  The newspaper quoted a GOI source in Jerusalem 
as saying that Israel preferred to lean on the U.S. 
administration, which has demanded that Russia keep to 
the decision of the Quartet.  The Jerusalem Post and 
other major media reported that GOI officials are 
circulating a document showing Hamas's links to Chechen 
terrorists in an attempt to influence Russian public 
opinion against Putin's overtures to Hamas. 
 
On Sunday, Ha'aretz reported that NATO Secretary- 
General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told the newspaper on 
Friday that talks between the PA and NATO will not be 
renewed if Hamas forms the new PA government. 
 
During the weekend, the media reported on the worsening 
of PM Sharon's health.  Sharon underwent a three-hour 
operation to remove a third of his large intestine on 
Saturday. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that Haroun Yashayaei, the head of 
Iran's Jewish community, has written a letter of 
complaint to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 
about the leader's insistence that the Holocaust never 
happened. 
Leading media reported that on Sunday, unknown 
individuals who were thought to be settlers ignited a 
series of violent incidents in the Qalqilya region by 
scrawling graffiti reading: "Mohammed is swine" on a 
mosque. 
 
Speaking on Channel 2-TV Saturday, Labor Party Chairman 
Amir Peretz said that he planned to meet with PA 
Chairman [President] Mahmoud Abbas in order to check 
whether Abbas intends to 0prevent the creation of a 
Palestinian government that would proclaim a violation 
of accords with Israel. 
 
During the weekend, Yediot and Hatzofe cited the 
British newspaper The Sunday Telegraph as saying that 
the U.S. is secretly preparing a contingency plan to 
attack Iranian nuclear installations with long-range 
Cruise missiles as a measure of last resort. 
 
Major media reported that during the weekend, FM Tzipi 
Livni reprimanded Israel's Ambassador to the U.S. Danny 
Ayalon for not inviting Foreign Ministry DG Ron Prosor 
and the head of the ministry's diplomatic bureau, Yeki 
Dayan, to a dinner he gave in her honor in Washington. 
Leading media reported that Ayalon was apparently 
"retaliating" for Prosor and Dayan's attempts to oust 
him following his dispute with former FM Silvan Shalom. 
 
Yediot (on Sunday) and Ha'aretz reported that Israel 
Consul-General in Los Angeles Ehud Danoch and other 
Israelis and Jews have lobbied organizers of next 
month's Academy Awards not to present "Paradise Now," a 
film about Palestinian suicide bombers, nominated for 
best foreign film, as coming from "Palestine."  The 
Jerusalem Post reported that an anonymous online 
petition to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and 
Sciences calls upon the Academy to withdraw the movie 
from the list of nominations for best foreign film. 
 
-------- 
Mideast: 
-------- 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: 
"Putin's invitation should also be viewed according to 
its results." 
 
Editor-in-Chief Amnon Dankner wrote in popular, 
pluralist Maariv: "The Russians have invited them 
[Hamas], the French have supported that invitation, and 
the Americans have not raised an outcry over the entire 
affair." 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post 
editorialized: " Throwing matches willfully into the 
Mideast's tinderbox, Putin's Russia presents itself as 
the unscrupulous spin-off of its Soviet antecedent." 
 
Chief Economic Editor Sever Plotker opined in Yediot 
Aharonot: "Israel [might] quickly complete the 
construction of the wall around its borders, and the 
Palestinians [would] be left with the carnivorous 
leopard in their own home." 
 
Arab affairs commentator Danny Rubinstein wrote in 
Ha'aretz: "Hamas's victory must not serve as a pretext 
for the Israeli government to stop the political 
process and disengage from dialogue with the 
Palestinians." 
 
Gadi Baltiansky, Director General of the Geneva 
Initiative, wrote in popular, pluralist Maariv: "[A] 
commission of inquiry should not only investigate the 
government.  The 'peace camp' should also give an 
account." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
I.  "It's What You Talk About That Matters" 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized 
(February 12): "In accepting the international 
position, Israel showed that it is prepared to overlook 
Hamas' past crimes, if it behaves differently in the 
future, as it did with the PLO.  Putin's invitation 
should also be viewed according to its results.  If the 
Russians behave as promised, in accordance with the 
Quartet's announcement, and influence Hamas to change, 
as Egypt did, then the Russian move should be favored. 
But if the trip to Moscow ends in a propaganda 
achievement for Hamas, without a change in its 
positions, it will only harm efforts to promote calm 
and a negotiated agreement." 
 
