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

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 10 TEL AVIV 001593 
 
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: Nuclear Program 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
On Sunday, Yediot reported that on May 21, Ehud Olmert 
will pay his first visit to the United States as prime 
minister and will meet with President Bush.  The 
newspaper said that Olmert's advisers, Prime Ministers 
Bureau director-designate Yoram Turbovitz and Dov 
Weisglass, are already working with Bush's advisers to 
prepare for the visit, together with the Israeli 
Ambassador in Washington, Danny Ayalon.  Yediot wrote 
that US administration leaders have suggested that 
Olmert appear before both houses of Congress as a 
special gesture of the friendship between the two 
countries.  (Only Rabin and Netanyahu were accorded 
similar honors.)   The newspaper reported that Olmert 
is leaning toward accepting the suggestion.  Yediot 
reported that Olmert will discuss his political plan to 
determine Israel's borders during his term in office 
while receiving recognition from the US administration 
for the planned measure.  Yediot wrote that the most 
sensitive issue that will be raised during Olmert's 
meetings with Bush and with Vice President Dick Cheney 
will be the Iranian threat to Israel and the fear that 
if there should be an American military operation 
against Iran's nuclear installations, Iran will try to 
strike at Israeli population centers with long-range 
missiles. 
 
Over the weekend, most media led with the shaping up of 
the new government, which will have 27 members -- the 
largest cabinet in Israeli history.  On Sunday, the 
media reported that Interim PM Ehud Olmert has chosen 
the Labor Party's Amir Peretz as vice premier and 
defense minister, Yuli Tamir as education minister, 
Binyamin Ben-Eliezer as national infrastructure 
minister, and Shalom Simhon as agriculture minister. 
Yediot wrote that Kadima's Abraham Hirchson would 
become finance minister, and Tzipi Livni foreign 
minister.  Maariv and other media saw Shaul Mofaz as 
finance/interior/national infrastructure minister. 
Today, Yediot said that former Shin Bet head Avi 
Dichter would get the internal security portfolio, due 
to AG Menachem Mazuz's ruling that Yisrael Beiteinu 
leader Avigdor Lieberman cannot fill the position. This 
morning, Israel Radio reported that Shas demands four 
ministerial posts.  Today, the media reported on 
various recriminations on the part of disappointed 
politicians.  Maariv cited an alleged claim by Shimon 
Peres, no. 2 in Kadima that Kadima is giving up its 
assets.  Last night on Channel 2-TV, Prof. Uriel 
Reichman, to whom former PM Ariel Sharon allegedly 
promised the education portfolio, announced his 
resignation from the Knesset (banner in Ha'aretz). 
Yediot and Israel Radio reported that Defense Minister 
Shaul Mofaz canceled the traditional Defense Minister's 
reception to be held on Israeli Independence Day, which 
was supposed to include 4,000 guests, including the 
diplomatic corps.  According to the radio, the 
nomination of Peretz as defense minister motivated 
Mofaz's unprecedented decision. 
 
In its lead story, The Jerusalem Post reported that 
fearing an Iranian missile attack, the IDF has raised 
the level of vigilance of its Arrow 2 anti-ballistic 
missile defense systems and has reinforced personnel at 
the command center at the Palmahim Air Force base north 
of Ashdod.  Major media cited a report drafted by a 
military-civilian committee appointed by former PM 
Sharon and chaired by former minister Dan Meridor, 
according to which other countries in the Middle East 
could follow Iran in equipping themselves with nuclear 
weapons.  Ha'aretz wrote that the committee recommended 
to Mofaz on Sunday that Israel should maintain its 
policy of nuclear ambiguity, that as Jordan has 
strategic importance for Israel, its stability should 
be supported, and that the National Security Council 
should become the government's central military 
planning authority. 
 
Ha'aretz and Yediot cited US media as saying Sunday 
that the US and its allies are preparing a "financial 
offensive against Iran if the latter refuses to 
cooperate again with the international community and 
stop its uranium enrichment activity.  Yediot reported 
that President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald 
Rumsfeld have initiated a multi-billon dollar program 
to station commando units in 20 US embassies in the 
Middle East, Asia, and South America, that would be 
called to act in ad hoc anti-terror operations. 
Leading media reported that on Sunday, Fatah gunmen 
stormed the offices of the PA's Health Ministry in Gaza 
City and the Nablus municipality in a sign of growing 
tensions with Hamas.  The media reported that for the 
first time, Hamas police arrested armed members of 
rival organizations.  Yediot reported that PA Chairman 
[President] Mahmoud Abbas has a secret plan to dissolve 
the Palestinian Legislative Council. 
 
