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P 011013Z OCT 07
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UNCLAS TEL AVIV 002880 
 
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STATE FOR NEA, NEA/IPA, NEA/PPD 
 
WHITE HOUSE FOR PRESS OFFICE, SIT ROOM 
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LONDON ALSO FOR HKANONA AND POL 
PARIS ALSO FOR POL 
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E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OPRC KMDR IS
 
SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION 
 
-------------------------------- 
SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: 
-------------------------------- 
 
Iran 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
Israel Radio quoted Palestinian sources as saying that last night 
Hamas handed over an Al Qaeda terrorist to Egypt.  In exchange, 
Egypt let Hamas and Islamic Jihad members cross into Gaza. 
 
Over the weekend leading media quoted a US official as saying on 
Saturday that the US is likely to hold its Middle East meeting in 
Annapolis, Maryland.   Abbas was quoted as saying on Sunday in Cairo 
that more than 36 countries are expected to participate in the fall 
meeting, which he said "makes it necessary for us to arrive there 
with a clear document that will 'pave the way' for future talks on 
the details of a final agreement."  However, Ha'aretz quoted 
Palestinian sources as saying that it is doubtful whether Syria, 
Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia will attend the meeting.  On Sunday Yediot 
cited assessments in the US that Syria will participate.  Makor 
Rishon-Hatzofe quoted Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa as 
saying that Syria will take part in the meeting. 
 
Leading media reported that PM Ehud Olmert and PA Chairman 
[President] Mahmoud Abbas are scheduled to meet on Wednesday.  On 
Sunday Ha'aretz reported that Israel fears Palestinian positions may 
be hardening ahead of the first meeting between Israeli and 
Palestinian negotiating teams which will work on a joint statement 
ahead of the November meeting.  Today Ha'aretz quoted a senior 
Palestinian source as saying that the PA will publicly call for the 
involvement of an international body to oversee the implementation 
of agreements with Israel on economic and political reforms in the 
PA.  According to the same source, who is involved in the 
negotiations, Israel is expected to accept the participation of a 
"third party" in the region.  The senior official was quoted as 
saying that the PA would agree to a formula in which the 
international body would function in a similar fashion as UNIFIL. 
The makeup of the international body and its authority will be 
determined during the summit, but an agreement may be reached even 
sooner, according to the senior Palestinian source. The senior 
Palestinian official made it clear that from the point of view of 
the PA, the involvement of the US alone will not be enough.  He was 
quoted as saying that the new body will not only be involved in 
matters pertaining to negotiations, but will include representatives 
from other countries, like Japan, the Arab League and the EU. 
 
On Sunday The Jerusalem Post reported that Chairman Abbas told the 
newspaper that an offer similar to the  one proposed at Camp David 
in 2000 (92 percent of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip) is not 
enough.  He insisted on the pre-1967 borders.  On Sunday Maariv 
reported that "very high-ranking" political officials in Jerusalem 
told Abbas that Israel will not announce an historic concession on 
any of the three core issues of the conflict even at the price of 
having the international conference fail. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter told 
the newspaper this weekend that the Samaria and Judea (Shai) [i.e. 
West Bank] District Police will move its headquarters to the 
controversial E-1 area, which links Jerusalem with the West Bank 
settlement of Ma'aleh Adumim, by the end of this year, regardless of 
whether or not the US approves. 
 
All media reported that on Sunday thousands of settlers hiked to 
five empty hilltops in the West Bank and created five new outposts. 
The Jerusalem Post quoted Datya Yitzhaki, one of the organizers of 
the event, as saying: "It is our answer to [Secretary of State] 
Condoleezza Rice," referring to the fall meeting.  The media quoted 
the IDF as saying that it was planning to evacuate the activists 
from the hilltops, but that evacuations might be postponed -- 
according to The Jerusalem Post, because of counterterrorism 
operations being carried out in the West Bank. 
 
Leading media reported that Israel is to set free 87 Palestinian 
security prisoners today. 
 