II.  "Dangerous Trap" 
 
Editor-in-Chief Amnon Dankner wrote in popular, 
pluralist Maariv (February 12): "Last week we saw how 
the entire world capitulated in the face of Muslim 
rage.... By the same token and in tandem, we have 
witnessed the first signs of erosion in the firm 
international stance against Hamas and the promise that 
no talks would be held with it before it abandoned its 
tenets.  The problem is that Muslims are far less 
prepared to back away and to fold up their banners 
quickly than those opposite them, and they have already 
begun to achieve their goals before even having budged 
a millimeter: the Russians have invited them [Hamas], 
the French have supported that invitation, and the 
Americans have not raised an outcry over the entire 
affair.  It seems that the next step is as clear as 
writing on the wall: Hamas will say something out of 
the corner of its mouth, a vague and deliberately 
misleading mumble that will allow the world to forge 
ties with it, accept it as a partner in dialogue and 
urge Israel to sit down with it in negotiation. It will 
say, perhaps, that it recognizes Israel as a fact.  Not 
its right to exist, heaven forbid, but the fact that it 
does exist, and for that will win furious applause and 
warm words of praise and, most important of all -- 
legitimacy.  It is also liable to offer Israel an 
extended 'hudna' [truce] for a generation.... That is 
the dangerous trap that is waiting for us right around 
the corner, and that is the direction things appear to 
be moving in." 
 
III.  "Marginalize Putin" 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post 
editorialized (February 13): "Throwing matches 
willfully into the Mideast's tinderbox, Putin's Russia 
presents itself as the unscrupulous spin-off of its 
Soviet antecedent.  It seems as bent on spreading its 
influence in the Arab world as was the defunct USSR 
and, appallingly, with some of the same disregard for 
Israel's most basic existential concerns.  Israel has 
been loath to admit this. It has wanted to treat post- 
communist Moscow as a newfound friend.... The Security 
Council is supposed to provide the means for collective 
self-defense in the face of international aggressors 
like Iran.  The Quartet is supposed to provide a 
responsible international framework to encourage a 
cessation of Palestinian terrorism and a return to the 
peace table.  Putin's Russia is becoming an ever- 
greater obstacle to both those goals.  Far from carving 
out a new diplomatic role for itself, it must be 
marginalized as long as it pursues reckless and 
dangerous policies." 
 
IV.  "Hamas's Narrative and the Taming of the Shrew" 
 
Chief Economic Editor Sever Plotker opined in Yediot 
Aharonot (February 12): "What should be done with the 
leopard in our backyard? It should be expelled.  To 
wit, Israel should adopt an active foreign and security 
policy that will result in renewed Palestinian 
parliamentary elections in another number of months. 
As those elections approach, Israel will have to make a 
number of difficult decisions, such as about future 
disengagements, releasing Fatah prisoners, first and 
foremost Marwan Barghouti, and even a withdrawal to the 
September 2000 lines.  Peoples sometimes make awful 
mistakes, but democracies -- where they exist -- give 
them an effective tool to fix them. If Israel remains 
adamant in its absolute refusal to form ties with a 
Hamas-led government and, in tandem, promises to end 
the occupation with a peace-oriented Palestinian 
government, the Palestinian public is liable to 
recognize the magnitude of its mistake and mend its 
voting ways.  And if they don't?  Israel will quickly 
complete the construction of the wall around its 
borders, and the Palestinians will be left with the 
carnivorous leopard in their own home." 
 
V.  "Don't Boycott the Palestinians" 
 
Arab affairs commentator Danny Rubinstein wrote in 
Ha'aretz (February 13): "Hamas's victory must not serve 
as a pretext for the Israeli government to stop the 
political process and disengage from dialogue with the 
Palestinians.... Though the numerous interviews and 
political statements that Hamas leaders have given in 
Cairo, Gaza and Damascus have sometimes been confused 
and full of contradictions, they nevertheless allow one 
to clearly discern what is happening to the 
movement.... [Mahmoud Abbas] is a chairman with real 
powers, he has support in the region and worldwide, and 
he is seeking a way to work with both the new 
Palestinian government and the government of Israel. 
The latter must not boycott the Palestinians because of 
Hamas." 
 
VI.  "Commission of Inquiry Now" 
 
Gadi Baltiansky, Director General of the Geneva 
Initiative, wrote in popular, pluralist Maariv 
(February 13): "It is ... permissible to demand a 
commission of inquiry that will investigate Israel's 
part in creating the reality that we are facing in the 
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Israel had a share in 
establishing and strengthening Hamas back in the days 
when people here thought about creating an alternative 
to the PLO.... The commission of inquiry should not 
only investigate the government.  The 'peace camp' 
should also give an account.  Did the various parties 
and organizations, headed by the Labor Party, really 
promote an agenda of negotiations with the pragmatic 
elements in the Palestinian Authority, or did they 
easily yield to the narrative of 'there is no 
partner'....  The Palestinian people and its leaders 
are obligated to make an in-house investigation.  The 
great majority supports a peace agreement.  The outcome 
of the elections does not conform to these opinions, 
and therefore a real inquiry into their errors is 
necessary and essential.  But this does not relieve us 
of a self-critique.  Someone here has erred, someone 
here has deceived us and someone here should draw the 
conclusions." 
 
JONES