Yediot reported that Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh has 
three Israeli sisters who live in the Beersheva area. 
 
On Sunday, Hatzofe reported that official Hamas 
representatives have been invited to attend an anti- 
Israel conference that is going to be held in Norway on 
May 15.  On Sunday, Yediot and The Jerusalem Post said 
that the French Foreign Ministry confirmed on Friday 
that Paris refused to issue a visa to the Palestinian 
Planning Minister, Samir Abu Isha. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that two members of the Al-Aqsa 
Martyrs Brigades were killed Sunday by undercover IDF 
troops in Bethlehem.  Israel Radio reported that this 
morning, a Qassam rocket fell south of Ashkelon and 
that the IDF responded with artillery fire.  Yediot and 
other media quoted Mofaz as saying at Sunday's cabinet 
meeting that Islamic Jihad tried to launch a Katyusha 
rocket at Israel on Friday. 
 
On Sunday, The Jerusalem Post printed an AP dispatch 
quoting a top Palestinian official as saying Saturday 
that a stern US warning to international financial 
institutions has made it impossible for the PA to 
receive funding since Hamas took power. 
 
Leading media reported that on Sunday, Al Jazeera-TV 
broadcast an audiocassette in which Osama bin Laden 
claimed that the cessation of aid to Hamas proves that 
the US and Europe support the "Zionist crusade." 
Maariv cited Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, as 
saying that Hamas's ideology is totally different from 
that of "Sheikh bin Laden."  The Jerusalem Post printed 
an AP story, in which GOI spokesman Ra'anan Gissin is 
quoted as saying that bin Laden had decided to attack 
Israel to deflect growing Arab animosity toward Al 
Qaida. 
On Sunday, Ha'aretz and The Jerusalem Post reported 
that lawyers for Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman, 
the two former AIPAC officials accused of conspiring to 
receive and disclose classified defense information got 
permission on Friday from the judge in the case to 
subpoena top US administration officials, including US 
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. 
 
SIPDIS 
 
Maariv and other media reported on a precedent-setting 
ruling in which judge Boaz Okon from the Jerusalem 
District Court decided Sunday that the PA meets most 
requirements to qualify as a country, and that it has 
impunity in international law from claims by Israel for 
legal matters in the territory it controls.   The 
newspaper reported that a settler-controlled 
educational institution had demanded compensation for 
its inability to recover a financial debt in the 
territories. 
 
The Jerusalem Post quoted President Bush's science 
adviser, Prof. John Marburger III, as saying on Sunday 
that "there is reason to be concerned" about Iran's 
nuclear potential."  Marburger was a keynote speaker at 
a symposium held at Kibbutz Ma'aleh Hahamisha to mark 
the 50th anniversary of the Fulbright Program run by 
the US-Israel Educational Foundation.  The Jerusalem 
Post reported that Marburger defended Bush's view on 
embryonic stem cell research, but that he recognized 
that other countries, including Israel, did not regard 
the issue as problematic and continued their work 
because of the potential that embryonic stem cells 
could eventually prove to repair diseased tissues and 
organs.  On Sunday, The Jerusalem Post cited the Jewish 
Telegraphic Agency (JTA) as saying that the US Congress 
is hoping to work with Israel and other at-risk 
countries to develop science and technology 
applications to fight terrorism. 
 
All media reported on events related to Holocaust 
Remembrance Day, which will be commemorated tonight and 
tomorrow.  The Jerusalem Post reported that President 
Bush named nine people, including Prof. Elie Wiesel and 
Judy Yudof, former president of the Conservative 
Judaism movement, to the US Holocaust Memorial Council, 
which oversees the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in 
Washington. 
The Jerusalem Post wrote that the family of Daniel 
Wultz, a 16-year old American from Weston, Florida, who 
was seriously wounded in last week's Tel Aviv suicide 
bombing, has requested that Tel Aviv's Ichilov 
Hospital, as well as the American Embassy in Tel Aviv, 
not release any information about their son. 
 
On Sunday, The Jerusalem Post reported that American 
actor Will Smith dined on Friday in Tel Aviv with 
Yitzhak Rabin's daughter Dalia Rabin Pelosoff, Los 
Angeles Israeli Consul-General Ehud Danoch, US 
Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones, Likud MK Silvan 
Shalom and his wife, Judy Shalom Nir Mozes. 
 
