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

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 08 TEL AVIV 001145 
 
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: 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶1.  Iraq 
 
¶2.  US-Israel Relations 
 
¶3.  Mideast 
 
--------------- 
Election polls: 
--------------- 
 
Channel 10-TV and Ha'aretz published the results of a 
survey conducted by Prof. Camil Fuchs of the Amanet 
Group's Dialogue Institute: 
-"Were elections for the Knesset held today, for whom 
would you vote?"  (Results in Knesset seats -- in 
brackets, results of poll conducted on March 9.) 
-Kadima 38 (37); Labor Party 17 (20); Likud 14 (16); 
Shas 11 (10); Arab parties 10 (8); National Union- 
National Religious Party 9 (8); Yisrael Beiteinu 9 
(10); United Torah Judaism 6 (6); Meretz 6 (5). 
 
The Jerusalem Post cited a recent study by the 
Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies that found that 
63 percent of Israelis are willing to make concessions 
on the borders of Jerusalem in exchange for "real 
peace" with the Palestinians. 
 
 
 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
Major media (banner in Ha'aretz) reported that on 
Tuesday, two Nablus residents accused of heading an Al- 
Qaida terror cell became the first West Bank 
Palestinians to be indicted on charges of belonging to 
Osama bin Laden's worldwide terrorist network.  All 
media reported that in a separate incident on Tuesday, 
police and the Shin Bet foiled a suicide bombing that 
was planned for the Tel Aviv region.  A commercial 
vehicle carrying the suspected suicide bomber and eight 
other Palestinians was stopped on the Jerusalem-Tel 
Aviv highway.  This morning, Israel Radio reported that 
IDF troops killed an Islamic Jihad member in a refugee 
camp near Jericho and arrested two others. 
 
Israel Radio quoted State Department Spokesman Sean 
McCormack as saying Tuesday that the US welcomes 
comments made by the Crown Prince of Bahrain on Monday, 
during his official visit to Washington, that a Hamas- 
led Palestinian government had no alternative but to 
deal with Israel.  The radio quoted McCormack as 
saying:  "We would urge others throughout the Arab 
world to echo those sentiments and we have encouraged 
others to do so." 
 
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was quoted as saying on 
Tuesday in an interview with The Jerusalem Post that 
Israel will begin setting its final borders over the 
next two years according to a plan based on including 
the major West Bank settlement blocs and the Jordan 
Valley.  Mofaz was further quoted as saying that Israel 
would prefer to set its borders in agreement with the 
PA and based on the Roadmap, but that if Israel sees it 
does not have a partner, Israel will need to take its 
fate into its own hands. 
 
The Jerusalem Post quoted FM Tzipi Livni as saying 
Tuesday at a gala reception held in Jerusalem in honor 
of the 100th anniversary of the American Jewish 
Committee that time was running out on a two-state 
solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Livni 
was quoted as saying that questions have been raised -- 
"especially in Europe" -- about the need for a Jewish 
state, and that it was being suggested that a single 
state be created between the Jordan River and the 
Mediterranean Sea. 
 
Yediot reported that the New York State Assembly 
unanimously decided that New York citizens cannot 
assist a Hamas government.  The newspaper wrote that 
the assembly members expressed their support for 
Israel, and that they invited Israeli Consul General in 
New York Arye Mekel to attend their debate in Albany. 
 
Major media quoted President Bush as saying Tuesday at 
a White House news conference that "future presidents 
and future governments of Iraq" would make the decision 
to withdraw US forces from Iraq.  Leading media 
reported that the President rejected calls to dismiss 
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.  Ha'aretz, 
 
SIPDIS 
Yediot, and Maariv cited a disclosure made by NBC on 
Monday that in the period before the Iraq war, Saddam 
Hussein's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, was a secret 
paid source of the CIA.  Citing unnamed current and 
former US intelligence officials, NBC said Sabri 
provided details of Saddam's weapons of mass 
destruction that turned out to be more accurate than 
CIA estimates. 
 
The Jerusalem Post quoted PA officials as saying that 
on Tuesday, during a meeting with EU Middle East 
special envoy Marc Otte, PA Chairman [President] 
Mahmoud Abbas urged the EU to continue its financial 
aid despite Hamas's victory in the January 25 
parliamentary elections.  Israel Radio reported that 
Jordan has demanded that Hamas not intervene in 
Jordan's internal affairs. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that at the Second World Congress of 
Imams and Rabbis for Peace being held in Seville, 
Spain, a panel discussion on holy sites discussed a 
proposal to establish a permanent committee comprising 
an equal number of Jewish and Muslim clerics to discuss 
issues affecting Jerusalem's Temple Mount. 
 
