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P 131228Z NOV 07
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UNCLAS TEL AVIV 003268 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA, NEA/IPA, NEA/PPD 
 
WHITE HOUSE FOR PRESS OFFICE, SIT ROOM 
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HQ USAF FOR XOXX 
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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: 
------------------------- 
 
This morning Israel Radio reported that a top US administration 
official expressed unhappiness to the GOI over Defense Minister Ehud 
Barak's move to initiate contacts with Syria.  Yediot reported that 
secret messages were conveyed between PM Ehud Olmert and Syrian 
 
SIPDIS 
President Bashar Assad.  Yediot reported that Olmert wanted to know 
whether Assad was prepared to disengage from Iran.  Maj.  Gen. 
(res.) Uri Saguy has been tasked with coordinating future dialog. 
Yediot quoted Olmert associates as saying that the moves were not 
made under his authority. 
 
Leading media reported that on Monday PM Olmert told the Knesset's 
Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the Annapolis meeting 
will change Israel's strategy toward the Palestinians.  Olmert said 
that the Roadmap will remain in place for implementing diplomatic 
agreements, but not as a condition for negotiations. 
 
Leading media reported that Saeb Erekat, chief negotiator for the 
PLO, has rejected the GOI's demand that the Palestinians recognize 
Israel as a Jewish state.  In an interview with Israel Radio, Erekat 
said that "no state in the world connects its national identity to a 
religious identity."  At a pre-Annapolis meeting earlier on Monday, 
PM Olmert said that the starting point for all negotiations with the 
Palestinians will be the "recognition of Israel as a state for the 
Jewish people."   "I do not intend to compromise in any way over the 
issue of the Jewish state," Olmert added, thereby accepting the 
position of FM Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Barak. 
 
Yediot's Shimon Shiffer quoted high-ranking Palestinian officials as 
saying that they have proposed establishing a tripartite committee 
on which the American representative would be able to decide every 
issue on which Israel and the PA did not agree.  Yediot cited the 
Palestinians' claim that Olmert agreed to it in his talks with PA 
Chairman [President] Mahmoud Abbas, but reported that Livni opposes 
the idea.  The Palestinian officials were quoted as saying that 
Livni also opposes basing negotiations on the Arab peace 
initiative. 
 
On Monday Ha'aretz reported that Israel will release 300 to 400 
Palestinian prisoners before the Annapolis meeting as a goodwill 
gesture. However, the newspaper noted that this number falls far 
short of the nearly 2,000 Abbas had requested from Olmert. 
 
On Sunday Yediot reported that the US administration intends to 
invite representatives of Muslim countries that do not have 
diplomatic relations with Israel -- Saudi Arabia, Persian Gulf 
states, Indonesia, Pakistan and Malaysia -- to the Annapolis 
meeting.  Yediot said that PM Olmert is scheduled to fly to 
Washington on Saturday night, November 24.  The Annapolis conference 
is expected to begin on November 27 and is expected to last two 
days.  Makor Rishon-Hatzofe quoted the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi 
as saying on Monday that high-ranking Fatah member Muhammad Dahlan 
will be part of the Palestinian delegation to the Annapolis meeting 
by personal request of President Bush. 
 
Israel Radio reported that Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zurhi told the 
Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jarida that Hamas is prepared to discuss new 
proposals raised by Israel in the matter of the release of Gilad 
Shalit. 
 
On Sunday Ha'aretz reported that Israel has turned down a US 
proposal to increase the number of Egyptian soldiers deployed along 
the Philadelphi Route to stem the flow of weapons from Sinai to the 
Gaza Strip.  Ha'aretz reported that Foreign Ministry Director 
General Aharon Abramovitch and the head of the political-military 
bureau at the Defense Ministry, Amos Gilad, told senior American 
officials that until Egypt meets its commitments to countering 
smuggling along the Gaza border, "there is no room to discuss 
increasing the number of soldiers."   Meanwhile, Egyptian and 
Israeli officers were supposed to begin talks in Rome on Sunday that 
will concentrate on the security situation along the border. 
Ha'aretz reported that last week Mark Kimmitt, Assistant Secretary 
of State for Political-Military Affairs, and Robert Danin, Deputy 
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, visited 
Israel as part of a US team set up to assist on the smuggling 
issue. 
 
All media reported that on Monday Palestinian police in Gaza fired 
at a crowd of Fatah supporters who were marking the third 
anniversary of Yasser Arafat's death, killing approximately seven 
people. 
 