Israel Radio (on Sunday) and Hamodi'a reported that 
three Israeli engineers are helping Iran recover from 
the serious earthquakes that affected it recently. 
 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "The 
current situation, in which the PA has two heads 
conflicting with each other, is intolerable.... 
Responsibility for the renewed violence falls squarely 
on the Palestinians, who are being pushed by their new 
rulers into siege and hard times." 
 
Liberal op-ed writer Ofer Shelach commented in the 
editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot 
Aharonot: "With every passing day, with every step 
taken on the tightrope that Israel and the Palestinians 
are walking on, we are drawing closer to the next war." 
 
Senior op-ed writer Akiva Eldar commented in Ha'aretz: 
"Kadima's 'convergence' will only perpetuate the 
conflict." 
 
Tel Aviv University Professor of Political Science 
Shaul Mishal wrote in Yediot Aharonot: "The last thing 
Hamas and Fatah want is a civil war, from which both 
sides will emerge as losers." 
 
Diplomatic correspondent Alexander Maistrovoy wrote in 
popular, pluralist Russian-language Novosty Nedely: "On 
the deeper level, the US administration has serious 
doubts regarding Olmert and the government he is to 
form, and [moreover his] hasty efforts to implement the 
second disengagement from Judea and Samaria [i.e. the 
West Bank]." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
¶I.  "Police Officer and Terrorist" 
 
Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized 
(4/23): "If anything remains of the appearance of a 
separation between the official and the underground in 
the PA, it disappeared when Hamas took control of the 
government.  The clearest illustration of this to date 
is the decision by the Interior Minister of the Hamas 
government, Said Siam, to appoint Jamal Abu Samhadana 
as inspector general of his ministry and commander of a 
new security force.  Abu Samhadana is completely 
unacceptable to Israel, whose civilians he murdered for 
years from his Rafah-area hideaway, and to the 
Americans; his Popular Resistance Committees killed 
Americans in the Gaza Strip in 2003.  In exchange for 
his appointment, Abu Samhadana is supposed to change 
his ways, but he has not promised to do so and, in 
fact, has announced that his organization will continue 
to act against Israel.... Abbas's declaration of a year 
ago, when he was elected to succeed Yasser Arafat, 
regarding the unity of the government, the law and the 
arms in the PA, has sounded like a sad joke since the 
Hamas victory in the legislative assembly elections. 
The current situation, in which the PA has two heads 
conflicting with each other, is intolerable.... 
Responsibility for the renewed violence falls squarely 
on the Palestinians, who are being pushed by their new 
rulers into siege and hard times." 
 
II.  "On the Way To War" 
 
Liberal op-ed writer Ofer Shelach commented in the 
editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot 
Aharonot (4/23): "With every passing day, with every 
step taken on the tightrope that Israel and the 
Palestinians are walking on, we are drawing closer to 
the next war.... Israel, with American support -- it 
was the Bush administration that strongly pushed for 
elections in the PA, it is now determined more  than 
anyone to reverse their results, and it is not the one 
that is going to pay the price -- regards toppling 
Hamas the way it has always regarded steps taken vis-a- 
vis the Palestinians: as if there were no tomorrow, as 
if the way in which its desire is achieved has no 
impact whatsoever on what happens afterwards....  The 
battle against Hamas's rise to power needs to be fought 
patiently and soberly.  It obliges the leaders to know 
what to do -- and, even more so, what not to do.  This 
was said by one of the more prominent members of the 
security establishment in a conversation that was held 
on the eve of the Palestinian parliamentary elections, 
before anyone had even guessed that Hamas was going to 
win.  That statement is no less applicable today than 
it was then.  The problem is that in a completely 
breached political establishment and with a belligerent 
military, fewer and fewer people are listening to those 
kinds of statements, which get drowned out in the 
tumultuous march to war." 
 
III.  "The Main Thing Is That There's a Partner" 
 
Senior op-ed writer Akiva Eldar commented in Ha'aretz 
(4/24): "Ariel Sharon bequeathed to generations to come 
the US President's promise to support the settlement 
blocs....  A very senior figure in Kadima responded to 
this question in a moment of honesty by saying she 
fears that the negotiations over the permanent status 
agreement will fail, and that the international 
community will blame Israel.  In other words, the new 
government itself is not a partner to an agreement 
based on the international legitimacy given to the June 
4, 1967 borders, with mutual adjustments and a just and 
agreed solution to the refugee problem.  Kadima's 
'convergence' will only perpetuate the conflict." 
 
