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UNCLAS TEL AVIV 003181 
 
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: 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶1.  Mideast 
 
¶2.  Turkey 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
The Jerusalem Post quoted senior diplomatic officials as saying on 
Wednesday that it now seems unlikely that Secretary of State 
Condoleezza Rice will bring invitations to the Annapolis meeting 
when she arrives in Israel on Saturday night.  Last week the 
officials had said that Rice would be arriving with a firm date for 
the meeting and invitations.  Israel Radio reported that Assistant 
Secretary of State David Welch will arrive in Israel today for talks 
 
SIPDIS 
with FM Tzipi Livni and senior GOI officials, ahead of Secretary of 
State Condoleezza Rice's visit to the country.  Ha'aretz's Web site 
reported that Livni and chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qurei 
(Abu Ala) met on Wednesday without their staff.  Ha'aretz reported 
that the IDF has been preparing a list of Israel's essential 
security needs in advance of the Annapolis meeting.  The newspaper 
reported that the army will not commit to maps of borders and 
territories, as it did during prior talks on a final status 
agreement.  Makor Rishon-Hatzofe reported that on Tuesday PA 
Chairman [President] Mahmoud Abbas called on Arab and Muslim states 
not to normalize relations with Israel. 
 
Citing the Canadian-Jewish Web site, Maariv's online service NRG 
reported that a high-ranking IDF officer told foreign journalists in 
a meeting in Toronto that Israel is capable of dealing the Iranian 
nuclear program a crushing blow, either destroying it or 
significantly damaging the reactors.  Reporting on Tuesday's debate 
among Democratic candidates, Ha'aretz said that the Iranian nuclear 
program "has taken over the presidential race." 
 
The Jerusalem Post quoted Israeli defense officials as saying that 
the IDF needs more than 1 billion shekels (around USD 252 million) 
to complete the process of buying new gas masks and refurbishing 
millions of those being collected from the public. 
 
Ha'aretz and Israel Radio reported that a periodic report issued by 
the UN has, for the first time, specifically defined the Sheba Farms 
 
area based on recent cartographic work.  The report also criticizes 
the rearmament of paramilitary groups in Lebanon, particularly 
Hizbullah.  Israel Radio quoted UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as 
saying that several speeches by Hizbullah's leader Hassan Nasrallah 
in the past few months "seem to confirm ... Israeli claims" that 
Hizbullah possesses missiles capable of striking Tel Aviv. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that Dr. Rowan Williams, the visiting 
Archbishop of Canterbury, told the newspaper on Wednesday that 
socioeconomic hardships caused by the West Bank security barrier are 
contributing to the decline of the Christian population in the Holy 
Land.  The newspaper noted that Dr. Williams did not mention other, 
long-standing explanations of the phenomenon, such as the growth in 
Islamic extremism.  The Jerusalem Post quoted Isa Bajalia, an 
Arab-Evangelical pastor, as saying on Wednesday that he has been 
threatened by a Palestinian security official in Ramallah, and that 
he has fled to Jerusalem for safety. 
 
The Jerusalem Post and other media quoted Deputy Defense Minister 
Matan Vilnai as saying in the Knesset on Wednesday: "The 2007 budget 
[for the security fence] is finished, and therefore the work is 
subsiding."  The newspaper reported that after studying the issue, 
the Prime Minister's Office eventually agreed that the 2007 coffer 
for the barrier was empty. 
 
Electronic media reported that this morning nine Qassam rockets 
landed in Sderot and the western Negev.  IDF Radio reported that the 
IDF killed four terrorists early Thursday morning in several 
encounters along the Gaza security fence.  Leading media reported 
that on Wednesday afternoon border police prevented a terrorist 
attack at the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, when they 
apprehended an 18-year-old Palestinian armed with two knives, an 
improvised handgun, and a suicide note. 
 
Makor Rishon-Hatzofe quoted Egyptian Electricity & Energy Minister 
Hassan Ahmed Younis as saying on Tuesday that in coming days Egypt 
will start selecting sites for nuclear power plants. 
 
Major media reported that on Wednesday the Knesset plenum passed in 
a preliminary reading the bill proposal banning Israelis who visited 
an enemy country from being elected to the Knesset. 
 
The Jerusalem Post printed an AP wire story that the Board of 
Immigration Appeals in Los Angeles has dismissed charges against a 
pair of Palestinian men -- members of the "LA eight" -- accused of 
terrorist ties, ending a 20-year government effort to deport them. 
 
Yediot quoted Meretz founder and former education minister Shulamit 
Aloni as saying in an interview with the Arabic-language weekly Ma' 
Al-Ahdat that Defense Minister Ehud Barak and former IDF chief of 
staff Dan Halutz should be put on trial at The Hague. 
 
Ha'aretz and Yediot reported that on Wednesday, in an interim 
ruling, the High Court of Justice ordered that a lot be reserved for 
an Arab couple in the Jewish community of Rakefet in the Galilee. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that on Wednesday Israeli and PA police 
teamed up to improve traffic safety in the West Bank. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that nearly three dozen US physicians 
are coming to Israel for a "grueling, five-day, state-of the art" 
course in emergency and trauma medicine. 
Ha'aretz ran a feature on retiring US Navy chaplain (Rabbi) Rear 
Admiral L. Harold Robinson. 
 
All media highlighted the ongoing strikes in the education system. 
Ha'aretz led with a report on budgetary constraints for drugs in the 
Health Ministry. 
 
