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

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 09 TEL AVIV 001533 
 
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.  Mideast 
 
¶2.  Iran 
 
¶3.  Lebanese-Syrian Track 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
Leading media reported that FM Tzipi Livni, who 
successfully proposed revoking the Jerusalem residency 
of the Hamas legislators, persuaded a governmental 
forum convened on Tuesday to continue with its 
characterization of the PA as a "hostile entity," 
rather than adopting terminology proposed by the 
defense establishment: "enemy entity."  Yediot and 
other media reported that in the wake of Monday's 
bombing in Tel Aviv, the forum decided to issue a 
warning to the PA rather than conduct a military 
operation.  Israel Radio quoted a senior IDF officer as 
saying that the army is prepared to conduct an 
operation in the Gaza Strip if Hamas does not act 
against terror.  The Jerusalem Post quoted a senior GOI 
official as saying Wednesday that Israel is considering 
expanding its Tuesday decision to revoke the Jerusalem 
residency of three Hamas Palestinian Legislative 
Council members and a PA cabinet minister to include 
other known Hamas members or even PA workers living in 
the city.  Major media wrote that Hamas intends to 
petition the High Court of Justice against the GOI 
decision.  The Jerusalem Post reported that a senior 
Israeli official noted the irony that Hamas officials, 
who do not recognize Israel, were threatening to 
petition an Israeli court.  The Jerusalem Post quoted 
GOI officials as saying that the policy of targeted 
assassinations would continue and that road blocks and 
patrols along the Green Line would be increased to 
crack down on people illegally smuggling Palestinian 
workers across the Green Line.  The media reported that 
three Knesset members from the United Arab List-Arab 
Movement for Renewal met with a Hamas parliamentarian 
in East Jerusalem on Wednesday. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that Egypt and Saudi Arabia are 
pressing Hamas to adopt the Arab League declaration 
passed in Beirut in 2002.  The declaration included 
recognition of the 1967 borders and a just solution to 
the refugee problem.  Ha'aretz and Israel Radio said 
that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak wants to arrange 
a meeting between Olmert and PA Chairman [President] 
Mahmoud Abbas. 
 
Leading media reported that Islamic Jihad and other 
Palestinian organizations have asked Abbas to apologize 
over his condemnation of the Tel Aviv bombing.  Maariv 
cited a "secret" document in which Palestinian PM 
Ismail Haniyeh, prompted by Hamas political leader 
Khaled Mashal, "dries up" the PLO.  Haniyeh was quoted 
as writing in the document that only the salaries of 
Hamas members in the PA administration will be paid. 
 
Yediot reported that the Bush administration is 
considering turning to the International Atomic Energy 
Agency, circumventing the UN Security Council to take 
steps that would terminate the Iranian nuclear program. 
Major media cited a story published in the British 
newspaper The Guardian on Wednesday that the Committee 
for the Commemoration of Martyrs of the Global Islamic 
Campaign, an Iranian group claiming to be an 
independent body that has the backing of the Iranian 
regime, said that it is seeking to recruit Muslims in 
Britain for attacks on Israel.  Yediot reported that 
the Simon Wiesenthal Center has asked the German 
government to reconsider its decision to let Iranian 
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad come to the upcoming 
soccer world championship.  Yediot and The Jerusalem 
Post reported that last week, an Iranian representative 
was appointed as a deputy chair of the UN Disarmament 
Committee.  Yediot wrote that the case was akin to a 
"cat guarding the cream." 
 
Maariv (lead story) and other major media quoted UN 
Secretary-General Kofi Annan as saying on Wednesday 
 
SIPDIS 
that Lebanon must dismantle Hizbullah.  Annan was 
responding to the publication of a report issued by UN 
Lebanon envoy Terje Roed-Larsen that found that 
Hizbullah was continuing to rule in southern Lebanon 
and to receive weapons from Syria -- including Katyusha 
rockets.  Yediot reported that UN investigators might 
interrogate Syrian President Bashar Assad Friday 
regarding his possible involvement in the assassination 
of Lebanese PM Rafiq Hariri. 
Israel Radio reported that five Qassam rockets landed 
south of Ashkelon this morning.  There were no injuries 
or material damage.  The station reported that the IDF 
responded with artillery fire. 
 
Major media reported that the Jordanian government 
canceled a planned visit to Amman by PA FM Mahmoud 
Zahar, saying that Hamas had smuggled weapons into the 
kingdom.  Leading media reported that Hamas leaders 
strongly denied the charges. 
 
Ha'aretz quoted German Justice Minister Brigitte 
Zypries as saying at a news conference Tuesday at the 
US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) that Berlin will 
work with Washington on opening millions of files on 
hundreds of slave-labor and concentration camps, now 
being preserved in the German town of Bad Arolsen. 
Yediot quoted USHMM Director Sara Bloomfield as saying 
that the German government's decision to open the 
archives was significant both historically and morally. 
Maariv and The Jerusalem Post also reported on the 
matter. 
 
Yediot reported that it was Olmert who suggested the 
title of the 1990 Hollywood movie "Pretty Woman" to 
producer Arnon Milchan and director Garry Marshall. 
 
