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 002307 
 
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 MEDIA REACTION REPORT
SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION 
 
 
-------------------------------- 
SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶1. Mideast 
 
¶2.  US-Israel Relations 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
Leading media reported on President Bush's surprise 
visit to Baghdad on Tuesday.  Maariv cited a Pew poll 
held in various European and Muslim countries, 
according to which French, German, Spanish, and Russian 
respondents said that the presence of US troops in Iraq 
represents a greater threat than the Iranian 
administration. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that on Tuesday in London, PM Ehud 
Olmert told a group of British parliamentarians that 
Israel will never withdraw from the entire West Bank, 
because the pre-1967 borders are not defensible. 
Leading media reported that Olmert told the 
parliamentarians that on Monday, he authorized the IDF 
to dispatch to the PA 375 rifles to help establish the 
Palestinian presidential guard, which is supposed to 
bolster Abbas.  Ha'aretz's website reported that PLO 
chief negotiator Saeb Erekat told the Palestinian daily 
Al-Ayyam that PA Chairman [President] Mahmoud Abbas has 
rejected an Israeli plan (first revealed by Ha'aretz on 
Tuesday) for a Palestinian state with provisional 
borders. 
 
All media led with the violence in the Gaza Strip. 
Depending on the outlets, the media reported that seven 
or eight Palestinian civilians were killed along with 
three members of an Islamic Jihad cell in the IAF 
double missile attack on the northern outskirts of Gaza 
City.  The van carrying the militants contained GRAD 
Katyusha rockets apparently intended to be fired into 
Israel.  Maariv bannered: "Assassinations Preventing 
Katyusha Rocket Launching Into Israel."  The media 
reported that shortly before the strike, Defense 
Minister Amir Peretz told reporters that Israel's 
restraint had ended.   Media reported that Abbas called 
the attack "state terrorism."  Israel Radio quoted 
former PA National Security Adviser Muhammad Dahlan as 
saying that Israel's actions in the Gaza Strip 
constituted "genocide."  The station quoted State 
Department Spokesman Sean McCormack as saying: "It 
would appear that Israel was engaging in its right to 
defend itself.  Of course, whenever it does so, we urge 
them to take into ... consideration the consequences of 
what it is that they do." 
 
All media reported that the IDF investigation team 
examining the incident the incident in which seven 
Palestinians were killed on a Gaza beach Friday 
concluded "beyond all doubt" that they were not hurt as 
a result of Israeli shelling.  The head of the 
investigation, Maj. Meir Kalifi, was quoted as saying 
last night that it is likely the blast stemmed from a 
bomb placed by the Palestinians at the site or "some 
form of unexploded ordnance."  This morning, Israel 
Radio quoted Kalifi as saying that the Palestinians 
took care to remove the shrapnel from the bodies of the 
people killed in the incident and from the bodies of 
those who are bring treated in Israel, so that it 
cannot be identified.  IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan 
Halutz was quoted as saying that Israel continues to 
express its regrets over the incident, but that it does 
not accept responsibility for it.  Israel Radio 
reported that the Hamas government placed 
responsibility for the attack on Israel, and that Abbas 
is demanding an international investigation on the 
matter.  Israel Radio reported that UN Secretary- 
General Kofi Annan expressed doubts about the 
conclusions of the IDF investigation and that he is 
dispatching a representative to check the Palestinians' 
allegations in the matter. 
 
Maariv quoted an unnamed senior Israeli defense 
establishment official assaying on Tuesday that one of 
Hamas's motives in its resumption of Qassam rocket 
launchings is Israel's policy that relentlessly acts to 
thwart any attempt by the new Palestinian government to 
succeed in its tasks.  The official was quoted as 
saying that the Gaza beach disaster only accelerated 
Hamas's move. 
 
Ha'aretz quoted Ahmed Yusef, Palestinian PM Ismail 
Haniyeh's political adviser, as saying in an interview 
with the newspaper that Hamas is prepared to offer a 50- 
year to 60-year cease-fire if Israel withdraws to the 
1967 lines, and is leaving open the possibility of an 
Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement in the distant 
future.  However, Yusef was quoted as saying that such 
a peace deal has no urgency. 
 