 
 
 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
Summary: 
-------- 
 
Diplomatic correspondent Aluf Benn wrote in the independent, 
left-leaning Ha'aretz: "In the short time remaining until Annapolis, 
the negotiators should undergo an accelerated course and avoid the 
mistakes that caused their predecessors to fail." 
 
Liberal op-ed writer Yael Paz-Melamed commented in the popular, 
pluralist Maariv: "The settlers know they have nothing to worry 
about.... It turns out that the Americans do not really buy this 
bluff." 
 
Veteran journalist Evelyn Gordon wrote in the conservative, 
independent Jerusalem Post: "Dividing Jerusalem would have ruinous 
economic and security consequences without improving Israel's 
demographic situation a whit." 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "You Can Learn It in a Negotiations Course" 
 
Diplomatic correspondent Aluf Benn wrote in the independent, 
left-leaning Ha'aretz (11/1): "In the opinion [of American 
negotiations experts Profs. Jeanne Brett and Lee Thompson], the 
preferred approach to solving conflicts relies on finding and 
leveraging the interests of both parties.  That enables 
give-and-take and increases the chances that the agreement will be 
implemented.  This appeal to interests is preferable to using force 
-- as Israel does ... and to demanding rights -- as the Palestinians 
do... Israel prefers interim agreements that will focus on 
trivialities, such as the color of the Palestinian policemen's 
uniforms, and will put off the discussion of Jerusalem, refugees and 
permanent borders.  That is Livni's proposal, which lies as the base 
of the Israeli position in advance of the Annapolis meeting: to 
discuss the 'nature of the Palestinian state,' and to set aside the 
'core' for the time being.  It is politically advantageous and 
protects the coalition, but it harms the chances for a future 
agreement.  When they get around to discussing Jerusalem, the 
parties won't have anything left to give in exchange.  The scholars' 
final advice concerns negotiations between representatives from 
various cultures and nations.  Here it is important to prepare well, 
and to understand the internal codes, symbols and sensitivities of 
the parties.  On this matter everyone has made mistakes -- Israelis, 
Palestinian and Americans, none of whom really understood their 
interlocutors.  In the short time remaining until Annapolis, the 
negotiators should undergo an accelerated course and avoid the 
mistakes that caused their predecessors to fail." 
 
II.  "Diplomatic and Regime Paralysis" 
 
Liberal op-ed writer Yael Paz-Melamed commented in the popular, 
pluralist Maariv (11/1): "As is well known, the Jewish head invents 
patents [a popular saying].  The latest patent of the Prime Minister 
and the Defense Minister, which is at the same time meant not to 
evacuate outposts and not to get in trouble with the Americans, is 
called 'talks with the settler leaders over a voluntary evacuation.' 
 They'll either be talking or they won't.  The settlers know they 
have nothing to worry about.... It turns out that the Americans do 
not really buy this bluff.... If the [Annapolis] meeting fails, as 
expected, we'll only blame the Palestinians.  Israel will have 
arrived there with clean hands." 
 
III.  "The Report Nobody's Talking About" 
 
Veteran journalist Evelyn Gordon wrote in the conservative, 
independent Jerusalem Post (11/1): "[Serious security implications 
involved in a division of Jerusalem] should be obvious to anyone who 
remembers the daily gunfire on Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood during 
the early months of the Intifada. Gilo was the only Jewish 
neighborhood of Jerusalem to suffer in this fashion because it was 
the only one within rifle range of Palestinian-controlled territory 
-- namely, the village of Beit Jalla.  And once the Israel Defense 
Forces reasserted control over Beit Jalla, the shooting stopped. 
Were parts of East Jerusalem handed over to the Palestinians, 
however, numerous other Jewish neighborhoods would become as 
vulnerable to Palestinian gunfire as Gilo.... The bottom line is 
that dividing Jerusalem would have ruinous economic and security 
consequences without improving Israel's demographic situation a 
whit.  And the [recent] JIIS [Jerusalem Institute for Israel 
Studies] report [advocating the division of Jerusalem] has done a 
valuable service by bringing these facts to the public's attention. 
But that service will be wasted unless the public, the media, and, 
above all, opposition Knesset members begin demanding that the 
government either find solutions to these problems or drop the whole 
idea of division." 
 
----------- 
¶2.  Turkey: 
----------- 
 
Summary: 
-------- 
 
Liberal columnist Larry Derfner wrote in the conservative, 
independent Jerusalem Post: "It's one or the other: morality or 
Realpolitik.  As a nation of the world, Israel, along with its lobby 
in Washington, has always chosen Realpolitik." 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
"Jews of Power, Jews of Truth" 
 
Liberal columnist Larry Derfner wrote in the conservative, 
independent Jerusalem Post (11/1): "It's one or the other: morality 
or Realpolitik.  As a nation of the world, Israel, along with its 
lobby in Washington, has always chosen Realpolitik.  What they may 
not know, however, is that by now the world sees through them.  The 
word doesn't take seriously what an Israeli macher [big shot] or an 
American Jewish macher has to say about the Six Million, not when it 
sees that some Israeli leader and American Jewish macher shushing 
everyone over the murders of 1.5 million other innocents. 
Thankfully, those politicians are not the only Jewish voices on the 
Armenian genocide, or on the Holocaust.... Either you value truth 
first, or you value power first.  Every Jew, every person, makes the 
choice." 
 
JONES