Ha'aretz and The Jerusalem Post reported that Hamas has called yet 
again for a cease-fire (hudna) with Israel.  Ha'aretz said that a 
GOI spokesman dismissed Hamas's statement. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that the UN Office for the Coordination 
of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned on Sunday that if Israel 
carries out its threatened sanctions after declaring Gaza "hostile 
territory," it would likely create a humanitarian crisis. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that on Sunday Syria denied that military activity 
is taking place at the Dir al-Zur research farm, which was the 
target of an Israeli bombing raid in Syria about a month ago, 
according to a report last week in Yediot.  On Sunday Maariv cited 
the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida as saying the Ali-Reza Asgari, the 
Iranian general who defected to the West, provided information that 
assisted Israel in its attack on Syria.  The Jerusalem Post cited a 
denial by the Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry 
Lands in Syria.  Over the weekend major media reported that on 
Saturday Syrian Vice President Farouk Shara accused Israel of 
planning to attack his country, rejecting reports that the alleged 
IAF earlier this month targeted a nuclear facility.  On Sunday 
leading media cited quoted Shara as saying on Saturday that his 
country does not want war with Israel "in the distant or near 
future." 
 
Over the weekend leading media reported that the UN Security Council 
will not vote on imposing tougher sanctions on Iran before November 
at the earliest, when the IAEA is expected to submit its report on 
Iran's nuclear weapons program. 
 
On Sunday Ha'aretz and The Jerusalem Post reported that on Friday 
Britain's University and College Union announced that it is dropping 
its controversial plans to boycott Israeli universities, after 
deciding that a boycott would be illegal. 
 
On Sunday Ha'aretz quoted the Foreign Ministry as saying that Israel 
is concerned by the situation in Myanmar, and that it urges the 
government to demonstrate restraint from harming demonstrators. 
 
The Jerusalem Post cited The New Yorker as saying that the US plans 
for an attack on Iran are insufficient for Israel.  Major media 
quoted former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton as saying that he 
sees no alternative to a preemptive strike on Iranian nuclear 
facilities. 
 
On Sunday Ha'aretz reported that Israel is considering downgrading 
its relations with Venezuela in light of the extremist anti-Israel 
line taken by the country's government under President Hugo Chavez. 
Israel is concerned about the growing alliance between Chavez and 
his Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. 
 
Maariv reported that the Interior Ministry is examining a USG offer 
to provide Israel with biometric passports, whose bearers will not 
need visas to travel to the U.S.  The newspaper quoted Interior 
Minister Meir Sheetrit as saying that the nature of the US proposal 
is not clear, but that he "would be happy to exempt [Israeli] 
citizens from that bother."  The Jerusalem Post reported that the 
ministry is initiating legislation to introduce biometric passports 
by the end of 2008. 
 
Ha'aretz and Yediot reported that Maj. Gen. Dan Harel is scheduled 
to take over today as deputy IDF chief of staff from Moshe 
Kaplinsky. 
 
Makor Rishon-Hatzofe reported on the inauguration in Richardson, TX, 
of the Texas-Israel Chamber of Commerce.  Israel's Consul-General to 
the Southwest Asher Yashar and Texas Governor Rick Perry attended 
the ceremony 
 
Makor Rishon-Hatzofe quoted Bassam Abu Sharif, former senior adviser 
to Yasser Arafat, as saying on Sunday that in the 1970s Anwar Sadat 
proposed that Arafat join him in a war against Israel, promising him 
a Palestinian state. 
 
On Sunday The Jerusalem Post reported that in a meeting in New York 
with representatives of the American Jewish community, Turkish PM 
Recep Tayyip Erdogan rejected allegations that the massacre of 
Armenians during World War II was an act of genocide. 
 
On Sunday The Jerusalem Post cited an AP report that President 
George Bush has been asked to award the Presidential Medal of 
Freedom posthumously to Prof. Liviu Librescu, an Israeli Holocaust 
survivor who died trying to save his students during the mass 
killings at Virginia Tech in April. 
 
Leading media reported that industrialist Stef Wertheimer and his 
family are at number 10 -- the highest position for the six Israelis 
on Forbes Magazine's list of the Middle East's 20 richest people. 
 