The Jerusalem Post quoted Hamas officials as saying 
Tuesday that the bank accounts of Hamas ministers and 
legislators have been frozen by Palestinian banks in 
the West Bank and Gaza Strip at the request of Abbas's 
office.  The Jerusalem Post quoted NGO officials as 
saying that international non-governmental 
organizations operating in Palestinian areas are 
increasingly worried that the Palestinian health system 
will collapse as funding runs out due to the 
international community's boycott of the Hamas 
government.  Maariv cited a UNICEF report released on 
Tuesday, according to which one in three sick 
Palestinian newborns are dying in Gaza hospitals due to 
poor care and lack of basic medicines. 
 
The Jerusalem Post printed an AP story quoting FM Tzipi 
Livni as saying after meeting with EU officials in 
Luxembourg that it was "too early" to know if the EU 
could rally aid to ease the economic and financial 
plight of Palestinians while staying clear of the PA. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that the State Prosecutor's Office 
told the High Court of Justice this week that political 
considerations did not determine the route of the 
separation fence, but that its construction may have 
"political implications." 
 
Ha'aretz reported that some 45 olive trees belonging to 
a Palestinian farmer from the West Bank village of 
Salem have been damaged, apparently by settlers, 
according to witnesses.  Several media reported that 20 
settlers were arrested in Hebron on Tuesday after they 
hurled stones and concrete blocks at policemen and IDF 
troops in the city's Avraham Avinu neighborhood.  The 
clashes erupted when security forces arrived to secure 
the site where repair work was due to be carried out on 
a fence surrounding a Palestinian house in the 
neighborhood. 
 
Ha'aretz and Maariv reported that the Knesset's 
Constitution, Law and Justice Committee approved the 
conditions for exceptions to the "Intifada law," 
clearing the way for some 2,000 Palestinians asking for 
Israeli compensation over damage caused during the 
conflict. 
Israel Radio and other media reported that this 
morning, Hamas gunmen on Wednesday shot and moderately 
wounded PA Preventive Security Service chief Rifat 
Kulab in the Gaza town of Khan Yunis.  The media 
reported that a Hamas militant was later shot and 
killed outside his home in the town in a possible 
retaliation. 
 
Yediot reported that 12 carefully vetted Israeli and 
Palestinian children will soon leave for a summer camp 
in Finland, where they will found the joint children's 
parliament of Israel and the PA.  The role of the child 
members of parliament will be to sit around a 
discussion table and raise new ideas for peace in the 
region.  The initiator of the idea is the Children's 
United Parliament of the World (CUPW), an independent 
organization based in Finland.  This is a non- 
governmental organization, which currently includes 50 
member states.  Yediot reported that the Israeli 
Foreign Ministry has agreed to sponsor the project and 
quoted Foreign Ministry officials as saying that they 
attribute great importance to Israel's participation in 
the project of the children's parliament. 
 
Maariv reported that four envelopes conspicuously 
marked "anthrax" and containing a substance suspected 
of being anthrax arrived at four addresses in Israel: a 
company in central Tel Aviv, a foreign embassy in Tel 
Aviv, a bank branch in Tel Aviv, and the Hebrew 
University of Jerusalem.  Maariv reported that the 
Israeli defense establishment is checking who is behind 
this attempt to sow panic.  Israel Radio reported that 
this morning, the Prime Minister's Office was evacuated 
due to a suspect envelope received in the mail, which 
was subsequently checked and did not contain 
explosives. 
 
Maariv reported that the Jewish Agency, the Foreign 
Ministry, and the IDF have initiated an operation to 
return Israelis residing in Los Angeles to Israel. 
Maariv quoted a Foreign Ministry source as saying that 
many inductees joining the IDF in August will be 
Israelis who had left the country for the US with their 
parents. 
Ha'aretz reported on a discussion among academics and 
activists in Washington regarding an expected USD 20- 
million donation to Georgetown University by Sheldon 
Adelson, allegedly the richest Jew in the world. The 
newspaper reported that Adelson is considering whether 
to donate the money to expand the University's Program 
for Jewish Civilization, part of its School of Foreign 
Service, into a full-fledged Center for Jewish 
Civilization.  The move would involve hiring three more 
professors, and possibly a new building.  Ha'aretz 
quoted a participant in the discussions as saying that 
the Jewish and Israeli presence at Georgetown, a Jesuit 
university that sends its graduates into the heart of 
the American political establishment, would reach a 
totally different level.  Ha'aretz quoted the Rabbi of 
Georgetown University, Harold White, as saying that a 
Jewish center would balance out the University's Arab 
center. 
 