Israel Radio reported that the Palestinian parliament 
will vote today on a proposal to establish a commission 
of inquiry into the IDF's operation in Jericho and its 
consequences.  The radio said that Hamas was initiating 
the proposal to confront the PA and Fatah. 
 
Leading media reported that in the interim report it 
published on Tuesday, the parliamentary commission of 
inquiry into the evacuation of the Amona outpost 
criticized the police, the protesters, and the 
government.  The Jerusalem Post called the report 
"toothless." 
 
Yediot printed a Letter to the Editor by French 
Ambassador to Israel Gerard Araud, in which he denies 
that his country is opposed to Israel's entry to the 
OECD, as was reported in the newspaper last week. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that a group of American 
academics who visited Israel last week recommended the 
country for US study programs. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that Boston resident Yosef 
Israel Abramovich is third on the list of the Atid Ehad 
(One Future) party, which is headed by an Ethiopian 
immigrant. 
 
-------- 
¶1. Iraq: 
-------- 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
US Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote in the 
conservative, independent Jerusalem Post: "The vast 
majority of the Iraqi people want the coalition to 
succeed.... That is well worth remembering on this 
anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom." 
 
Columnist Yossi Sarid, the former leader of the Meretz 
party, wrote in independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz 
(March 22): "America has already lost [the Iraq war] -- 
and the entire free world, including Israel, has also 
lost it." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
¶I.  "Now Is the Time For Resolve, Not For Retreat" 
 
US Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote in the 
conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (March 22): 
"Consider that if we retreat [from Iraq] now, there is 
every reason to believe Saddamists and terrorists will 
fill the vacuum -- and the free world might not have 
the will to face them again.  Turning our backs on 
postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of 
handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis.  It would be 
as great a disgrace as if we had asked the liberated 
nations of Eastern Europe to return to Soviet 
domination because it was too hard or too tough or we 
didn't have the patience to work with them as they 
built free countries.  What we need to understand is 
that the vast majority of the Iraqi people want the 
coalition to succeed.... That is well worth remembering 
on this anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom." 
 
II.  "Penitents and Rogue Bulls" 
 
Columnist Yossi Sarid, the former leader of the Meretz 
party, wrote in independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz 
(March 22): "America has already lost [the Iraq war] -- 
and the entire free world, including Israel, has also 
lost it.... America lost not only because of what is 
happening overseas, but mainly because of a lax 
helplessness at home.... In Israel, meanwhile, nobody 
is repentant.  While the war in Iraq was not our war, 
nonetheless, all those who sowed an enormous panic here 
will not be forgotten or forgiven.  They sent an entire 
country into panic and explained with signs and wonders 
the profit and gains that Israel would reap from a war 
of the children of light against the children of 
darkness.  It is not the people who are wrong who are 
most dangerous.  Who does not make mistakes?  The 
really dangerous people are those who are wrong but do 
not admit their mistakes and refuse to take 
responsibility for them.  Those who insist like donkeys 
on sticking to their mistakes are like the rogue bull 
that has already gored three times, even though its 
owner was warned each time to tie him up." 
 
 
------------------------ 
¶2.  US-Israel Relations: 
------------------------ 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "The 
[American] professors' article [on the Jewish lobby's 
alleged influence on US foreign policy] does not 
deserve condemnation; rather, it should serve as a 
warning sign." 
 
Military correspondent Danny Shalom wrote in 
nationalist, Orthodox Hatzofe: "[The American 
professors' allegations] severely damages Israel's 
status in the US." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
¶I.  "A Warning From America" 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (March 
22): "The conclusion that Israel can draw from the anti- 
Israel feeling expressed in [a recent] article [by 
prominent American professors Stephen Walt and John 
Mearsheimer] is that it will not be immune for 
eternity.... The fact that Israelis view the United 
States' support for and tremendous assistance to Israel 
as natural causes excess complacence, and it fails to 
take into account currents in public opinion that run 
deep and are liable to completely change American 
policy.... The unilateral withdrawal from Gaza did 
improve Israel's standing in the world, especially in 
Europe, but that is not enough.... The Jewish and 
Israeli lobby in America would do well to begin 
explaining the next withdrawal now, after years in 
which they primarily tried to win support for a 
continuation of the occupation and the settlement 
enterprise.  Perhaps then it will be easier to explain 
Israeli policy and consolidate the true American and 
Israeli interests.  The professors' article does not 
deserve condemnation; rather, it should serve as a 
warning sign." 
 
