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DE RUEHTV #3500/01 3461107
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P 121107Z DEC 07
FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
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RUEHDM/AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS PRIORITY 3883
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 0738
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UNCLAS TEL AVIV 003500 
 
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: 
------------------------- 
 
Leading media (banner in The Jerusalem Post) quoted PA officials as 
saying that Israel's incursion into Gaza is another attempt  to 
sabotage the peace process.  So far, at least six Palestinians have 
been killed in the operation.   Ha'aretz reported that cabinet plans 
to discuss today increase the action to  a large-scale operation. 
Maariv noted that over 270 Palestinian terrorists and 20 civilians 
have been killed in the Strip since May.  Maariv cited the IDF's 
belief that over 300 Palestinians will have been killed by the end 
of the year.  Israel Radio reported that this morning 17 rockets 
were fired at the western Negev.  Islamic Jihad claimed 
responsibility for 12 of them. The Jerusalem Post reported that on 
Tuesday the state claimed that the High Court of Justice must not 
intervene in its Sderot security policy.  Speaking on Israel Radio 
this afternoon, Sderot Mayor Eli Moyal announced his resignation. 
 
Yediot reported that the first Israeli-Palestinian meeting on the 
permanent status, which will be held today, will be devoted to 
working arrangements and the establishment of negotiating teams. 
Yediot reported that the Palestinians are expected to demand the 
creation of teams on each of the core issues.  The newspaper 
reported that U.S. security monitor Gen. James Jones will arrive in 
Israel next week.  He will hold preliminary meetings with the heads 
of Israel's security establishment.  The newspaper also reported 
that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is expected to come to 
Israel a week later to prepare President Bush's visit, which Yediot 
said will take place on January 9.  Israel Radio quoted Palestinian 
sources assaying that the Secretary of State will not come to the 
region, but that she will meet with Palestinian representatives in 
Paris. 
 
Maariv reported that following the Israeli response to the abduction 
of two IDF soldiers from Lebanon in July 2006, Iran withdrew 
Hizbullah Secretary-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah's military 
authority.  Maariv quoted Western intelligence sources as saying 
that Hizbullah now needs authorization from the Iranian 
Revolutionary Guards to carry out significant operations against 
Israel. Meanwhile, Yediot reported that Hizbullah has recently 
bolstered its activity, tightening its relations with Palestinian 
terrorist organizations.  The newspaper reported that Hizbullah has 
entrusted its senior operative Kais Obeid, who played a key role in 
the abduction of the Israeli Elchanan Tenenbaum to Lebanon six years 
ago, with responsibility for the Gaza Strip. 
 
The Jerusalem Post, Maariv and Ha'aretz reported that on Tuesday for 
the first time the UN passed a non-political Israeli resolution (on 
agriculture).  Maariv reported that Iran and Syria did not vote 
against the Israeli proposal. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that the Interior Ministry will close down its 
operation in Ethiopia in another two weeks, after signing the last 
immigration permit for Falash Mura who are eligible to immigrate to 
Israel.  The Falash Mura are Ethiopian Jews whose ancestors 
converted to Christianity. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that on Tuesday the Civil Administration in the 
territories told the interministerial committee on unauthorized 
outposts that hundreds, even thousands, of planned housing units in 
the West Bank have building permits and do not need any further 
government approval before construction can begin.  The Jerusalem 
Post reported that FM Tzipi Livni and Strategic Affairs Minister 
Avigdor Lieberman sparred over unauthorized outposts at the 
committee meeting. 
 
Ha'aretz quoted PM Ehud Olmert as saying on Tuesday in a speech to 
the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University 
that Iran remains dangerous.  He was referring to the recent 
National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report.  The Jerusalem Post 
quoted Olmert as saying that the debate over the NIE report has 
triggered an "exaggerated debate" inside Israel.  Former Mossad 
Director Ephraim Halevy was quoted as saying on Tuesday in an 
interview with The Jerusalem Post that Israel must ensure that it is 
a direct participant in U.S. talks with Iran, which appear to be 
shaping up.  Otherwise, Halevy warned, the future of the region will 
be determined in a forum from which Israel is excluded. 
 
Maariv reported that the defense establishment was "surprised" to 
find that Israel Aerospace Industries is developing a missile 
defense system.  The Defense Ministry and the IDF are developing two 
interception systems -- one of which is being built by the Rafael 
company. 
 
Israel Radio reported that the soldiers of a paratrooper unit are 
being investigated for humiliating Palestinians and taking bribes 
from them. 
 
The Jerusalem Post and Makor Rishon-Hatzofe reported that on Tuesday 
President Bush hosted the family of Daniel Pearl, the American 
journalist who was kidnapped and murdered in Karachi in 2002. 
 
The Jerusalem Post printed a Jewish Telegraphic Agency report on 
Jewish soldiers in the U.S. Army lighting Chanukah candles in Camp 
Taji in Iraq 
 
Yediot reported that on Tuesday in Paris Libyan leader Muammar 
Qadhafi told the President of the French National Assembly that his 
preferred solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was one 
state for two peoples. 
 
Yediot cited the GOI's Central Bureau of Statistics as saying that 
in 2006 Israeli Arabs consolidated their majority (53.1%) in the 
Galilee.  Jews comprise 46.9% of the population in the region. 
 