IV.  "Hamas and Fatah Stand To Lose From a Civil War" 
 
Tel Aviv University Professor of Political Science 
Shaul Mishal wrote in Yediot Aharonot (4/23): "The last 
thing Hamas and Fatah want is a civil war, from which 
both sides will emerge as losers.  Their fear is of a 
third factor that will neutralize both of them -- be it 
the force of worldwide jihad, such as al-Qaida, or a 
massive Israeli incursion into the Palestinian 
Authority territories.  Moreover, the fact that in Arab 
countries such as Egypt and Jordan there are Islamic 
movements that constitute a threat to the government 
will lead to the quick intervention of either those 
countries themselves or the Arab League in the conflict 
between the various Palestinian factions.... 
Paradoxically, Hamas only stands to gain from the 
situation as it is at present.  All of those who now 
are boycotting Hamas will be forced to speak with it 
precisely because of their concerns about the possible 
deterioration, fear that Hamas will lose control, and 
then it won't be Fatah that will find itself back in 
power but other, hostile forces.  Fatah cannot turn 
back the clock and regain the role and status it had 
before Hamas's victory.  The truth of the matter is 
that Fatah is a divided and torn party.... The only one 
who can still maneuver is PA Chairman Abu Mazen, who is 
a Fatah man.  The security forces are subordinate to 
the Palestinian Authority and, under normal 
circumstances, should be made subordinate to the new 
government.  However, since Fatah is not prepared to 
play by the new rules of the game, and Hamas is not 
prepared to regard itself as the new government that 
has replaced the old one but rather sees itself as an 
entirely new regime, it has insisted that it be given 
control over the focal points of power, which it wants 
to mold and organize in keeping with its ideology." 
 
¶V.  "Uncle Sam's Pros and Cons" 
 
Diplomatic correspondent Alexander Maistrovoy wrote in 
popular, pluralist Russian-language Novosty Nedely 
(4/20): "Ehud Olmert's victory in the Israeli [general] 
elections caused mixed feelings in Washington.. From 
the very beginning the [US] administration staked on a 
predictable, complacent and manageable leader ... [Ehud 
Olmert].  This is crucial for the US in the situation 
of growing instability and unpredictability in the 
Middle East.... However, on the deeper level, the US 
administration has serious doubts regarding Olmert and 
the government he is to form, and [moreover his] hasty 
efforts to implement the second disengagement from 
Judea and Samaria [i.e. the West Bank] ... which might 
... affect US efforts to fight global terrorism... Al 
Qaida's and Hamas's potential consolidation of their 
hold on the West Bank might pose an immediate threat to 
the Hashemite dynasty -- the United States' closest 
ally in the Arab world ... breach the balance of power 
in the Middle East ... and threaten the efforts to 
stabilize Iraq.... Such a ... hasty disengagement would 
be ... perceived ... as a panic flight and ... provoke 
the Palestinians, Iran, and Syria to attack [Israel] 
... create havoc; weaken Israel ... and change the 
United States' attitude towards the Jewish state." 
 
-------------------------- 
¶2.  Iran: Nuclear Program: 
-------------------------- 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post 
editorialized: "If Bush waits too long, the sense that 
it is too late to stop Iran will grow, the window for 
action will close and his own political decline will 
deepen further." 
 
 
 
 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
"Speed Up Iran Sanctions" 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post 
editorialized (4/23): "It is assumed by many that US 
President George Bush -- floundering in the polls, 
reorganizing his staff, and tied up in Iraq -- is 
unwilling or incapable of upping the ante on the 
diplomatic front, let alone taking military action.  In 
reality, Bush's political problems and the Iranian 
threat are not in conflict, but part of the same 
challenge.  The centerpiece of the Bush presidency is 
foreign policy, and that policy will have failed if the 
most dangerous regime in the world can run circles 
around the US and acquire nuclear weapons.  Such a 
failure would certainly dwarf and possibly undo the 
administration's accomplishment of ridding Iraq of a 
similarly belligerent dictatorship.  The sense that 
this is the direction of events, in turn, undermines 
Bush politically at home.  It is not enough for the 
State Department to make vague claims about the headway 
it is making; significant momentum must be 
demonstrated.... There is substantial agreement between 
Washington, London, Berlin and Paris that the mullahs 
must be stopped.  As usual, however, it will fall on 
the White House to provide the leadership necessary to 
galvanize such a consensus into effective action.  But 
if Bush waits too long, the sense that it is too late 
to stop Iran will grow, the window for action will 
close and his own political decline will deepen 
further." 
 
JONES