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Leza L Olson  11/29/2006 02:01:20 PM  From  DB/Inbox:  Leza L Olson

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RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS PRIORITY 9352
RUEHRB/AMEMBASSY RABAT PRIORITY 6028
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STATE FOR NEA, NEA/IPA, NEA/PPD 
 
WHITE HOUSE FOR PRESS OFFICE, SIT ROOM 
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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 ICD 
LONDON ALSO FOR HKANONA AND POL 
PARIS ALSO FOR POL 
ROME FOR MFO 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: IS KMDR
 
SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION 
 
-------------------------------- 
SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: 
-------------------------------- 
 
Mideast 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
Ha'aretz quoted sources in Washington as saying on Tuesday that 
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans to tell PA Chairman 
 
SIPDIS 
[President] Mahmoud Abbas at their meeting Thursday that he must 
increase his efforts to impose order in the PA, in order not to miss 
the opportunity to resume negotiations offered by the Gaza 
cease-fire and PM Ehud Olmert's speech in Sde Boker on Monday.  The 
sources were quoted as saying that Secretary Rice will pledge 
America's aid in strengthening Abbas's position, but will stress 
that the US expects results from him in return.  Ha'aretz quoted 
Israeli officials as saying that Washington understands that further 
progress depends on the success of the cease-fire, which took effect 
on Sunday.  Ha'aretz wrote that, as of Tuesday night, it was still 
unclear whether Rice would also come to Jerusalem to meet with 
Olmert and FM Tzipi Livni, or whether she would merely pop over to 
Jericho for a meeting with Abbas following her scheduled visit to 
Jordan.  She was slated to make a final decision late Tuesday night. 
 Several media reported that she is probably expected to meet with 
Abbas in Jericho.  Maariv quoted State Department Sean McCormack as 
saying on Tuesday that the Secretary could possibly have a meeting 
with Israeli officials. 
 
Yediot reported that on Tuesday Abbas asked King Abdullah II of 
Jordan to convey to President Bush a message that he must take 
advantage of the momentum created by the cease-fire to resume 
Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations immediately.  The daily 
reported that Olmert and Abbas will apparently not take advantage of 
the Amman summit to meet today in the presence of President Bush and 
King Abdullah.  Yediot reported that Olmert's bureau has informed 
the US that, fearing that such a meeting would raise huge 
expectations that the sides might not bear, Olmert has reservations 
about a meeting at this time.  Yediot said that US administration 
envoy Elliott Abrams met with Olmert on Tuesday, praised him for his 
conciliatory speech, and did not mention a four-way summit. 
 
Ha'aretz and Israel Radio reported that two rockets were launched 
from the northern Gaza Strip last night.  The station reported that 
Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades have claimed responsibility for the 
attack.  The radio quoted Olmert as saying that the continuation of 
Qassam rocket fire is disappointing but that Israel will continue to 
respect the cease-fire.  However, Israel Radio quoted Defense 
Minister Amir Peretz as saying that Israel will act against 
Palestinian groups that will continue to fire rockets at Israel.  MK 
Tzachi Hanegbi, Chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and 
Defense Committee, was quoted as saying in an interview with Israel 
Radio this morning, that the test period that Israel granted the 
Palestinians is reaching its end.  The Jerusalem Post and Yediot 
reported that on Tuesday in Nablus militants of the Al Aqsa Martyrs 
Brigades put on view what they claim is a new homemade rocket named 
"Jondallah" (Soldiers of God). 
 
Major media reported that Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman 
will come to Israel today for talks on a deal over the release of 
soldier Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped to Gaza by Hamas in a 
cross-border raid in June.  Olmert said in his Sde Boker speech that 
Shalit's return was a precondition for diplomatic negotiations with 
the PA.  Ha'aretz said that Suleiman will brief Olmert and other 
Israeli officials on his talks with Khaled Mashal, the head of 
Hamas's political bureau, last week. After these talks, the 
Egyptians said that progress had been made toward finalizing a 
prisoner exchange.  He will also discuss ways to shore up the 
cease-fire and other issues related to efforts to promote diplomatic 
negotiations between Israel and the PA.  However, Ha'aretz quoted a 
source familiar with the negotiations over Shalit as saying that 
these talks are currently at an impasse due to disagreements over 
how many Palestinian prisoners Israel will free in exchange for the 
kidnapped soldier. 
 
