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P 151208Z MAY 07
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UNCLAS TEL AVIV 001425 
 
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 ICD 
LONDON ALSO FOR HKANONA AND POL 
PARIS ALSO FOR POL 
ROME FOR MFO 
 
SIPDIS 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OPRC KMDR IS
 
SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION 
 
 
-------------------------------- 
SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: 
-------------------------------- 
 
Mideast 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
Ha'aretz cited information received on Monday from Washington that 
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is planning a trip to the region 
 
SIPDIS 
in June. 
 
The media reported that today Olmert will meet with King Abdullah II 
of Jordan in Aqaba after taking part in a meeting of Nobel 
Prizewinners in Petra.  The Jerusalem Post quoted senior diplomatic 
officials in Jerusalem as saying that Olmert may invite the King to 
address the Knesset.  Ha'aretz reported that PA Chairman [President] 
Mahmoud Abbas canceled his participation in the Petra meeting at the 
last minute. 
 
Leading media reported that, upon his return from Jordan this 
afternoon, PM Olmert will participate in a major IDF war game, which 
will test readiness to deal with multiple threats on several fronts. 
 Israel Radio said that the game will focus on leadership. 
 
Leading media quoted FM Tzipi Livni as saying on Monday before the 
Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the peace plans 
being presented by Arab nations were not a substitute for direct 
negotiations with the Palestinians.  Livni reiterated that a 
two-state solution is the only answer. 
 
Israel Radio cited the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi as saying that 
Vice President Richard Cheney told his hosts during a tour of the 
Middle East that the US is determined to end the crisis with Iran 
even if this required a military strike.  The radio also reported 
that Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns 
responded to reports of increasing Iranian nuclear activity by 
saying that sanctions against Iran should be bolstered.  Yediot and 
Maariv reported that Iran has arrested Haleh Esfandiari, an American 
woman of Iranian origin, who allegedly spied for Israel. 
 
All media reported that on Monday two brothers who had recently 
emigrated from France were arrested by police after one of the two 
confessed to murdering an Arab taxi driver in their Tel Aviv 
apartment.  Media cited the police's suspicion that the murder was a 
hate crime.  Ha'aretz cited the police's fear of retribution. 
 
Ha'aretz quoted Rabbi Avraham Wasserman, one of the organizers of 
Sunday's high-profile visit to the Temple Mount by dozens of 
Religious Zionist rabbis, as saying that Religious Zionist rabbis 
and yeshiva students are planning to continue their visits to the 
Mount.  Two articles in today's Yated Ne'eman, the mouthpiece of 
Lithuanian (non-Hasidic) ultra-Orthodox -- cited in Ha'aretz -- 
denounced the rabbis as "idol worshipers", "Reform" Jews, and 
"merchants trading in the Torah's commandments."  Ha'aretz reported 
that tensions around the Mugrabi Gate archeological works near the 
Old City have subsided following the evaluation of the construction 
activity by a Turkish and UN delegation, which confirmed that the 
Temple Mount is not being harmed by these efforts. 
 
Channel 2-TV reported that IDF soldiers serving in elite units were 
hurt in a secret trial of a vaccine against anthrax-type biological 
weapons. 
 
Maariv reported that a far-left wing Harvard University group that 
includes Jews and Israelis distributed "wanted for crimes of war" 
posters for former IDF chief of staff Dan Halutz. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that, in a position paper entitled "The Haifa 
Declaration," a group of Israeli Arab intellectuals are calling on 
Israel to recognize its responsibility for the Nakba ("The 
Catastrophe," the Palestinians' term for what happened to them after 
1948) and to act to implement the Palestinian refugees' right of 
return and establishment of a Palestinian state.  The paper says 
that these moves will pave the way to a historic reconciliation 
between the Jewish nation in Israel and the Palestinian people. 
Ha'aretz noted that the demands in the Haifa Declaration are similar 
to those made in previous position papers and consist first and 
foremost of abolishing the Jewish state. 
 