Over the weekend all media reported that on Sunday Brig. Gen. (res.) 
Gal Hirsch publicly charged that the IDF's top brass hid behind 
their field commanders, then abandoned them and refused to take any 
responsibility for the army's failures in the Second Lebanon War. 
An internal IDF inquiry found Hirsch, who was in charge of the 
northern border in the summer of 2006, responsible for the abduction 
of two IDF soldiers and recommended that he be barred from field 
commands in the future. 
 
Leading media reported that differences over Iranian nuclear program 
were at the heart of talks on Monday between President Shimon Peres 
and his Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul.   Ha'aretz reported that 
Turkey has requested opening a Turkish Cypriot representative office 
in Tel Aviv.  The newspaper reported that Gul raised the issue at 
his meeting with Peres.  Peres was quoted as saying that he would 
have to discuss the matter with Israel's Foreign Ministry before 
replying.  On Monday The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel and 
Turkey are holding high-level talks on a possible sale of the Arrow 
ballistic missile defense system and a model of the Ofek spy 
satellite to Turkey.  Israel Radio reported that Peres and Chairman 
signed a document in Ankara to create a joint industrial zoomed in 
Tarkumiyeh, West Bank. 
 
All media reported that rocket firing at Israel from Gaza 
continued. 
 
On Monday leading media reported that at Sunday's cabinet session 
several ministers sharply criticized Attorney General Menachem 
Mazuz's decision to block stepped-up sanctions by Israel against the 
Gaza Strip pending a further review of the legal ramification of 
such a move. 
 
On Sunday Makor Rishon-Hatzofe reported that Israel is weighing a 
request by the PA to approve the transfer an overall sum of 105 
million shekels (around USD 26.7 million) to banks in Gaza. 
 
On Monday The Jerusalem Post reported that Likud Knesset Member 
Yuval Steinitz wrote in a letter to the US Senate that Egypt 
effectively condoned Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip and has 
since stood by and allowed Hamas to build an army.  Steinitz wrote 
the letter at the request of Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Arizona), with whom he 
chairs a joint US-Israeli committee on defense and foreign policy. 
 
Over the weekend leading media quoted a spokesman for German Finance 
Minister Peer Steinbrueck as saying that he will not consider 
reopening the reparations agreement between Israel and Germany.  The 
German declarations referred to a statement by Pensioner Affairs 
Minister Rafi Eitan, who is in charge of the talks with Germany on 
reparations for Holocaust survivors and retrieving Jewish property. 
Mainstream commentators also opposed the idea of further such 
compensation to Israel. 
 
On Monday Maariv reported that  seven years after the IDF left the 
compound of Joseph's Tomb in Nablus, the governor of the city 
decided to accept an IDF to renovate the neglected site. 
 
All media reported that Moshe Lador is likely to be appointed state 
attorney.  The new state attorney will decide the fate of Olmert's 
files.  On Sunday more than 100 police investigators raided 20 
offices looking for evidence in three investigations against Olmert. 
 On Sunday Channel 2-TV reported that the police are expected to 
close the case of the sale of Bank Leumi without filing charges 
against Olmert.  The media reported that on Saturday Accountant 
General Yaron Zelekha announced that he would be leaving his post 
within a month. 
 
Over the weekend leading media reported  that last Thursday the 
Rabbi of the Western Wall, Shmuel Rabinovitch, refused to let a 
group of Austrian bishops who were wearing crosses and who were 
accompanied by the Austrian Ambassador, visit the Wall. 
 
On Monday The Jerusalem Post cited the Jewish Telegraphic Agency as 
saying that 13 Chabad yeshiva students -- mostly from the US and 
Canada -- were deported from Russia over the weekend following a 
visa incident that prompted a rare case of direct intervention by 
the State Department. 
 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
Summary: 
-------- 
 
Columnist Amos Gilboa, former head of Research Division at IDF 
Intelligence, wrote in the popular, pluralist Maariv: "The Annapolis 
conference should be a test, a litmus paper, for the Palestinians 
and the Arab states: Are they willing to support a two-state vision 
-- a state for the Jewish people and a state for the Palestinian 
people -- or are they opposed to this?" 
 
Military correspondent Amos Harel and Palestinian affairs 
correspondent Avi Issacharoff wrote in the independent, left-leaning 
Ha'aretz: "[The rally in memory of Yasser Arafat was] an important 
sign of the frustration in Gaza with the Hamas regime." 
 