 
II.  "The Iraq War: The Jews Are Guilty" 
 
Military correspondent Danny Shalom wrote in 
nationalist, Orthodox Hatzofe (March 22): "Once in a 
while, an article, research, or book comes out, 
bringing up grave accusations against Jews over their 
influence on world events... A week ago, two US 
researchers published a study claiming that the Jewish 
lobby had a decisive influence on the decision by the 
President of the US to go to war in Iraq.  The 
allegations are being published at the very time a 
phenomenon of massive opposition ... to the war is 
spreading in the US.  This severely damages Israel's 
status in the US.  Israel's representatives would be 
well advised to act swiftly in order to make those 
American researchers abandon the matter.  It would also 
be worthwhile to check whether [former Saudi Ambassador 
to the US] Prince Bandar -- or another corrupt prince 
in his kingdom -- is oiling the distinguished 
professors.  On the other hand, this elicits a small 
smile on our part: if this is the power of the US Jews, 
this is a good sign -- anti-Semitism or not." 
 
----------- 
¶3. Mideast: 
----------- 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post 
editorialized: "America could most usefully exercise 
its influence by delivering home truths to the PA about 
the need to fight terror as an essential condition, 
among other things, for the smooth passage of goods 
between Israel and the Gaza Strip." 
 
Palestinian affairs correspondent and far-left 
Palestinian sympathizer Amira Hass opined in 
independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz: "Israelis will not 
be voting only on the Palestinians' fate, but will also 
intervene in the lives of Egypt's citizens." 
 
 
 
 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
¶I.  "The Risk at Karni" 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post 
editorialized (March 22): "Something curious has been 
going on at the Karni crossing between Israel and the 
Gaza Strip.  Until this week, that crossing -- 
popularly dubbed 'Gaza's lifeline' -- had been closed 
for more than two months due to a succession of alerts 
about an imminent major terrorist attack.... On Monday, 
despite the ongoing terror warnings, Karni was 
unexpectedly opened, but closed half-an-hour later.  On 
Tuesday, it reopened.  This strange sequence of events 
suggests Israeli irresolution and muddled thinking.... 
If the PA isn't compelled to safeguard the crossings, 
the problem will persist.  The PA should not be allowed 
to have it both ways -- essentially facilitate 
terrorists' rampages, while bewailing the humanitarian 
impact of the consequent, inevitable Israeli closure 
measures.  There are conflicting reports as to whether 
Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was pressured by 
Washington to open Karni.... In any case, America could 
most usefully exercise its influence by delivering home 
truths to the PA about the need to fight terror as an 
essential condition, among other things, for the smooth 
passage of goods between Israel and the Gaza Strip. 
Israel needs to safeguard its citizens' lives.  The PA 
professes profound concern for the well-being of its 
people.  The way to serve both causes is not to take a 
chance on the intermittent opening of an access route. 
It is to take the terrorists out of the picture." 
 
II.  "Strangled in Gaza" 
 
Palestinian affairs correspondent and far-left 
Palestinian sympathizer Amira Hass opined in 
independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (March 22): "The 
Israeli voter scorns the international community's 
choices.  It has decided that Gaza would be "returned" 
to Egypt.  That is the logical meaning of closing the 
Karni crossing for a long time -- after the number of 
Palestinians passing through the Erez crossing has 
already dwindled.  Even if international pressure 
enables bringing 'humanitarian' aid through the Karni 
crossing here and there -- as though Gaza had been 
struck by natural disaster -- Israel's leaders will 
probably close it again for 'security reasons.'  All 
this is intended to accustom Gaza residents and the 
international community to think that perhaps it is 
logical to direct Gaza's products, business and plans 
southward, to Egypt, which will not be able to remain 
idle while almost 1.5 million Arabs are being strangled 
under the Israeli siege.  Thus Israelis will not be 
voting only on the Palestinians' fate, but will also 
intervene in the lives of Egypt's citizens." 
 
JONES