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UNCLAS TEL AVIV 000812 
 
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.  Iran 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
The media reported that PM Ehud Olmert and PA President Mahmoud 
Abbas have decided to meet every two weeks until the November 4 
deadline for striking a deal, regardless of developments on the 
ground.  The Jerusalem Post reported that officials on both sides 
said that as in the past, the meeting yesterday deteriorated into 
mutual accusations. 
 
All media quoted National Infrastructure Minister Benjamin 
Ben-Eliezer as saying on Monday: "An Iranian attack will prompt a 
severe reaction from Israel, which will destroy the Iranian nation." 
 He added that Tehran "is definitely aware of our strength.  Even 
so, they are teasing us with their alliances with Syria and 
Hizbullah, and supplying them with many weapons, and we have to deal 
with that."  Media quoted Defense Minister Ehud Barak as saying that 
Israelis not interested in an escalation with its neighbors. 
 
The Jerusalem Post, Ha'aretz, and Yediot reported that jailed 
Fatah/Tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti called for a comprehensive 
cease-fire and affirmed his support for a two-state solution in a 
message he sent to Israelis on the eve of Peace Now's 30th 
anniversary event in Tel Aviv, being held Tuesday.  In his letter, 
Barghouti wrote: "I am ready, as is an overwhelming majority of the 
Palestinian nation, for an historic [reconciliation]." 
 
Ha'aretz reported that the party of billionaire businessman Arkady 
Gaidamak, Social Justice, is expected to join forces in the next few 
weeks with three members of the Pensioners Party to form a Social 
Justice faction in the Knesset.  According to the agreement, Social 
Justice will become a Knesset-represented party on April 18. This is 
the first step of Gaidamak's much-bigger plan to add MKs from 
various parties to form a faction of 18 MKs by the next Knesset 
elections.  The new faction will be eligible to have one of its 
members appointed a minister -- perhaps Gaidamak himself -- 
according to the current arrangement.  Gaidamak, who plans to run 
 
for mayor of Jerusalem, has said he would consider serving as 
minister for Jerusalem affairs. 
 
Ha'aretz and Israel Radio reported that on Monday Israeli police 
closed the Jerusalem studio and transmitter of RAM-FM, an 
English-language West Bank radio station that plays Western music 
and tries to bring Israelis and Palestinians together through the 
broadcasts.  The Israeli Communications Ministry claimed that the 
station was broadcasting without a permit, interfered with airwaves, 
and endangered airport signals.  The radio station has said that its 
broadcasts will continue as normal from Ramallah and that it has 
been operating within the parameters of the law. 
 
Leading media reported that on Monday, as part of the nationwide 
emergency drill, the Diplomatic-Security Cabinet went through an 
exercise involving a chemical attack on Israel's home front. 
 
Israel Radio reported that in the past few weeks the IDF collected 
hundreds of military-issue weapons from settlers in the Binyamin 
area (north of Jerusalem), including from reservist officers.  Only 
the members of the settlement's security squads and those 
responsible for security were allowed to continue to hold army 
weapons.  Settler representatives told Israel Radio that the weapons 
collection endangers those traveling on roads in the territories, 
especially now that roadblocks have been removed and weapons have 
been transferred to the PA. 
 
Maariv reported that the spokeswoman of Howard L. Berman (D-CA), the 
Chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs 
Committee, told the newspaper yesterday that Congress does not 
intend to hold hearings to examine on Israel's air strike on Syria 
last September. 
 
Ha'aretz quoted Vice PM Haim Ramon as saying during a session of the 
Knesset's State Control Committee two months ago that all 450 homes 
in Ofra, the "mother of settlements" in Samaria [the northern West 
Bank], were built on privately owned Palestinian land.  This is the 
first time such a senior government source has admitted in an 
official forum that the first settlement in Samaria was built on 
private Palestinian land. 
 
In a conference call from Israel to U.S. reporters and reported by 
Ha'aretz and The Jerusalem Post, televangelist John Hagee, the 
founder of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), said that he was not 
trying to dictate Israel's security and political policies and that 
he will support Israel whether or not it carries out settlement 
withdrawals, adding that this is something its citizens will decide. 
 The Jerusalem Post quoted Hagee as saying that to the extent that 
CUFI has taken "concrete action," it has been "limited to asking the 
White House not to pressure Israel into making territorial 
concessions that she does not wish to make."   Hagee was replying to 
criticism by Reform Rabbi Eric Yoffie. 
 