Ha'aretz (Zeev Schiff) reported that senior Israel Air Force 
officers met recently with the heads of the Foreign Ministry in 
Jerusalem on the issue of Israeli overflights of Lebanon, and that 
it was decided to establish an Israel-UNIFIL coordinating body. 
Schiff also reported that Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah recently 
fired the commander responsible for the Baalbek area, Hasin Jamil 
Yunis, who is responsible for the region considered Hizbullah's 
logical center.  The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli military 
sources have told the newspaper that, in direct opposition to an 
order by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, the IDF's Northern 
Command led y its former chief, Maj. Gen. Udi Adam, is suspected of 
ordering the firing of cluster bombs into populated areas during the 
last few days of the war in Lebanon. 
 
Israel Radio quoted Lebanese President Emile Lahud as saying in an 
interview with BBC-TV that Fouad Siniora's government is 
illegitimate and that Israel is behind the assassination of Lebanese 
Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel. 
 
Yediot reported that student diaries distributed by Israel's Islamic 
Movement at the University of Haifa mark the birthdays of Osama bin 
Ladin and Hassan Nasrallah. 
All media reported that on Tuesday the police questioned Likud 
Chairman MK Binyamin Netanyahu on charges that he has let the 
Education Ministry fund polls conducted by Prof. Yaacov Katz, which 
he commissioned for his own use. 
 
Ha'aretz Washington correspondent Shmuel Rosner reported that, 
during a briefing on Tuesday, US National Security Advisor Steven 
Hadley expressed the "most explicit public US position so far" 
against Israeli-Syrian negotiations.  Ha'aretz noted that Hadley's 
comments are particularly interesting bearing in mind recent 
disclosures from the Baker/Hamilton committee. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that the Israeli defense establishment 
plans to make an official decision in the coming days to invest 300 
million shekels (around USD 69 million) in an anti-Qassam rocket and 
anti-Katyusha rocket defense system under development system under 
development by Rafael -- Israel's Armament Development Authority. 
In the body of the article, a sum of USD 300,000 is cited. 
 
Israel Radio quoted Vice PM Shimon Peres as saying on Tuesday before 
students at Cornell University that settlements should be 
concentrated on approximately 8 percent of the West Bank land, while 
the Palestinians would be compensated with land outside the West 
Bank, so that they would have almost 100 percent compensation. 
Peres was quoted as saying that the Palestinians agree to such an 
arrangement.  Peres also said that Israel admits to erring when it 
made use of cluster bombs during the recent Lebanon War. 
 
Ha'aretz reported on rumors currently flying in Washington that, in 
his speech on Monday. Olmert hinted that he plans to release jailed 
Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti.  The newspaper noted that some 
American officials believe that Barghouti's release could improve 
the prospects of Israeli-Palestinian peace.  Israel Radio quoted 
Barghouti as saying that he has only met with Arab Knesset members. 
Barghouti denied recent reports that he met with Israeli 
politicians, including FM Livni, or that he is a party in any 
negotiations with Israel. 
 
The Jerusalem Post quoted Palestinian security sources as saying 
that Palestinian FM Mahmoud Zahar, who returned to the Gaza Strip 
from abroad on Tuesday, brought with him nearly USD 20 million in 
cash. 
 
Yediot reported that Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin met with UN High 
Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour several days ago in 
order to present the moral dilemmas faced by Israel in its struggle 
against Palestinian terrorism.  Arbour reportedly told Diskin that 
targeted assassinations are illegitimate, that Israeli restrictions 
cause the Palestinian population to radicalize their views and 
weaken moderate Palestinian elements, and that Israel should 
compensate families of the Beit Hanun shelling victims, thus 
enabling it to prove its claim that the deaths resulted from an 
accident. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that the GOI proposes to extend the Citizenship 
and Entry into Israel Law (the Temporary Order known as the 
"Citizenship Law") by two years, until the end of 2008, despite 
harsh criticism leveled at it by the High Court of Justice.  The 
government seeks to expand the law to cover several "threat states," 
presumably mainly Arab and Muslim countries. 
 
Meretz Chairman MK Yossi Beilin was quoted as saying in an interview 
with Maariv that scary pronouncements by Olmert and Netanyahu on 
Iran's nuclear program are "anti-Zionist" and potentially cause 
Israelis to leave the country. 
 
Yediot and The Jerusalem Post reported that the IDF has created a 
unit that will emulate Hizbullah fighters and Syrian soldiers for 
training purposes.  Israel Radio cited the Lebanese newspaper 
Al-Mustaqbal as saying that Lebanese security forces have uncovered 
a Syrian plan to assassinate 36 opponents of Syria in Lebanon. 
Leading media cited an announcement by the Syrian government that 
Omar Abdullah, a Syrian leader of the Islamic militant group Tawheed 
Wajihad, blew himself up at a Syrian border post along the Lebanese 
border after a gun battle with Syrian security forces on Tuesday. 
 
