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

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 08 TEL AVIV 002272 
 
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 
CDR USCENTCOM 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 SETTLEMENTS
SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION 
 
 
-------------------------------- 
SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶1.  Mideast 
 
¶2.  Somalia 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
Major media reported that at 10 Downing Street on 
Monday, British PM Tony Blair refrained from endorsing 
PM Ehud Olmert's plan for a unilateral withdrawal, 
although he recognized that the absence of a viable 
partner on the Palestinian side would mean "another 
reality."  Media quoted Olmert as saying at the joint 
press conference with Blair that he told Blair that an 
offer a few years ago by an Israeli PM to withdraw from 
90 percent of the territories and the settlements would 
have been considered a miracle.  Ha'aretz quoted a 
British official as saying that Olmert can be satisfied 
over the fact that he presented the Palestinians with a 
choice between accepting the conditions set by the 
international community or accepting reality, which 
might cause them to be blamed for refusing Israel's 
terms.  Yediot reported that when asked whether 
Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyeh might be an assassination 
target, Olmert told reporters that "nobody involved in 
terrorism is immune.  I do not have to declare names." 
 
Ha'aretz (Akiva Eldar) reported that in light of the 
international opposition to further unilateral steps by 
Israel, the GOI has begun to draft an alternative plan 
that would essentially convert Olmert's unilateral 
convergence plan into a bilateral move carried out in 
conjunction with PA Chairman [President] Mahmoud Abbas. 
The newspaper wrote that according to the plan now 
being drafted by the Prime Minister's Office and the 
Foreign Ministry, Israel would propose to Abbas that 
they reach an agreement to establish a Palestinian 
state with provisional borders in Gaza plus about 90 
percent of the West Bank.  The provisional border in 
the West Bank would match the route of the separation 
fence, with one exception: Israel would retain security 
control over the Jordan Valley.  Ha'aretz said that in 
this way, Israel hopes to present the convergence plan 
as an implementation of Phase II of the road map peace 
plan, thereby acceding to the demands of the US, 
Jordan, Egypt, and others that Israel resume 
negotiations with the PA under the Roadmap.  Under this 
proposal, the parties would proceed to Phase II without 
waiting for the completion of Phase I, which calls for 
dismantling the terrorist infrastructure.  FM Tzipi 
Livni confirmed to Ha'aretz that she told senior 
ministry officials last week that "currently, Abbas is 
not a partner for a final-status agreement, but he 
could be a partner for other arrangements, on the basis 
of the Roadmap's phased process."  Ha'aretz quoted one 
participant in this meeting as saying that Livni spoke 
explicitly about an agreement to establish a 
Palestinian state with provisional borders.  Phase II 
of the Roadmap presents the "option" of an independent 
Palestinian state with provisional borders, "as a way 
station to a permanent status settlement." 
 
Ha'aretz reported that Defense Minister Amir Peretz has 
decided to reexamine the route of the separation fence, 
especially around Jerusalem, in order to reduce both 
damage to Palestinian property and the project's costs. 
 
Israel Radio quoted a member of Olmert's entourage as 
saying in London that IDF fire did not kill the 
Palestinian family on a Gaza beach Friday.  Leading 
media reported that the IDF investigation into the case 
has found that the times of the firing of IDF shells 
and the explosion do not match; the examination of 
shrapnel removed from the bodies of three wounded 
victims hospitalized in Israel is likely to reinforce 
the conclusion that the explosion was caused by a bomb 
rather than a shell; based on photographs, the crater 
left on the beach by the blast seems to have been made 
by an explosion from below (a mine), not a hit from 
above (a shell); intelligence gathered by Israel found 
that Hamas has been systematically mining the northern 
Gaza beach in an attempt to keep Israeli commandos from 
landing there again.  Ha'aretz wrote that the main hole 
in the army's evidence is the missing sixth shell, the 
first to be fired and whose landing site has not been 
determined.  The newspaper reported that the 
Palestinians are likely to investigate the incident on 
their own and that they are expected to contradict the 
results of the IDF probe.  Yediot reported that on 
Saturday, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called 
Olmert, asking that Israel provide a proper response to 
the Gaza incident, and that Annan was surprised when 
Olmert told him about the scope of Qassam rocket 
attacks against Israel.   The Jerusalem Post and other 
media quoted Peretz as saying that the Palestinians 
"have to understand we have the capability to deliver 
much more painful answers [to Qassam rockets]."  All 
media reported that on Monday and this morning, about 
17 Qassam rockets fired from the Gaza Strip landed in 
the Sderot area.  An Israeli woman was slightly wounded 
and a car was destroyed.  Israel Radio and leading 
media websites reported that this morning, an IAF 
missile strike on a van carrying a Palestinian rocket- 
launching squad on Tuesday killed at least nine people 
and wounded 20 to 25 others.  The squad members 
allegedly belonged to Islamic Jihad. 
 
