VZCZCXYZ0003
OO RUEHWEB

DE RUEHDM #2264/01 1351436
ZNR UUUUU ZZH (508)
O 151436Z MAY 06
FM AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 8992
RHEHAAA/WHITE HOUSE WASHDC IMMEDIATE
RUEHAM/AMEMBASSY AMMAN 5952
RUEHLB/AMEMBASSY BEIRUT 3818
RUEHEG/AMEMBASSY CAIRO 2330
RUEHRH/AMEMBASSY RIYADH 7024
RUEHTV/AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV 0989
RUEHAK/AMEMBASSY ANKARA 4396
RUEHJM/AMCONSUL JERUSALEM 0619
RHMFISS/HQ USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL//CCPA//
INFO RUEHNC/AMEMBASSY NICOSIA 6760

UNCLAS DAMASCUS 002264 
 
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: Syria/Sudan, Lebanon, Iraq, 
Palestinian Territories, (5/15) 
 
 
¶1.  Summary: Syrian papers reported the visit to Damascus by 
Assamani Al-Waseela Assamani, Sudanese State Minister for 
Foreign Affairs, who conferred with Minister Walid al-Mouallem. 
Talks dealt with bilateral relations and means of boosting them 
in all fields. During the meeting, the Sudanese Minister briefed 
Minister Mouallem on the latest developments in Darfur issue 
following the signing of a peace agreement. 
 
Papers also reported that Dr. Muhsen Bilal, Minister of 
Information, met with Bassam Qintar, brother of the Arab captive 
Samir Qintar, reiterating Syria's support of national 
resistance, recognized and approved by the international 
legitimacy. The Minister expressed Syria's pride in hero 
Qintar's steadfastness who still resists the Israeli occupation 
from his prison. He expressed hope that Qintar will be released 
soon to live freely with his family. Bassam Qintar said that 
"the steadfast Lebanese resistance has achieved a historical 
victory and forced an Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon 
which has been done with Syria's big support." 
 
End of summary. 
 
¶2.  Selected Headlines: 
 
"Extensive Lebanese denunciation of honoring John Bolton, US 
Ambassador to the UN. Former Lebanese Premier Huss: Free 
advocation for US American policy. American Intellectual Chumski: 
Lebanese national resistance is a model for Peoples of the 
region" (Government-owned Tishreen, 5/15) 
 
"Abdullah Al-Ahmar, Assistant Secretary General of Al-Ba'th 
Party, and Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem review bilateral 
relations and developments in Darfur with Sudanese Minister of 
State for Foreign Affairs Assamani Al-Waseela Assamani" 
(Government-owned Tishreen, 5/15) 
 
"Minister of Information Bilal receives Bassam Qintar, brother of 
Samir Qintar, Lebanese prisoner in Israeli jail: Syria supports 
the course of national Resistance" (Government-owned Al-Thawra, 
5/15) 
 
"Palestinian Prime Minister Hanieh: We will not surrender to the 
Quartet and will not offer political concessions. Six 
Palestinians martyred in the West Bank. Hundreds of Palestinian 
houses demolished in Jerusalem" (Government-owned Al-Ba'th, 5/15) 
 
"A new Israeli racial law to partition Palestinian families of 
¶1948. Six Palestinians killed, five injured by Israeli attacks on 
Qabatiya and Jenin" (Government-owned Tishreen, 5/15) 
 
"Iraqi designate Prime Minister al-Maliki may announce the 
formation of the government without Ministries of Interior and 
Defense. Four Americans and two British soldiers killed in 
Baghdad and Basra" (Government-owned Tishreen, 5/15) 
 
¶3.  Editorial Block Quotes: 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
 
"Crisis-Stricken Ones: Failure at Home and Disappointment 
Abroad" 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------------ 
 
Elias Murad, Chief Editor of government-owned Al-Ba'th, wrote 
(5/15): "No single day goes by or an occasion passes, even a 
local visit, without us hearing voices and abuses against Syria 
by some Lebanese individuals who have made it their job to harm 
Syria and Lebanon despite all the assertions that Syria no 
longer interferes in Lebanese domestic affairs. 
 
