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

C O N F I D E N T I A L TEL AVIV 002025 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/IPA - AMBASSADOR JONES 
DEPARTMENT ALSO FOR PRM - PDAS GREENE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/23/2016 
TAGS: PREL PHUM PGOV PREF IS ICRC GOI EXTERNAL ISRAELI PALESTINIAN AFFAIRS
SUBJECT: EMBLEM: MFA FRUSTRATED WITH MDA REFORM EFFORT, BUT 
GOI STILL PLACING ROADBLOCKS 
 
REF: A) TEL AVIV 1619 B) TEL AVIV 1685 C) TEL AVIV 
     1980 D) TEL AVIV 1950 
 
Classified By: Charge d'Affaires Gene A. Cretz; Reasons 1.4 (B and D). 
 
¶1. (C) On May 23, the Charge asked Foreign Minister Tzipi 
Livni's chief of staff, Jakub "Yaki" Dayan (protect), for an 
update on efforts to facilitate the accession by Magen David 
Adom (MDA) to the International Red Cross/Red Crescent 
Movement.  Dayan replied that two issues remain to be 
resolved.  First, he said that it would be extremely 
difficult for political reasons for the GOI to allow the 
Palestinians to station additional ambulances in East 
Jerusalem, as was agreed privately between MDA and the 
Palestinian Red Crescent.  "We'll have to do without that," 
he remarked.  (Comment: This is the first definitive "no" we 
have heard from the GOI on the issue of stationing additional 
ambulances in East Jerusalem.  As of 24 May, the two PRCS 
ambulances that the GOI did approve have still not deployed 
in East Jerusalem due to "technical problems" posed by the 
Ministries of Health and Transport, according to Cooperation 
Delegate Brian Veal of the ICRC.  This situation -- if not 
resolved before Swiss Ambassador-at-Large Pfirter's May 30-31 
compliance review visit -- is likely to have negative 
consequences for MDA at the June conference in Geneva. End 
Comment.) 
 
¶2. (C) Second, Dayan called a dispute between the MDA and the 
GOI on amending the MDA statutes to ensure the MDA's 
independence "an internal political issue."  He reviewed FM 
Livni's efforts to achieve a compromise.  She had "cracked 
heads" at an interagency meeting with MDA, he claimed, until 
everyone agreed on the establishment of a review committee to 
vet all MDA executive committee members.  Dayan complained 
that MDA Chairman Noam Yifrach is now backtracking on that 
agreement and refusing to accept Livni's compromise proposal 
(ref A), maintaining that the structure of the review 
committee will not ensure the MDA's independence from GOI 
control.  Dayan said that, in frustration, the MFA 
representative had asked MDA if it really has any interest in 
joining the International Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement. 
He suggested to the Charge that the USG should also intervene 
to caution the MDA that further delay could lead the 
organization to miss its "last chance" to join the Movement. 
 
¶3.  (C) Comment: Although the MFA has been a mostly helpful 
player within the Israeli interagency process, Dayan is 
unfairly casting blame at Yifrach -- who has already 
succeeded in getting the elected members of the MDA national 
council to accept the concept of a review committee to vet 
its candidates for executive committee positions (ref B) -- 
rather than elsewhere in the GOI, where the problem lies.  An 
official in the Ministry of Justice is the current obstacle 
to making headway on a compromise, according to the local 
IFRC representative, who told us that the MOJ is still trying 
to impose the terms of the Israeli "public companies' law" on 
the MDA.  At the last minute in a decades-long battle to 
secure MDA accession to the Red Cross Movement, apparent 
Israeli government reluctance to relax its control of MDA 
threatens to derail MDA accession to the movement.  End 
Comment. 
 
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