Maariv ran a feature on a book recently published President Bush's 
daughter Jenna, which Maariv says is bound to boost the popularity 
of George and Laura Bush. 
 
----- 
Iran: 
----- 
 
Summary: 
-------- 
 
The Director of the Interdisciplinary Center's Global Research in 
International Affairs Center, columnist Barry Rubin, wrote in the 
conservative, independent Jerusalem Post: "Ahmadinejad has not yet 
achieved the status of being equivalent to Adolf Hitler or Joseph 
Stalin as the world's leading threat to peace and freedom; but he is 
certainly trying to rise to this level." 
 
Chief Economic Editor Sever Plotker opined in the mass-circulation, 
pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "For 95 percent of Americans, the visit 
of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was superfluous, ridiculous 
and humiliating.... Just a few days after the end of the Iranian 
President's visit to the United States, his demands are beginning to 
filter down into the discussions of intelligent, progressive 
Americans, those five percent who made the effort to listen to him 
and whose influence is great." 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "Ahmadinejad's Agenda" 
 
The Director of the Interdisciplinary Center's Global Research in 
International Affairs Center, columnist Barry Rubin, wrote in the 
conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (10/1): "Is [Mahmoud 
Ahmadinejad] a new Hitler, or a leader with understandable 
grievances who should be engaged in dialogue?.... [He] seems to be a 
true believer in the Iranian Islamist ideology, which sees 
international policy as a struggle between the true followers of the 
deity and the allies of Satan.  Ahmadinejad's goals, then, are his 
control over Iran' Iran's control over the Persian Gulf area 
(especially Iraq), and even world domination, in roughly that order. 
 Ahmadinejad is not a unique phenomenon in modern Middle East 
history.... [He] has not yet achieved the status of being equivalent 
to Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin as the world's leading threat to 
peace and freedom; but he is certainly trying to rise to this 
level." 
 
II.  "Isn't There Something in What Ahmadinejad Says?" 
 
Chief Economic Editor Sever Plotker opined in the mass-circulation, 
pluralist Yediot Aharonot (9/30): "For 95 percent of Americans, the 
visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was superfluous, 
ridiculous and humiliating.... So does that mean we have nothing to 
worry about, that Ahmadinejad did not conquer America?  There is 
something to worry about. Ahmadinejad wove his messages cunningly, 
in a web of lies, half-truths, and truths, and with part of this the 
American enlisted Bush-hating elite can identify.  And this is more 
or less what it is now saying to itself, without, of course, 
deviating from the politically correct.  The following statements 
were mostly taken from articles and columns which appeared recently 
in the American press:.... 'He is ... quite right when he says that 
the Palestinians have paid the price of the Holocaust.... Yes, we 
know the story about wiping Israel off the map, and we have checked 
it out. From the Iranian delegation we were told that their 
president did not say "to wipe Israel off the map," but "to wipe the 
name of Israel off the map."  This is a very, very big difference. 
The expression "to wipe off the name of Israel," served as a 
metaphor meaning to change the character of Israel, that at long 
last it should be a state of all its citizens, including the 
Palestinian Diaspora.  Ahmadinejad offers the just solution for the 
Jewish problem, a state shared by them with the Palestinians... We 
are not a party to the nuclear horror propaganda against him. 
What's the problem?  Is America alone entitled [to have nuclear 
weapons]?  And as for the blood-count, our Bush is a bigger 
murderer. How many people has the president of Iran killed?  Amnesty 
International says a few hundreds.  That is a grave infringement of 
human rights, especially against homosexuals.  But ladies and 
gentlemen, let us keep a sense of proportion.  How many people has 
Bush murdered in Iraq?  Hundreds of thousands.  Hundreds of 
thousands!  Bush is a war criminal.  Ahmadinejad is definitely not 
the satanic character drawn by the Jewish- and Zionist-controlled 
media -- oops, that was a slip of the tongue.'  Just a few days 
after the end of the Iranian President's visit to the United States, 
his demands are beginning to filter down into the discussions of 
intelligent, progressive Americans, those five percent who made the 
effort to listen to him and whose influence is great." 
 
JONES