Ha'aretz cited figures for 2006 released by the GOI's Central Bureau 
of Statistics according to which Jerusalem is Israel's largest city, 
with a jurisdiction of 126,000 dunams (approximately 28,000 acres) 
and 732,000 residents.  Some 469,000 (64 percent) of Jerusalem's 
residents are Jews, compared to some 239,000 (32 percent) Muslims 
and some 14,700 (2 percent) Christians.  The natural growth rate 
among the highly concentrated ultra-Orthodox Jewish and Arab 
communities in Jerusalem is much higher than the national average. 
Ha'aretz reported that on Monday only seven ambassadors attended the 
festive gathering at the Knesset celebrating 40 years of Jerusalem's 
reunification.  In attendance were the ambassadors of Georgia, 
Nigeria, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Congo, the Ivory Coast and Honduras. 
The ambassadors of EU members, the United States and most other 
countries represented in Israel boycotted the event because they do 
not recognize the legitimacy of a unified Jerusalem. 
 
Yediot reported on a European plan to fund the PLO, by-passing 
Hamas. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that, utilizing state-of-the-art laser 
and fiber optics technology, the IDF plans to "revolutionize" 
security for the Jewish community of Hebron in an effort to minimize 
friction between settlers and local Palestinians. 
 
All media reported that PA Interior Minister Hani Kawasmeh resigned 
on Monday, as factional fighting in the Gaza Strip continued for a 
second day despite efforts to reach a truce.  The fighting, in which 
four people were killed on Monday and five on Sunday, is the first 
since Hamas and Fatah agree to form a unity government in February. 
Leading electronic media reported that this morning Hamas gunmen 
attacked a Palestinian Presidential Guard's training camp near the 
Karni crossing.  According to the reports, at least 10 people were 
hurt in the exchanges of fire and the crossing was closed down. 
 
All media reported that on Monday, in a first-of-a-kind request, PM 
Ehud Olmert's attorneys wrote to Attorney General Menachem Mazuz 
asking that State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss be probed for 
allegedly abusing his office's powers -- a crime that carries a 
maximum sentence of three years in prison.  The complaint relates to 
the comptroller's report on Olmert's purchase of a house on 
Jerusalem's Cremieux St.  Leading media reported that Mazuz and the 
police are unlikely to accede to the request.  Ha'aretz reported 
that AG Menachem Mazuz may veto the return of former justice 
minister Haim Ramon to the government, which media reported is being 
actively backed by Olmert. 
 
Major media reported that members of the Kadima Party have advised 
Vice PM Shimon Peres not to run for the presidency of Israel, 
because his chances of winning currently appear low. 
 
Leading media quoted Murad Mosli (phon.), a former senior Syrian 
official, as saying on Sunday on the Internet site of Aljazeera-TV 
that the remains of Israeli spy Eli Cohen, who was executed in 1965, 
cannot be accessed because of the construction of a neighborhood and 
public structures above his grave. 
Yediot reported that over the weekend a pro-Palestinian organization 
in Canada called to boycott a bookstore chain whose Jewish owners 
support IDF soldiers. 
 
Yediot reported that the Israel Police plans to merge its four 
investigative branches into an "Israeli FBI." 
 
Ha'aretz reported that the Jewish Museum in New York City is 
currently showing an exhibition of 40 photographs and video films of 
23 Israeli and other artists and photographers who try to capture 
glimpses of life in Israel with their lenses.  The newspaper quoted 
curator Susan Tumarkin Goodman as saying that although she had no 
political agenda, the works do contain political content and there 
are messages behind them 
 
Ha'aretz, The Jerusalem Post, and Makor Rishon-Hatzofe quoted the 
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as saying on Monday that an ADL study 
covering five European countries -- France, Italy, Germany, Spain, 
and Poland -- found rising anti-Semitism, including beliefs that 
Jews have too much power in business and finance. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
-------- 
Mideast: 
-------- 
 
Summary: 
-------- 
 
The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "The religious 
Zionist rabbis who ascended the Temple Mount on Sunday knowingly and 
irresponsibly brought a burning torch nearer to the most flammable 
hill in the Middle East." 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized: "It 
should be no surprise if many in the Arab world see success in 
denying Israel recognition in any part of Jerusalem as representing 
success in the campaign to deny Israel's right to exist." 
 