"Some crisis-stricken people do not hesitate to implicate Syria 
in every little problem. Their insolence was such that they 
claimed that the recent demonstration in Beirut, which raised 
social demands, was a result of Syrian incitement.... 
 
 
 
fraternal Lebanese people other than incitement against their 
Arab brothers, particularly Syria. Through this they seek to 
cover their failure and absorb the anger of the public by 
blaming the failures on a foreign party or local ghosts. They 
went far in their accusations when they found that Syria was not 
willing to respond to them or to engage in media exchanges and 
dialogues with them, because they placed themselves outside the 
logic of dialogue in the first place. They used their authority 
and its tools, as much as they could, to create a tense 
atmosphere between Lebanon and Syria through abuses on one hand 
and conspiracies and incitement against Syria and its leadership 
on the other. 
 
"Those people deluded themselves into thinking that Syria was 
weak or unable to resist the pressure. But they were 
disappointed when Syria surprised them with its ability, with 
the unity of its people behind the leadership of President Asad, 
and with its response.  They sought help from foreigners and 
joined the game. They spread out in the world, from Washington 
to Paris, and some of them sought help from Israel, hoping it 
would save them from the crisis and the hole they tried to push 
Lebanon into...." 
 
---------------------------- 
 
"Insulting the Cedar Trophy" 
 
---------------------------- 
 
Ali Qasim, an editorialist in government-owned Al-Thawra, 
commented (5/15): "The 14 March forces in Lebanon have 
reportedly awarded John Bolton, US Representative to the United 
Nations, the Lebanese Cedar Trophy.... 
 
"Bolton is one of the most extremist symbols of the American 
right and the strongest supporter of Israel.... 
 
"This step shows the real motives of the 14 March forces. Their 
representatives, on their way back from New York, should visit 
comatose Sharon to award him a similar trophy as a medal for his 
massacres in Sabra and Shatila...." 
 
---------------- 
 
"The US Council" 
 
---------------- 
 
Ahmad Dawwa, an editorialist in government-owned Al-Thawra, 
commented (5/15): "The draft resolution that Britain, France, 
and the United States submitted to the Security Council on Syria 
and Lebanon shows, on one of its faces, the effort to divert the 
Council from its basic mission of maintaining world peace and 
security, preventing the eruption of conflicts and wars, and 
addressing other issues explained in the UN Charter. 
 
"The other face of the draft is its blatant infringement of the 
UN Charter, which rejects, under any pretext, meddling in the 
internal affairs of countries for purposes that do not serve the 
Security Council's basic missions. 
 
"The proposed draft resolution sets a serious precedent in the 
work of the international organization. Its adoption would 
strengthen, in an unprecedented way, the conviction that the 
Security Council has turned into a tool in the hands of the 
forces that proposed the draft to serve their own objectives and 
interests in the region and the world, contrary to the Council's 
mission. It would also pave the way for similar future 
resolutions that would torpedo security and stability and place 
the Council in confrontation with the free nations that refuse 
to give in to despotism and hegemony, which now characterize the 
policies of some big powers, primarily the United States. 
 
"And the infiltration of the policy of discrimination and double- 
standards into the resolution adoption mechanism would torpedo 
 
the coexistence among nations, create a state of hostility that 
is already threatening world peace and security, and undermine 
the bases on which the Security Council and the United Nations 
were built. This tendency to destabilize international 
cooperation is no longer an ulterior US objective; it is a basic 
and declared element in the US foreign policy, meant to serve 
the "constructive instability" theory...." 
 
----------------------------------- 
 
"Withdrawal Is still not Scheduled" 
 
----------------------------------- 
 
Maha Sultan, a commentator in government-owned Tishreen, wrote 
(5/15): "President Bush's growing predicament in Iraq drove him 
to seek the advice and help of former secretaries of state and 
defense for the second time in four months.... But Bush still 
refuses to set a date for the withdrawal of the American troops 
from Iraq.... This shows stubbornness and insistence on 
disregarding the mistake of his Iraq policies.... 
 
"But he will find himself, along with the officials of his 
administration, forced to count more dead American bodies before 
the mid-term elections. If the number is big, as the scene in 
the Iraqi field indicates, the consequences for him and for his 
Republican Party will be disastrous...." 
 
Seche