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FM AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 8256
RHEHAAA/WHITE HOUSE WASHDC IMMEDIATE
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RUEHLB/AMEMBASSY BEIRUT 3750
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RHMFISS/HQ USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL//CCPA//
INFO RUEHNC/AMEMBASSY NICOSIA 6697

UNCLAS DAMASCUS 001635 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR PA, NEA/ARN, INR/IC/CD, INR/S:STHIBEAULT AND 
JMCCARTER, VOA NEWS CA, NEA/PPD:CBOURGEOIS, DBENZE AND 
AFERNANDEZ, IIP/G/NEA-SA RWINCHESTER 
WHITE HOUSE FOR NSC 
CENTCOM FOR CCPA 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: KMDR PREL KPAO OPRC SY
SUBJECT: Damascus Media Reaction: US/EU Decisions to Halt Aid to 
PA, Lebanon, Iraq (4/7-11) 
 
¶1.  Summary: Syrian papers reported a Syrian Information 
Ministry statement denying a report by an Israeli newspaper that 
Syria had sent messages to Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud 
Olmert seeking to resume peace talks between the two countries. 
The source told Syria's official SANA news agency that "this 
information is baseless" and stressed "Syria's permanent 
commitment to achieve comprehensive and just peace based on 
pertinent UN Security Council resolutions that demand full 
Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights to the 1967 war 
borderline." The official criticized the "Israeli leaks" as 
aiming at covering Israel's "apartheid oppressive practices in 
the Palestinian lands...." 
 
Papers also reported a statement by the Syrian Foreign Ministry 
denying that Syria had sent the United Nations a map of the 
Shebaa Farms and the Golan Heights. Damascus was responding to 
official reports and to a recent map issued by the UN Security 
Council published by a Lebanese daily that show the disputed 
farms as part of Syrian territory. This comes as Beirut is trying 
to establish the Lebanese identity of the farms. The Lebanese 
government has repeatedly asked Syria to provide the UN written 
evidence to document Lebanon's sovereignty over the farms. 
 
On Lebanon, Syrian papers reported that the Lebanese government 
is holding nine Arab nationals amid reports of an assassination 
plot against Hizbollah SecGen Hasan Nasrallah. A Lebanese 
judicial official downplayed the charges being considered 
against the nine detainees, but a Hizbollah spokesman insisted 
that the Shiite militant group's leader was the target of a 
conspiracy by Lebanese and Palestinian nationals. 
 
End of summary. 
 
¶2. Selected Headlines: 
 
"The 14th Conference of member countries of the Organization of 
the Islamic Conference will be inaugurated tomorrow in Istanbul 
with the participation of Dr. Mahmoud al-Abrash, Speaker of the 
People's Assembly. Al-Abrash discusses with Jasem al-Kharafi, his 
Kuwaiti counterpart, the latest developments in the region" 
(Government-owned Tishreen, 4/11) 
 
"Arab Foreign Ministers of Iraq's neighbors to meet in Cairo 
Tomorrow" (Government-owned Tishreen, 4/11) 
 
"Hizbollah confirms news of arrest of a terrorist network that 
planned to assassinate Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, SecGen of 
Hizbollah" (Government-owned Tishreen, 4/11) 
 
"Foreign Ministry denies sending maps of the occupied Golan and 
Shebaa Farms to the UN" (Government-owned Tisrheen, 4/10) 
 
"Official media source: No messages to the Israeli Prime Minister 
designate on resuming peace negotiations. Syria persists in its 
demands to achieve just peace" (Government-owned Tishreen, 4/10) 
 
"Lebanese circles call for resignation of the Lebanese government 
and for early elections" (Government-owned Al-Thawra, 4/10) 
 
"Coalition consults with parliamentary blocs to have the final 
word regarding Al-Ja'fari's nomination" (Government-owned Al- 
Thawra, 4/10) 
 
"Israel threatens to boycott everyone who holds contacts with 
Hamas. Israeli aggression becomes more ferocious as economic 
siege worsens" (Government-owned Tishreen, 4/10) 
 
¶3.  Editorial Block Quotes: 
 
-------------------------------- 
 
"It Is not in Europe's Interest" 
 
-------------------------------- 
 
Muhammad Khair al-Jamali, an editorialist in government-owned Al- 
 
Thawra, said (4/10): "The unfair European decision to cut aid to 
the Palestinian Authority will exacerbate the already tense 
situation in the region and turn it into something like a powder 
keg ready to explode at any moment.... 
"The decision gives Israel the green light to implement its 
unilateral plan, which prevents the establishment of a 
contiguous Palestinian state.... The Israeli military aggression 
against the Palestinians, which resulted in the death of 14 
Palestinians in the past two days, was the first result of the 
Western siege against the Palestinian people.... 
 
"The European decision does not serve Europe's interest and its 
image in the region...." 
 