All media reported that on Tuesday the negotiations between the 
state and the secondary teachers' union ended abruptly and that the 
National Labor Court ordered the teachers to return to work.  The 
return to work order will take effect on Thursday. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
-------- 
Mideast: 
-------- 
 
Summary: 
-------- 
 
The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "[Secretary] 
Rice also expressed fear that the construction in Har Homa would 
disrupt the Annapolis process.... Israel has no good answer to the 
American objections.... At this rate, and with this sagacity, the 
Annapolis conference will prove no more than a barren footnote." 
 
Columnist Michael Freund, who was an assistant to former prime 
minister Binyamin Netanyahu, wrote in the conservative, independent 
Jerusalem Post: "What [is particularly] troubling about her 
statement on Har Homa is that it lends credence to the 
discriminatory notion that certain places should be off-limits to 
Jews simply because they are Jews." 
 
Conservative columnist Yosef Harif wrote in the popular, pluralist 
Maariv: "The Labor Party, which has for years shaped Israeli policy, 
is starting to lose its specificity and looks like a second 
Kadima." 
 
Columnist Gilad Katz wrote on page one of the nationalist, Orthodox 
Makor Rishon-Hatzofe: "It is becoming obvious that the 
Olmert-Livni-Barak government has no 'holy cows' and that the last 
line of defense was ruptured without any special Palestinian 
endeavor." 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "From Annapolis to Har Homa" 
 
The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (12/12): 
"[U.S.] administration spokespeople normally oppose any moves liable 
to damage Israeli-Palestinian final-status negotiations -- namely, 
the settlements.  But this time, [Secretary] Rice also expressed 
fear that the construction in Har Homa would disrupt the Annapolis 
process.... Israel has no good answer to the American objections.... 
No one in the world recognizes Israel's annexation of East 
Jerusalem.... Nor can Israel rely on Bush's April 2004 letter to 
former prime minister Ariel Sharon in which the President of the 
U.S. said the reality created by settlements in the territories must 
be taken into account.  Bush's declaration was not a commitment to 
refrain from evacuating settlements, does not bind his successors 
and has even been demonstratively omitted from other diplomatic 
documents.... [Israel's old tricks] merely provide the Palestinians 
with ammunition for their propaganda, help Hamas to claim that 
Olmert is humiliating Abbas, and push Bush and Rice into taking a 
stand against Israel.  The Annapolis festivities have ended, and the 
test will be in the dull implementation.  Thus far, not a single 
outpost has been evacuated, not the slightest diplomatic progress 
has been made, and Israel is retreating into the worst of all 
possible worlds -- subject to terror attacks that the Palestinians 
are still not really trying to restrain, yet putting itself, with 
its own hands, on the diplomatic defensive.  At this rate, and with 
this sagacity, the Annapolis conference will prove no more than a 
barren footnote." 
 
II.  "Condi Hangs a 'No Jews Allowed' Sign"" 
 
Columnist Michael Freund, who was an assistant to former prime 
minister Binyamin Netanyahu, wrote in the conservative, independent 
Jerusalem Post (12/12): "Condoleezza Rice has got some nerve. 
First, the U.S. Secretary of State had the chutzpa to compare 
Israel's treatment of Palestinians to that meted out to U.S. blacks 
during the bad old days of the segregationist South.... Needless to 
say, the fact that American blacks were victims of violence and 
hate, while Palestinians are its proficient practitioners, seems to 
have escaped the Secretary of State's attention.  Moreover, Rice's 
comparison between Israeli security measures and America's Jim Crow 
laws is both intellectually dishonest and morally obscene.  There is 
no similarity whatsoever between Israel establishing a checkpoint 
aimed at catching Palestinian suicide bombers and the state of 
Georgia's 1960s era prohibition against serving blacks and whites in 
the same restaurant... When Israel decides to build some new 
apartments in an already-existing section of Jerusalem, Rice 
suddenly finds her voice?  Who does she think she is kidding?  But 
what was still more troubling about her statement on Har Homa is 
that it lends credence to the discriminatory notion that certain 
places should be off-limits to Jews simply because they are Jews.... 
Now, following in our ancestors' footsteps, we have returned to 
reclaim what is rightfully ours.  So step aside, Ms. Rice, and 
please do not try to interfere.  Like it or not, nothing can stop 
this historical process from unfolding." 
 
 
III.  "Kadima II" 
 
Conservative columnist Yosef Harif wrote in the popular, pluralist 
Maariv (12/12): "In his speech at Annapolis, [Ehud] Barak said: 'I 
... fully support this process and I will do my utmost to make it 
succeed.'  Thus Barak has now turned into the full partner in the 
diplomatic activity of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister. 
This development effectively blurs the differences in diplomatic 
outlook between the two large parties.  The Labor Party, which has 
for years shaped Israeli policy, is starting to lose its specificity 
and looks like a second Kadima." 
 
IV.  "Total Diplomatic Dismantling" 
 
Columnist Gilad Katz wrote on page one of the nationalist, Orthodox 
Makor Rishon-Hatzofe (12/12): "It is becoming obvious that the 
Olmert-Livni-Barak government has no 'holy cows' and that the last 
line of defense was ruptured without any special Palestinian 
endeavor.  Starting today, everything will be placed on the 
negotiating table: refugees, borders, and Jerusalem -- all at a 
discounted price.... The total diplomatic dismantling by [Olmert] 
and the Foreign Minister is not obvious to the general [Israeli] 
public.  Their manipulative claim that Israel is not conceding 
anything as long as the Palestinians do not respect their 
commitments, is void of contents." 
 
JONES