Maariv reported that Kadima members are planning to 
build six villages in the southern Hebron hills, inside 
the Green Line, where residents of six settlements over 
the Green Line would be relocated.  The establishment 
of the new communities would take place even before the 
evacuation of the settlements. 
 
All media reported that pitched battles between Hamas 
and Fatah operatives in Gaza killed two people and 
wounded 17 on Monday, while in Ramallah, Fatah gunmen 
torched parts of the prime minister's office and the 
Palestinian parliament. 
 
Ha'aretz (Akiva Eldar) reported that Washington has 
informed Olmert that the success of the Palestinian 
President in the referendum on the 'prisoners' 
document' is the success of President Bush's 
democratization in the Middle East and that this is the 
main reason Olmert is shrugging off the referendum. 
 
Yediot reported that Binyamin Netanyahu and Avigdor 
Lieberman, respectively chairmen of Likud and Yisrael 
Beiteinu, have agreed to start a process to merge their 
parties, creating a "counter big bang" in Israeli 
politics. 
 
The radio stations and leading news websites reported 
that today, police arrested seven residents of the 
Israeli Arab town of Shfaram on suspicion of being 
involved in the lynching of a Jewish gunman, Eden Natan- 
Zada.  Natan-Zada killed four townsmen in a shooting 
attack on August 2 last year.  Israel Radio said that 
Israeli Arab Knesset members protested over the 
arrests. 
All media cited the Lebanese daily As-Safir as saying 
on Monday that Lebanese intelligence services claim to 
have uncovered a spy network that has been working for 
Israel since 1990. 
 
Maariv reported on Israel's success at the Eurosatory 
defense exhibition that opened in Paris on Monday. 
Among other products, the newspaper listed an all- 
weather intelligence picture gathering system offered 
by Israel Aircraft Industries and a tank protection 
system built by the Rafael Armaments Development 
Authority. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that the GOI is planning to establish 
a computerized database to monitor all foreigners 
entering or residing in Israel.  Sasi Katzir, the head 
of the Interior Ministry's population administration, 
told the newspaper that the new data bank was a joint 
initiative by numerous bodies: the interior; foreign; 
public security; industry, trade and labor; and justice 
ministries; the Immigration Administration and the 
Central Bureau of Statistics.   Interior Minister Roni 
Bar-On and Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter will 
eventually present the detailed project for cabinet 
approval. 
 
The Jerusalem Post and Maariv reported that in the next 
couple of days at Camp David, President Bush will host 
a discussion about a gradual withdrawal of US troops 
from Iraq.  Leading media reported that Al Qaida in 
Iraq has named Abu Hamza al-Muhajir to be a successor 
to Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi. 
 
Maariv reported that on Monday, the US Supreme Court 
turned back an appeal Monday from American Jews who 
were victims of the Nazi regime in Austria and whose 
litigation had tied up payments from a USD 210-million 
settlement.  The Jerusalem Post reported that Waitstill 
Sharp, a minister from suburban Boston, and his wife 
Martha, an experienced social worker, will be 
posthumously honored as "Righteous Gentiles" at Yad 
Vashem on Tuesday.  The couple saved Jews in various 
European counties during the Nazi occupation.  The 
Jerusalem Post noted that the Sharps are only the 
second and third Americans, after Varian Fry -- who 
saved Jews in occupied France -- to receive Yad 
Vashem's highest honor. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that the late PM Menachem Begin 
played a central role in a failed 1952 attempt to 
assassinate then-West German Chancellor Konrad 
Adenauer, with the objective of sabotaging the 
reparations agreement with Israel, according to the 
journal of Eliezer Sudit, one of the men who carried 
out the attempted hit.  Begin was then head of the 
opposition in the Knesset. 
 
All media bannered the collision of a Tel Aviv-Haifa 
passenger train with a pickup truck near Beit Yehoshua, 
south of Netanya, on Monday, in which five people were 
killed and around 80 were wounded.  Maariv bannered: 
"Disaster Railways." 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Chief Economic Editor Sever Plotker wrote in the 
editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot 
Aharonot: "The Palestinians will pay a heavy price for 
what is viewed by the entire world as terror activity 
that is offensive, irresponsible, and also idiotic." 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post 
editorialized: "The PA's prime minister, who just 
described as a 'war crime' the tragic deaths on Friday 
on a Gaza beach of a Palestinian family ... is openly 
and deliberately attempting to commit war crimes 
against Israelis." 
 