Leading media reported that on Tuesday, the High Court 
of Justice ruled that Yigal Amir, who is serving a life 
sentence for assassinating then-PM Yitzhak Rabin in 
1995, is allowed to artificially inseminate his partner 
Larissa Trimbovler.  Media quoted Justice Ayala 
Procaccia as saying that like all prisoners, Amir has 
"basic human rights that were not appropriated from him 
when he went to prison."   Ha'aretz reported that Peace 
Now Secretary-General Yariv Oppenheimer called the High 
Court decision "shocking and outrageous." 
 
Yediot reported that a New York City commission found 
that one third of the city's Jews lives along or under 
the poverty line.  The commission was cited as saying 
that those poor are ultra-Orthodox, elderly, immigrants 
from Russia, or illegal Israeli residents in the US. 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Military correspondent Alex Fishman wrote on page one 
of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "The 
Hamas-led PA needed a tragedy [on the Gaza beach] like 
a breath of fresh air.  This incident gave it a chance 
to extricate itself from the highly difficult situation 
it had become mired in." 
 
Military correspondent Amos Harel and Palestinian 
affairs correspondent Avi Issacharoff wrote on page one 
of independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz: "The attempt to 
wage a political public relations battle to justify 
Israel's moves is doomed to failure." 
 
Military correspondent Amir Rappaport wrote on page one 
of pluralist, popular Maariv: "The Israeli-Palestinian 
conflict has deteriorated into a civil war, but not in 
the conventional sense of the word.  This is a war 
where the missiles and the Qassam rockets land in the 
heart of crowded population centers on both sides of 
the fence around the Gaza Strip, and as a result, 
innocent civilians pay a bloody price." 
 
Senior columnist Haggai Huberman wrote in the editorial 
of nationalist, Orthodox Hatzofe: "Olmert is returning 
precisely to Clinton's proposal from six years ago, 
while not demanding Ehud Barak's ultimate condition: 
the 'end of the conflict.'" 
 
 
 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
¶I.  "Hamas Found an Excuse" 
 
Military correspondent Alex Fishman wrote on page one 
of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (6/14): 
"Now we know that we're right.  We were told that the 
army was all right, that we were not the ones who 
killed the Ghalia family, and we certainly agree.  Even 
the Defense Minister (who is currently undergoing a 
process of militarization) agrees with the army that we 
are right.  We all agree with each other, and 
everyone's conscience is as white as driven snow.  So 
what?  The defense establishment is playing PR games 
with itself.   It needs this game to receive legitimacy 
from the public for the continuation of its security 
policy versus the Hamas-led PA in Gaza.  So it has 
legitimacy.  But where is the policy?  The only policy 
that it has is, at best, is a reactive policy that 
ensures instability in the long term.  What currently 
separates us between tense coexistence and 
deterioration and chaos is one Qassam rocket that will 
fall in the wrong spot, and not a coherent security 
doctrine from the participants of last night's [IDF] 
press conference.  The tragedy of the Ghalia family did 
not lead to a search for justice or for culprits.  From 
the outset, it served as a cynical instrument in the 
hands of the PA to speed up processes that were already 
on the ground in any case.  Therefore, in the 
Palestinian view, Tuesday's press conference will not 
change a thing.  Certainly not four days after the 
tragedy.  The Ghalia family is already a myth that 
flows deep in the veins.  The Hamas-led PA needed a 
tragedy of this sort like a breath of fresh air.  This 
incident gave it a chance to extricate itself from the 
highly difficult situation it had become mired in." 
 