Palestinian affairs researcher Moshe Elad, a former senior IDF 
official in the West Bank and former head of Israel-PA coordination, 
wrote in the mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: 
"Condoleezza Rice's latest 'benchmark plan,' as well as the 
Roadmap's updated versions, represent symptoms not of solving 
problems of "failed states" but of creating such states." 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "A Provocation in Religious Clothing" 
 
The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (5/15): "The 
religious Zionist rabbis who ascended the Temple Mount on Sunday 
knowingly and irresponsibly brought a burning torch nearer to the 
most flammable hill in the Middle East.  No supposedly pretext of 
Jewish religious law will serve them when this stupid provocation 
sheds innocent blood, through riots of which only the beginning can 
be predicted, and whose continuation does not bear imagining.... 
There are two principal reasons for refraining from ascending the 
mount. One is strictly related to Jewish religious law and was 
observed for 2,000 years by all Jews whose way of life was governed 
by Jewish religious law.  Now, these rabbis are suddenly going 
through contortions to make Jewish religious law more flexible, 
while ignoring the dangers that this entails.... The second 
principle in whose name Jews have refrained from praying on the 
Temple Mount since 1967 is political wisdom, which dictates extreme 
caution at the rim of a volcano. No rabbi is responsible for this 
arena; only the government is.  Thus religious Zionist rabbis can 
try to run riot, but the government has an obligation to restrain 
them.  The Prime Minister must forbid the rabbis from ascending the 
Temple Mount and prevent the political conflict from deteriorating 
into a devastating religious one." 
 
II.  "Jerusalem and Peace" 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (5/15): 
"The flap over the expected nonattendance of European and American 
diplomats at Monday's official celebration of the 40th anniversary 
of Jerusalem's reunification is unfortunate.... At some level, it is 
understandable that the international community regards the issue of 
Jerusalem as a matter that must ultimately be resolved in 
negotiations with the Arab world, and in particular with the 
Palestinians.  Israel, since agreeing to the Oslo Accords that 
define Jerusalem as a final status issue, does not dispute this.  It 
is one thing, however, to treat a matter as negotiable, and quite 
another to lean so heavily against one side in a negotiation.  There 
is no reason or justice, for example, in the international refusal 
to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital.  Every nation has a 
right to determine its capital, even if the borders of that capital 
are destined to be the topic of negotiations.... Extreme measures 
taken not to recognize Israeli sovereignty over any part of 
Jerusalem are only matched by the blatant bias toward recognizing 
Palestinian claims to disputed areas.  Such extremes include a 
practice by the State Department of refusing to mark the passports 
and birth certificates of American citizens born in Jerusalem with 
'Jerusalem, Israel' as their birthplace.  This practice continues 
despite the passage of a law in 2002 mandating its cessation.... It 
should be no surprise if many in the Arab world see success in 
denying Israel recognition in any part of Jerusalem as representing 
success in the campaign to deny Israel's right to exist.  The 
opposite policy -- that of recognizing that Jerusalem, even if its 
borders are disputed, is Israel's capital -- would have a 
proportionately positive effect on the prospects for peace: it would 
be taken in the Muslim world as further international rejection of 
the goal of destroying Israel.  It is this goal that is the only 
real obstacle to peace; anything that contributes to its abandonment 
is an important step toward ending the Arab-Israeli conflict." 
 
 
 
 
III.  "They Were Given a State" 
 
Palestinian affairs researcher Moshe Elad, a former senior IDF 
official in the West Bank and former head of Israel-PA coordination, 
wrote in the mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (5/15): "In 
July 2004, close to its 228th Independence Day, the United States 
established the 'Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and 
Stabilization' of failed states.  The person in charge of the 
'reconstruction' of states, Carlos Pascual, explained at the time 
that failed states represented a strategic threat to the Western 
world, in particular to the US, and that, more than the US is 
interested in their stabilization, it is looking for its benefit in 
reconstructing them -- what was said was 'its benefit,' not that of 
the failing states, and certainly not that of their neighbors. 
Condoleezza Rice's latest 'benchmark plan,' as well as the Roadmap's 
updated versions, represent symptoms not of solving problems of 
"failed states" but of creating such states.  Proclaiming the 
lifting of roadblocks and the opening of crossings in a way that is 
totally detached from the security reality currently in place in the 
territories is a classical expression of the 'lame duck' policy of 
US administrations in their waning days.  Such declarations will 
cause Palestine to join the long list in the hands of the US 
administrations, which shows that from 1955 to 2000 there have been 
144 failed states that threatened world peace." 
 
JONES