Very liberal columnist B. Michael wrote in Yediot 
Aharonot: "Just like in the second Intifada, the third 
one will also not take place because the Palestinians 
plotted and planned it, but because this is what the 
IDF decided." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
¶I.  "Hamas Understands Only Force" 
Chief Economic Editor Sever Plotker wrote in the 
editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot 
Aharonot (6/13): "While Abu Mazen does indeed aspire to 
have the Hamas government collapse and for new 
elections to be held, he has opted to achieve his goal 
by means of a problematic route, whose outcome is 
likely to be the opposite.... Such a referendum will 
further fix Palestinian positions for generations and 
will tie the hands of any Palestinian leader who wants 
to deviate from its outline.  Referendums should be 
held on actual arrangements reached through enormous 
effort and long negotiations, when the public is 
capable of weighting their cost versus their benefit. 
Israel cannot and should not talk to Hamas.  This would 
not only be disastrous and a slide down a slippery 
slope, but would also stick a knife in Abu Mazen's 
back, particularly as long as there still is a 
realistic possibility that the Hamas regime will not 
with stand the external and internal pressures on it 
and will collapse.... The lives of Israelis who live in 
communities near the border are now completely forfeit, 
and the Qassam rocket fire on them has to stop.  That 
is the basic duty of the Israeli government; the 
Palestinians will pay a heavy price for what is viewed 
by the entire world as terror activity that is 
offensive, irresponsible, and also idiotic." 
 
 
II.  "Fight Double Standards" 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post 
editorialized (6/13): "For almost six years, the 
Palestinian Authority has presided over a terrorist 
offensive against Israel, stoking the hatreds and 
proving relentlessly disinclined to thwart the attacks. 
Until this week, however, the PA leadership had never 
directly associated itself with this terrorism.... The 
PA's prime minister, who just described as a 'war 
crime' the tragic deaths on Friday on a Gaza beach of a 
Palestinian family -- possibly hit by an errant Israeli 
artillery shell, possibly not -- is openly and 
deliberately attempting to commit war crimes against 
Israelis.... Israel should formally -- ideally with 
other nations -- request an emergency meeting of the UN 
Security Council to condemn Palestinian aggression, 
demand its cessation and the dismantling of all 
terrorist organizations, and recognize Israel's right 
to self-defense.... Yet Israel, rather than stating the 
obvious facts regarding the attacks against us, often 
seems to be lying low in the hope that the world will 
not condemn us." 
 
III.  "The Army's Agenda" 
 
Very liberal columnist B. Michael wrote in Yediot 
Aharonot (6/13): "Thanks to the lies and manipulations 
in which the IDF has become entangled in recent years, 
we can relate with skepticism and mockery to the 
'inquiry' it is now holding to clear itself of blame 
from killing the Ghaliya family on the Gaza beach.... 
The army would therefore be better off dropping this 
odd inquiry and simply announcing that the entire 
family killed itself.... The primary, real, urgent 
problem is the agenda that the army is promoting -- 
openly, diligently, unrestrainedly, and unreservedly. 
An agenda that states that we have to reach a point of 
all-out war with the PA government.... It is still not 
yet certain that the army has been successful.  There 
is still a chance to avoid the coming tragedy.  But if 
nobody is found to finally stop the army in its mad 
rush toward a clash, then there is no doubt that the 
third Intifada is on the doorstep.  And just like in 
the second Intifada, the third one will also not take 
place because the Palestinians plotted and planned it, 
but because this is what the IDF decided." 
 
------------ 
¶2.  Somalia: 
------------ 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Intelligence affairs correspondent Yossi Melman wrote 
in independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz: "Last 
Wednesday's impressive success of US intelligence -- 
the pinpointed assassination of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi in 
Iraq eclipsed attention from the CIA's biting failure 
two days earlier." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
"The Americans Again Betted on the Wrong Muslims" 
 
Intelligence affairs correspondent Yossi Melman wrote 
in independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (6/13): "Last 
Wednesday's impressive success of US intelligence -- 
the pinpointed assassination of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi in 
Iraq eclipsed attention from the CIA's biting failure 
two days earlier: Mogadishu, the Somali capital. Was 
conquered and symbolically 'reunited' by radical Muslim 
militias, some of whose leaders do not conceal their 
sympathy for bin Ladin and the ideology of global 
Jihad.... The big question is whether Somalia will turn 
into the new base of terrorism and the inspiration for 
jihadists, who will try to duplicated their success 
under the auspices of Afghanistan's Taliban regime.  It 
is the US that will have to answer that question and 
cope with it.  Judging from the Afghanistan and Iraq 
precedents, it is doubtful whether it has the tools to 
do so." 
 
JONES