Major media reported that President Bush's Deputy Chief 
of Staff Karl Rove and White House Press Secretary Scot 
McClellan have tendered their resignation.  The media 
said that the purpose of the changes was to rejuvenate 
the White House and stop the slide in public opinion 
polls.  The Jerusalem Post printed an AP story that 
President Bush nominated Trade Representative Rob 
Portman as the White House budget director. 
 
Ha'aretz, The Jerusalem Post, and other media reported 
that on Tuesday, the High Court of Justice rejected 
petitions by Palestinians for injunctions to delay the 
completion of the separation fence near the Palestinian 
villages of Bir Naballah, Beit Hanina, Al Jib, Jedira, 
Qalandya and A-Ram, north of Jerusalem. The court will 
allow Israel to complete the construction of the 
separation fence surrounding Jerusalem.  The court 
ruled that the state may now complete the fence since 
alternate roads and checkpoints have been constructed 
to enable unrestricted Palestinian travel. 
 
Leading media cited demands by senior Labor Party 
members that the party be handed the finance and 
education portfolios.  Yediot and other media quoted 
senior Kadima officials as saying that Labor will not 
be a government coalition partner if the price is too 
high. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that FBI agents tried to 
gain access to documents of the late reporter Jack 
Anderson to find material related to the AIPAC case. 
 
Maariv reported that on Wednesday, Israeli photographer 
Rina Castelnuovo, the New York Times' photographer in 
Israel, won the Overseas Press Club prize, which Maariv 
said is the equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize for foreign 
reporting. 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "A 
boycott of the Hamas government, such as the one 
developing internationally, may be more effective than 
any Israeli action." 
 
 
Middle East affairs commentator Dr. Guy Bechor, a 
lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Center, wrote in mass- 
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "Those who talk 
about peace with Israel do not mean real peace, but are 
looking for a way to reach the US consciousness and 
Western money." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
¶I.  "Who Is Responsible?" 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized 
(4/20): "The clear-cut statement by the Hamas 
government's spokesman that the Tel Aviv suicide 
bombing was a 'legitimate step of self-defense against 
the occupation' determines for all intents and purposes 
that government's responsibility for the attack.... 
Despite the inherent international expectation of an 
Israeli response to the Tel Aviv attack, the ball is 
still in the Palestinian court.  The Palestinians can 
still prevent another round of violence.... Marwan 
Barghouti's ability to attain a new cease-fire from 
prison is limited, but any initiative of this kind, 
whether from jail, Israel, the PA or elsewhere in the 
world, is welcome.  The call by the right-wing parties 
for a widespread military action should not be heeded, 
since vengeance is not a policy. A boycott of the Hamas 
government, such as the one developing internationally, 
may be more effective than any Israeli action." 
 
II.  "The Terrorist PA" 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post 
editorialized (4/20): "The PA's highest echelons cannot 
and must not be absolved of responsibility for this 
latest massacre, even if it is Islamic Jihad's 
handiwork.  Not only does the Hamas establishment not 
dissociate itself from the deadly attack on civilians, 
its own creed is also identical with that of Islamic 
Jihad.  Hamas's charter declares that 'the liberation 
of Palestine' -- a euphemism for eradicating the Jewish 
state -- 'is the individual duty for every Muslim 
wherever he may be. Israel will exist only until Islam 
obliterates it.'  This is the mind-set that now governs 
the PA; this is the vicious message it seeks to spread 
to its people.... Homicide-by-suicide has been adopted 
by Islamic terror-mongers throughout the globe. 
Strikingly and appallingly, we have yet to see any 
serious, widespread and effective opposition to the 
practice instituted by moderate Muslims.  In the 
meantime, Israelis and other Westerners must exercise 
the inherent right of self-preservation -- and seek, 
savvily and resolutely, to thwart the murderous 
ambitions of the bombers, the Qassam cells, the PA 
government that champions them... and the ambitions, 
too, of the Iranian regime that helps inspire and fund 
them." 
 
III.  "Israel Is Just the Means" 
 
Middle East affairs commentator Dr. Guy Bechor, a 
lecturer at the Interdisciplinary Center, wrote in mass- 
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (4/20): 
"Ostensibly, this is a mirror image: some of the Middle 
East talks about peace with Israel, has signed peace 
agreements with it and the Arab world is supposedly 
bound by the Saudi peace initiative.  Another part 
talks about war with Israel, even its destruction, such 
as the Palestinian Authority or Iran.  But in fact, 
this is very same phenomenon.  Those who talk about 
peace with Israel do not mean real peace, but are 
looking for a way to reach the US consciousness and 
Western money.  They know that Washington is impressed 
by the tones of peaces, but the goal [of that approach] 
is not Israel, but America.  Israel is the ladder by 
which they will get to Washington....  Iran today hopes 
to become a Middle East, perhaps a world, superpower. 
How, as a discounted Shi'ite country among the Arabs, 
will it ascend to such a lofty status? It will fight 
Israel, at least verbally.... We must not become overly 
excited by Arab peace initiatives, since what is 
usually behind them is local distress, as was the case 
with Sadat, Gemayel, Arafat, and Hussein, and they are 
therefore also limited.  More than Israel needs this 
initiative, the other side needs it.  Therefore, as 
determined by the rules of negotiations, Israel must 
demand more in return....  Israeli misunderstanding of 
what lies behind declarations of war and peace in the 
Middle East has in the past led to disaster and 
disillusionment, and this is liable to happen now too. 
We must pray that Israel's new leadership knows that in 
our region, what is hidden is larger than what is 
revealed, particularly when it refers to Israel, and we 
must distinguish well between reality and illusion." 
 