II.  "Preventing Terror or Killing Civilians" 
 
Military correspondent Amos Harel and Palestinian 
affairs correspondent Avi Issacharoff wrote on page one 
of independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (6/14): "The 
attempt to wage a political public relations battle to 
justify Israel's moves is doomed to failure.  It 
appears that, in any case, the average observer in the 
West sees the post-disengagement conflict here as a 
bloodbath in which assassinations are indistinguishable 
from acts of revenge.  Israel makes a distinction 
between its approach -- we attack terrorists and, as an 
incidental result, Palestinian civilians occasionally 
get hurt -- and the Palestinian terrorists' approach of 
targeting civilians.  But this differentiation falls on 
apathetic ears.... [Even so,] the fact that Israeli 
attacks are taking place in the midst of the infighting 
between Hamas and Fatah has only increased the distress 
of the Gaza population.  Despite the internal disputes, 
both groups agreed on the appropriate response to the 
Gaza casualties: No Fatah leader criticized the Hamas 
declaration that it is renewing suicide bombings." 
 
III.  "Civil War" 
 
Military correspondent Amir Rappaport wrote on page one 
of pluralist, popular Maariv (6/14): "The Israeli- 
Palestinian conflict has deteriorated into a civil war, 
but not in the conventional sense of the word.  This is 
a war where the missiles and the Qassam rockets land in 
the heart of crowded population centers on both sides 
of the fence around the Gaza Strip, and as a result, 
innocent civilians pay a bloody price.... As for 
Tuesday's [IDF} press conference, few people in the 
world will believe that Israel is not to blame, and 
instinctively it is also hard to believe the IDF's 
version, but the evidence indicates that it is almost 
certainly true.  It should be assessed that the seven 
members of the Ghalia  family were hit by a bomb that 
Hamas placed on the beach to target naval commandos who 
stage raids on Qassam rocket launching grounds.  If 
Hamas's plan had succeeded, this would have recreated 
the 1997 naval commando disaster in Lebanon [in which 
11 IDF soldiers lost their lives]." 
 
IV.  "Heading for the Next Palestinian Victory" 
 
Senior columnist Haggai Huberman wrote in the editorial 
of nationalist, Orthodox Hatzofe (6/14): "On Tuesday, 
Ha'aretz published a report by Akiva Eldar that 
following regional and international opposition to 
unilateral Israeli moves, the [Israeli] government has 
begun to prepare an alternative plan, which will 
effectively turn Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's 
realignment plan into a bilateral initiative, to which 
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) would be a 
partner.... According to the plan, which has been 
prepared covertly, after the referendum Israel will 
offer Abu Mazen to reach an arrangement for 
establishing a Palestinian state that will include the 
Gaza Strip and 90 percent of Judea and Samaria [i.e. 
the West Bank].... If this proposal by Olmert is 
implemented, the Palestinians will be able to argue, 
and with complete justification from their viewpoint, 
that they won the war: Olmert is returning precisely to 
Clinton's proposal from six years ago, while not 
demanding Ehud Barak's ultimate condition: the 'end of 
the conflict.'  The Palestinians will receive their 
main wish -- an independent Palestinian state on an 
absolute majority of the territory of Judea and 
Samaria, without providing minimal recompense in the 
form of halting the violence.  The conflict will 
continue after the Israeli withdrawal as well, 
including all types of violence: Rocket fire, suicide 
bombers, and more." 
------------------------ 
¶2.  US-Israel Relations: 
------------------------ 
 
                       Summary: 
                       -------- 
 
Columnist Yonatan Rosenblum wrote in pluralist, popular 
Maariv: "The American Jews' identification with Israel 
... has dropped considerably." 
 
                     Block Quotes: 
                     ------------- 
 
"No Longer a 'Chosen People'" 
 
Columnist Yonatan Rosenblum wrote in pluralist, popular 
Maariv (6/14): "The June edition of [the US monthly] 
Commentary is entitled 'Whatever Happened to the Jewish 
People?' and describes the plummeting ethnic identity 
of America's Jews.  The findings of sociologist Steven 
[M.] Cohen and historian Jack Wertheimer have important 
repercussions on Israel-Diaspora relations and on the 
future of non-ultra-Orthodox Jews in the world.... 
Unsurprisingly, the American Jews' identification with 
Israel, as well as contributions for Israel (among non- 
ultra-Orthodox), has dropped considerably.... Young 
Jews in Israel and America resemble each other in the 
insignificance they attribute to their Judaism -- only 
one element of identity among many others.  As a 
result, the connection between them will dwindle 
increasingly.... The true tragedy is that most Jews are 
unaware that Judaism has a message, and that they are 
its carriers." 
 
JONES