----------------------- 
 
"Exposed Collaboration" 
 
----------------------- 
 
Omar Jaftali, an editorialist in government-owned Tishreen, 
wrote (4/10): "The cessation of European and American aid to the 
Palestinians, which coincided with the Israeli aggression 
against Palestinians in Gaza, exposes an obvious collaboration 
with Israel to torpedo Palestinian rights and to abort what has 
been achieved on the Roadmap.... 
 
"The European-American punishment of the Palestinians shows the 
falsehood of the international quartet, which claimed that it 
drew up a peace plan but left Israel to do anything it 
wanted.... 
 
"Israel does not want peace with Palestinians.... Its protectors 
in the 'free world' gave it a free hand to destroy the peace 
process, and now they are helping it cause this human disaster 
to the Palestinians.... 
 
"Is it not shameful that Arabs stand impotent, unable to engage 
in any effective move to support their brothers? And why hasn't 
the Arab financial aid that the Khartoum summit agreed upon to 
support the steadfastness of the Palestinians arrived yet?" 
 
---------------- 
 
"US Provocation" 
 
---------------- 
 
An unsigned editorial in government-owned Al-Ba'th on (4/9): 
"Washington's insistence on preventing the Palestinian 
government from implementing the political program on the basis 
of which it won the confidence of the Palestinian people in a 
rarely matched democratic process is a provocative action.... 
 
"The provocative US decision to halt financial aid to the 
Palestinian Authority did not mention the suffering of more than 
3.5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza as a result 
of the Israeli occupation. It also ignored the state terrorism, 
the separation wall, the checkpoints, the closure of crossings, 
and the thousands of prisoners and detainees in the occupation 
jails.... 
 
"The US demands of the Palestinian government reflect the agenda 
of the Israeli right and perhaps go further than what Ehud 
Olmert himself is asking the Palestinians to do.... 
 
"Americans and Europeans are interfering in Palestinian options 
and pursuing a policy to starve out Palestinians.... The US and 
the EU should have punished Israel for the continuation of its 
occupation of the Arab territories and its daily crimes and 
extremist actions against the Palestinian people. Had there been 
such firmness and resolve against the Israelis, the world would 
have avoided, long ago, the tensions and wars that Israel is 
causing." 
 
-------------------------------- 
 
"A Booby-Trapped Israeli Demand" 
 
-------------------------------- 
Ali Nasrallah, an editorialist in government-owned Al-Thawra, 
commented (4/9): "Israel has stated that withdrawal from the 
Shebaa Farms can only come about through negotiations with 
Lebanon, ending with a peace agreement between the two sides.... 
 
"The Israeli position reaffirms that the demand of demarcating 
the border of Shebaa Farms was, and still is, a booby-trapped 
Israeli demand aimed at ending the Lebanese resistance, 
dismantling the links between Lebanon and Syria, and singling 
Lebanon out, isolating it from its Arab environment, moving it 
to the other side, and taking it completely out of the equation 
of the Arab-Israeli conflict...." 
 
------------------------------- 
 
"Who Is Responsible for Chaos?" 
 
-------------------------------- 
 
Ahmad Hamadah, an editorialist in government-owned Al-Thawra, 
wrote (4/7): "The US invasion of Iraq resulted in the killing 
and wounding of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, the destruction 
of the Iraqi infrastructure, the collapse of the Iraqi 
establishments, and the spread of unprecedented chaos and 
political vacuum in Iraq.... 
 
"After all this, Condoleezza Rice and Jack Straw rush to visit 
Baghdad and use all their pressure cards to drive the Iraqi 
forces to fill the political vacuum and form the government, as 
if the Iraqis were the ones who created the vacuum and caused 
the chaos and destruction. 
 
"Rice claims that the US Administration does not interfere in 
the election of a head of government in Iraq or in other 
domestic Iraqi affairs.... Washington applied pressure on all 
Iraqi forces to accept the American dictates. 
 
"Jack Straw, for his part, agreed with Rice that sovereign Iraqi 
decisions are made only by Iraqis, but he later said that 
Britain and the United States have the right to arrange the 
situation in Iraq and to have a say in what happens there.... 
 
"What happened this week -- the interference in Iraq's domestic 
affairs and the claim that there is no such interference -- 
brings to mind a host of American-British allegations through 
which the two countries have tried to mislead the world. But 
those allegations, primarily the claim that the two countries 
were willing to hold free, fair, and democratic elections to 
elect a government that represents the Iraqi people, were soon 
exposed. How can any election held under the swords of 
occupation be fair, free, democratic, and transparent?" 
 
"All American and British statements suggested that the Iraqi 
government would be fully authorized to make sovereign 
decisions. But practices on the ground showed that the 
occupation ignored the Iraqis' right to full sovereignty over 
their land and capabilities. Is it possible, after all this, to 
fill the political vacuum in Iraq in a way that serves the 
interests of its people as long as the occupation remains?" 
 
Seche