Diplomatic correspondent Shimon Shiffer wrote in the 
mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: "[Defense Minister 
Ehud] Barak and [his choice for negotiator with Syria Maj. Gen. 
(res.) Uri] Saguy advocate renewing negotiations with Syria and 
believe that already now an agreement can be reached with Assad." 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "The Core of the Debate" 
 
Columnist Amos Gilboa, former head of Research Division at IDF 
Intelligence, wrote in the popular, pluralist Maariv (11/12): "At 
the 2003 Aqaba summit President Bush, was the first senior US 
official to state explicitly and publicly that a democratic 
Palestinian state at full peace with Israel would advance the 
security and prosperity of the State of Israel as a Jewish state. 
The core of the problem is that the Arab states and the Palestinians 
(along with several Israeli Jews) are unwilling by any means to 
recognize the State of Israel as a Jewish state or the state of the 
Jewish people.  The most that some of them are willing to recognize 
is the State of IsraelQs right to exist.  Why?  There are three 
reasons for this: First, an ideological-psychological reason: 
unwillingness to accept the existence of a Jewish state within the 
Muslim-Arab world.  The Arab world did take a very large step 
forward after 1967, when it was willing to accept the fact of the 
State of IsraelQs existence (unlike beforehand), but no more than 
this.  The second reason lies with the Palestinian refugees from 
¶1948.  Recognition of a Jewish state means ... Palestinian 
recognition of the 'Jewish sin' of their expulsion from their 
homeland.  The third reason is the Israeli Arabs, or as they define 
themselves, 'Palestinian Arab citizens of the State of Israel'.... 
About 300,000-400,000 of them define themselves as refugees (who 
live in Israel, but were forced to leave their homes in 1948). 
Their leaderships declare openly that they do not recognize the 
State of Israel as a Jewish state, plain and simple.  In their 
opinion, Israel is a binational state at most.  The Annapolis 
conference should be a test, a litmus paper, for the Palestinians 
and the Arab states: Are they willing to support a two-state vision 
-- a state for the Jewish people and a state for the Palestinian 
people -- or are they opposed to this?  This is the elementary basis 
for any structure of peace, for any future discussion of any core. 
At the same time, it is also a supreme test for our prime minister: 
Is he sincere, can his words be trusted.  In other words, will he at 
least insist on having such a call issue from Annapolis?" 
 
II.  "Cracks in the Armor" 
 
Military correspondent Amos Harel and Palestinian affairs 
correspondent Avi Issacharoff wrote in the independent, left-leaning 
Ha'aretz (11/13): "Opposition to Hamas in the Strip, and 
concomitantly renewed support for Fatah, are on the rise, and the 
recent violence is expected to reduce Hamas's status further on the 
Palestinian street, as people in Gaza see Hamas using its terror 
tactics against its own people.... Al Jazeera, not known for its 
support of Fatah, estimated that about 200,000 demonstrators were 
present [at Monday's rally in Arafat's memory].  This is an 
important sign of the frustration in Gaza with the Hamas regime, 
which is unable to ameliorate the distress in the Strip, worsened by 
the sanctions Israel and the international community has imposed.... 
The hard line of the military wing has prevented any easing of the 
sanctions on Gaza, and has apparently disrupted attempts at a deal 
to release kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.  It may also 
increase the chance of large-scale Israeli military operation in the 
Strip following the Annapolis summit.  Israel believes Fatah is 
still far from reasserting itself vis-a-vis Hamas in the Gaza Strip. 
 Senior PA officials have warned Israel against moves toward a 
unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank.  Such a withdrawal, they 
say will lead to more West Bank cities falling to Hamas, whose 
people are more inspired and organized than Fatah." 
 
III.  "The Defense Minister's Private Peace Initiative" 
 
Diplomatic correspondent Shimon Shiffer wrote in the 
mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (11/13): "[Defense 
Minister Ehud] Barak and [his choice for negotiator with Syria Maj. 
Gen. (res.) Uri] Saguy advocate renewing negotiations with Syria and 
believe that already now an agreement can be reached with Assad. 
They think that the Syrian track should be promoted also because 
they ... believe that there is no chance of reaching a viable peace 
agreement with the PA.... Barak thinks that all of Olmert's and 
Foreign Minister Livni's attempts to promote the peace process with 
the Palestinians are pointless and a waste of time.  Barak did not 
choose Uri Saguy by chance.  The former IDF Intelligence director is 
familiar with all facets of the Syrian topic.... Saguy believes that 
a peace agreement must primarily address the security arrangements 
and normalization can be postponed to a later date.  In his study, 
the former director of IDF Intelligence agrees with the Syrian claim 
that demilitarization arrangements and thinning of forces should 
also be done in the Galilee, but not to the same extent as the 
demilitarization on the Syrian side of the border.  He believes that 
most of the residents would agree to a significant withdrawal from 
the Golan. In return for withdrawal, Syria might concede its demand 
that Israel disarm give up its nuclear weapons." 
 
JONES