The Jerusalem Post quoted AP as saying that Hizbullah denied on 
Tuesday that it was raining fighters from the Mahdi Army, and Iraqi 
Shi'ite militia blamed for sectarian killings in the war-torn 
country. 
 
The Jerusalem Post quoted Sudan's President Field Marshal Omar 
Hassan Ahmed al-Bashir a saying on Tuesday in a video-link interview 
with the newspaper that reported in Western newspapers of hundreds 
of thousands dead in his country's brutal civil war were all part of 
an Israeli-led worldwide conspiracy. 
 
Leading media reported that the Jewish Agency and European Jewish 
organizations will hold a mass solidarity rally today with the 
kidnapped Israeli soldiers in front of the EU institutions in 
Brussels. 
Yediot and Maariv reported that Segolene Royal, the Socialist 
contender for the French presidency, will visit Israel on Sunday. 
Her announced trip follows criticism in Israel of her alleged 
indifference to Israel and French Jewry. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that the heads of the American Jewish Committee 
sent Olmert an unusually harsh letter on Tuesday, warning him that 
if a proposed change goes through in the Law of Return (of Jews to 
Israel) excluding converts in the definition of a Jew, it could 
seriously impair support for Israel among American Jews. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that a group of Israeli organizations headed by 
Pensioners' Affairs Minister Rafi Eitan, who holds the Diaspora 
affairs portfolio, announced this week that Israel wants the right 
to appoint half the members of the executive of the Conference on 
Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, a US-based organization that 
represents world Jewry and Holocaust survivors in their negotiations 
over reparations from Germany.  Eitan estimates the Claims 
Conference's financial reserves at some USD 1.7 billion.  Every 
year, the conference gives grants totaling about USD 90 million to 
organizations worldwide that help Holocaust survivors or are 
involved in Holocaust education and remembrance.  About half of this 
money goes to Israeli organizations. 
 
All media highlighted the open-ended general strike in the public 
sector, which started at 06:00 local time today.  The strike is over 
withheld wages of workers in some local authorities.  Traffic at the 
country's airports and seaports will be brought to a halt. 
 
-------- 
Mideast: 
-------- 
 
Summary: 
-------- 
 
Washington correspondent Shmuel Rosner wrote on page one of the 
independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz: "Iraq, the mammoth in the middle 
of the room, is the key issue of [President Bush's] visit [to 
Jordan].  However important, anything else is no more than a side 
show." 
 
Chief Economic Editor Sever Plotker wrote in the editorial of the 
mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "Instead of pursuing 
the illusion of a 'political horizon' with Hamas ... the Israeli 
government could have and should launch negotiations with an Arab 
government that is willing to have full peace with us, meaning 
Syria.  This is the only attainable peace." 
Ha'aretz editorialized: "The cease-fire will be able to take hold 
only if it applies to both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank." 
 
Conservative columnist Yosef Harif wrote in the popular, pluralist 
Maariv: "If Israel accepts to hold negotiations with the Palestinian 
Authority without insisting on the respect of the first clause [of 
the Roadmap], it will place itself into a dangerous Catch-22 
situation." 
 
Gidi Grinstein, founder and president of the Re'ut Institute 
(www.reut-institute.org), who served on the Israeli delegation to 
the negotiations with the PLO from 1999 to 2001, wrote in the 
conservative, independent Jerusalem Post: "What is better for 
Israel: a functioning Hamas government in the Palestinian Authority 
that may serve as an 'address' or the imminent total breakdown of 
Palestinian governance?" 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "Summit of Fear" 
 
Washington correspondent Shmuel Rosner wrote on page one of the 
independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (11/29): "Iraq, the mammoth in 
the middle of the room, is the key issue of [President Bush's] visit 
[to Jordan].  However important, anything else is no more than a 
side show.... [Jordan's King] Abdullah's fear [of a civil war in 
Iraq] is backed by frightening figures.  Iraqi refugees are 
inundating Jordan at an overwhelming pace -- they add up to almost 
one million.  On Tuesday the King added a new concern to this 
anxiety: He warned about developments that would cause residents of 
the Palestinian West Bank to settle in Jordan, too.  He said that he 
would not allow this.... [Since outgoing State Department adviser 
Philip Zelikow linked a few months ago the solution of the Iran 
crisis to progress on the Israeli-Palestinian track] there has been 
no real advance in both those arenas.... Bush's visit to Jordan will 
certainly not be the harbinger of a breakthrough." 
 