--------- 
¶2.  Iran: 
--------- 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Liberal op-ed writer Yigal Sarna wrote in mass- 
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "The threat of 
mutual destruction prevents killing." 
 
 
Nationalist writer Uri Dan opined in popular, pluralist 
Maariv and the conservative, independent Jerusalem 
Post: "Is Israel sending  ... a pervasive message of 
weakness, one that ... invites the venom that may be 
paving the way for a military offensive directed 
against us?" 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
¶I.  "In Praise of the Iranian Bomb" 
 
Liberal op-ed writer Yigal Sarna wrote in mass- 
circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (4/20): "The 
spin of Iran's atom has long served the pressures of 
the [Israeli] defense establishment and the need for a 
scarecrow of awe.... I'll ... place myself against the 
grain of all the fears, the reports, and even the 
boastful speeches of the big-mouthed Iranian, and say 
that Iran is no more a paranoid state than Mofaz's 
Israel or Bush's America....  In terms of a current 
military operation, [Iran] is less violent and 
threatening than the latter... The threat of mutual 
destruction prevents killing, in the same way as the 
International War Crimes Tribunal reins in countries -- 
Israel, too -- from carrying out wild military 
operations.... In the distant future the two regional 
powers [Israel and Iran] that had a stormy love affair 
a generation ago may get close to each other." 
 
 
 
II.  "What Kind of Tree Is Israel?" 
 
Nationalist writer Uri Dan opined in popular, pluralist 
Maariv and the conservative, independent Jerusalem Post 
(4/20): "Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeated 
his well-known intent to erase Israel from the map last 
Friday with a new twist: 'Israel is a rotten, dried 
tree that will be annihilated in one storm.'  Ha'aretz, 
the self-appointed paper for the thinking classes, 
buried this terrible, blatant threat deep inside its 
news pages....   The International Herald Tribune ... 
hid the threat to destroy Israel in a small item ... 
without even calling attention to it in the 
headline.... But give Ha'aretz and The International 
Herald Tribune a story about "A young Palestinian 
killed by IDF shelling ... and you will usually find 
the news item with a banner headline on those papers' 
front pages.... Is Israel sending  ... a pervasive 
message of weakness, one that feeds and fosters -- in 
fact invites -- the venom that may be paving the way 
for a military offensive directed against us?.... The 
Iranian-Hamas-Hizbullah threat is the most serious 
Israel has faced since the Yom Kippur War in 1973.  If 
Ahmadinejad's remark offends us, we should cut off 
those dry branches, of which there are too many, and 
remove the dry rot, of which there is too much, so that 
when the day comes Ahmadinejad and his ilk will be able 
to sense the strong roots that support the Jewish 
tree." 
 
-------------------------- 
¶3.  Lebanese-Syrian Track: 
-------------------------- 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Arab affairs correspondent Jackie Hoogie wrote in 
popular, pluralist Maariv: "Kofi Annan's call to 
Hizbullah to disarm will record soon enough a highly 
publicized accomplishment -- it will toughen Hassan 
Nasrallah's position." 
 
 
 
 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
"Terrible Timing" 
 
Arab affairs correspondent Jackie Hoogie wrote in 
popular, pluralist Maariv (4/20): "Perhaps Israeli 
officials are pleased today, but just a moment -- it is 
only a UN report.  If not for the sensitive timing, it 
is likely that even this report would be swept under 
the Persian rugs that adorn Iran's embassy in Beirut. 
Kofi Annan's call to Hizbullah to disarm will record 
soon enough a highly publicized accomplishment -- it 
will toughen Hassan Nasrallah's position.... Today, 
both the West and Jerusalem understand that like the 
withdrawal of the Syrian army, the disarmament of 
Hizbullah cannot be imposed from outside, but only by 
Lebanese agreement.  Indeed, efforts in this direction 
have been made in recent weeks.  All the parties and 
powerful forces in Lebanese politics are joining 
together in the National Dialogue, a new forum that is 
intended to resolve the most sensitive national 
questions.... Since the IDF's withdrawal from Lebanon 
in May 2000, the UN has sided with Israel in its 
position.  Because of that, and through no fault of its 
own, it is perceived by Hizbullah as a hostile element. 
The publication of the Larsen Report as the National 
Forum dialogue is at its height will only help 
Nasrallah to claim that abandoning the armed struggle 
is a gift to the UN and to its ally, Zionism." 
 
JONES