II.  "Tell Me the Truth" 
 
Chief Economic Editor Sever Plotker wrote in the editorial of the 
mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (11/29): "Hamas is 
perceived as the organization that holds the key to calm in the 
Middle East, and therefore it is necessary to put up with it.  And 
the Israeli government is indeed accepting it.... Like thieves in 
the night, without any in-depth public debate and without asking the 
citizens, the Israeli government has accepted as an established fact 
the legitimate control of Hamas over the Palestinian Authority, and 
the necessity of reaching arrangements with it -- without Hamas, for 
its part, having agreed to accept even one of the conditions set for 
recognizing Israel or speaking with Israel, as formulated by us. 
From Israel's side, the die has been cast, and it would be best for 
the government to act with transparency and to speak the truth: 
Hamas is from now on the official Palestinian partner for dialogue. 
Abu Mazen is good as a cardboard policeman who has been placed by 
the roadside for the duration of President Bush's visit to the 
Middle East.  When Bush goes, Abu Mazen will be folded up.... 
Neither Ehud Olmert nor Abu Mazen, Marwan Barghouti, nor even Ismail 
Haniyeh come out as winners from the critical confrontation between 
the Israeli government and the Hamas government.  The winner is 
Khaled Mashal, a terrorist activist, a dark and fanatic figure, who 
has been the target of an Israeli assassination more than once. 
Instead of pursuing the illusion of a 'political horizon' with 
Hamas, the result of which is issuing Hamas a certificate of 
legitimacy, the Israeli government could have and should launch 
negotiations with an Arab government that is willing to have full 
peace with us, meaning Syria.  This is the only attainable peace." 
 
III.  "Cease the Fire in the West Bank, Too" 
 
Ha'aretz editorialized (11/29): "The cease-fire will be able to take 
hold only if it applies to both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. 
It is impossible to separate what happens in these two places: 
Every military operation in the West Bank is liable to draw a 
response from Gaza, and vice versa.... Anyone who wants to give the 
cease-fire a chance must impose maximum restraint on himself.... 
This is the time to demonstrate openness and generosity.  Israel 
must give the cease-fire a chance, and not bring about its collapse 
through unnecessary military operations, as has happened more than 
once with past cease-fires. The order of the day must now be: Cease 
the fire, both in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank." 
 
IV.  "A Palestinian Terror State" 
 
Conservative columnist Yosef Harif wrote in the popular, pluralist 
Maariv (11/29): "The [Israeli] public does not feel that the 
cease-fire with the Palestinians constitutes a real turning-point 
that may lead to a matter-of-fact dialogue towards a peace 
agreement.  Israel has more than once experienced cease-fires that 
were used by terrorist organizations to rearm; they did not contain 
an expression of willingness to negotiate over any concession.... 
Now that a cease-fire, the length no one can assess, has been 
reached, there is a concern that the European states will view it as 
an achievement that has to be maintained and pressure Israel into 
agreeing to hold negotiations unconditionally.  From this point of 
view it would be worthwhile to follow the understandings that will 
be reached at President Bush's upcoming meeting with King Abdullah 
in Amman.  If Israel accepts to hold negotiations with the 
Palestinian Authority without insisting on the respect of the first 
clause [of the Roadmap -- the termination of violence against 
Israel], it will place itself into a dangerous Catch-22 situation: 
Israel will be required to make concessions in order to allow the 
establishment of a Palestinian state, with the extremist terrorist 
organizations remaining in place, without receiving any authority, 
and state-of-the-art weapons they are amassing in huge quantities 
continuing to threaten Israel." 
 
¶V.  "The Axis of Resistance" 
 
Gidi Grinstein, founder and president of the Re'ut Institute 
(www.reut-institute.org), who served on the Israeli delegation to 
the negotiations with the PLO from 1999 to 2001, wrote in the 
conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (11/29): "Some moderates in 
the region are beginning to frame America as a liability and to 
hedge their bets with the new 'hegemone' in Tehran.  Unless the US 
throws many more resources into the problem or establishes clear 
priorities, it may experience a domino effect from Afghanistan to 
Cairo.  This may compromise Israel in ways that resemble the impact 
of the decline of the Soviet empire on its Arab proteges.   In the 
present strategic makeup, Israel's paths toward securing its 
existence in the region have been effectively blocked while the 
vision of an Islamic, Arab or Palestinian state in its place is 
advanced.... Israel has to question some working assumptions that 
have been taken for granted for too long.  For example, what is 
better for Israel: a functioning Hamas government in the Palestinian 
Authority that may serve as an 'address' or the imminent total 
breakdown of Palestinian governance?  Which is more important: 
preserving Israel's freedom of action or creating closer alliance 
with moderate Arab countries that are also compromised by radical 
Shi'ite Islam?  Is the establishment of a Palestinian state an 
Israeli concession or an Israeli interest?  There is no silver 
bullet here.  It is time for Israel to be relevant again and to 
shape our national security." 
 
JONES