All three major Hebrew-language newspapers led with interviews of 
former chief justice Aharon Barak, who told Ha'aretz and Maariv that 
Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann's reforms will make Israel a 
third-world country.  Aharon Barak and other critics of Friedmann 
disparage Friedmann's perceived intention of subordinating judges 
and court presidents, administratively and institutionally, to 
politicians.  Friedmann's plan to restrict the right to appear 
before the High Court of Justice has also been censured.  In late 
March senior police officers lashed out publicly against the 
initiative of Friedmann and Internal Security Minister Avi Dichter 
to shorten the statute of limitations in cases of fraud and breach 
of faith.  They cited possible damage to the ability of the law 
enforcement system to deal with this phenomenon and to create 
deterrence.  In March 2008 Akiva Eldar of Ha'aretz criticized 
Friedmann's justification of the police's attitude during the 2000 
riots in the Israeli-Arab sector.  Media quoted Friedmann as saying 
yesterday that freedom of speech was considered sacred in Israel as 
long as it did not refer to the Supreme Court's functioning. 
 
All media reported that for the first time in Israeli history a 
former president of the state -- Moshe Katsav -- will sit in court 
today as a defendant in a sex offenses case.  The media quoted 
Katsav's counsels as saying that he will not enter a guilty plea if 
the court does not read the writ of indictment today.  On Monday the 
High Court of Justice did not grant such a delay. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that the U.S. Congress has started 
commemorating Israel' 60th anniversary.  The effort, started on 
April 3, will extend beyond Israel's Independence Day on May 14 and 
through June. 
 
Leading media reported that Kadima has doubled its membership to 
50,000 after a long recruiting slump. 
 
Israel Radio discussed the possible implications of Senator John 
McCain choosing Condoleezza Rice as his running mate. 
 
Yediot reported that Gilad Sharon, the former PM's son, will publish 
memoirs that will include anecdotes about President Bush and Tony 
Blair. 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
Summary: 
-------- 
 
Senior columnist and longtime dove Yoel Marcus wrote in the 
independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz: "A government doesn't drill 
itself.  A government acts in keeping with diplomatic and political 
considerations.  So its involvement in this exercise seems pretty 
ridiculous." 
 
Op-Ed Page Editor Ben-Dror Yemini wrote in the popular, pluralist 
Maariv: "The Israeli paradox is that a majority of Israelis adopted 
Peace Now's positions, but still love to hate Peace Now." 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized: "Peace 
Now helps remind us that Jewish civilization attaches the highest 
value to peace.  Yet by ... holding to positions that experience has 
shown risk rendering Israel indefensible ... the organization places 
itself on the periphery of Israel's body politic." 
 
Former Ambassador to the U.S., former Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
and former Minister of Defense Moshe Arens wrote in Ha'aretz: "The 
continued presence of Jews on territory which [the Palestinians] 
will have sovereignty in the future, and the assurance of their 
safety, must be part of a durable peace agreement between Israel and 
the Palestinians." 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "A Heap of Eyes for an Eye" 
 
Senior columnist and longtime dove Yoel Marcus wrote in the 
independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (4/8): "It was only last week 
that the Defense Minister, touring the North declared Israel the 
strongest country in the region and said he wouldn't advise anyone 
to start up with us.... A government doesn't drill itself.  A 
government acts in keeping with diplomatic and political 
considerations.  So its involvement in this exercise seems pretty 
ridiculous.... In wartime, the army has always been careful not to 
venture into the political minefield.  But in an exercise where 
everything is make-believe, the IDF is liable to fall into the 
potholes and booby traps of internal politics.  How happy can the 
army be with the public relations stunt cooked up President Georg W. 
Bush and Ehud Olmert to reveal Israel's role in destroying the 
Syrian nuclear installation?  Are we safer after this revelation, 
which is humiliating to Syria, than we were before it?.... What 
Israel needs to prepare for is not bracing itself under fire but 
deterrence.  It needs to do what Ariel Sharon promised to do and 
didn't, and what Ehud Barak threatened to do, and hasn't done yet: 
To make it clear that when missiles are fired at our home front, 
Israel's response will be much more than an eye for an eye.  A heap 
of eyes for an eye is more like it." 
 
II.  "A Sad Victory for the Left" 
 
Op-Ed Page Editor Ben-Dror Yemini wrote in the popular, pluralist 
Maariv (4/8): "The Israeli paradox is that a majority of Israelis 
adopted Peace Now's positions, but still love to hate Peace Now -- 
because Peace Now is a bunch of 'Arab lovers'.... But the failure 
has been as equally great as the success was. Because the impression 
is that we are moving away from that result. First of all, with the 
passage of time, Peace Now has become the most maligned movement 
even among the Left. A significant part of that left wing moved 
further to the Left.... Second, the settlement enterprise. The 
settlers are the ones who establish facts on the ground.  It makes 
no difference that a majority of Israelis are opposed to settlements 
in the midst of heavily populated Arab areas. The important thing is 
that the settlers succeed in dragging Israel onto every hilltop. 
They create a bi-national reality. They undermine the chance for 
peace. Perhaps even destroy it.... And third, the Islamist wave. 
That tsunami destroys everything.  It destroyed Afghanistan and 
Algeria and it has turned Iran into one of the most benighted 
countries in the world.  It has caused the Arab and Muslim world to 
be the most backward in the world. It has produced the oppression of 
women, and mass waves of death, from Sudan to Afghanistan, and Iraq 
to Algeria.  This wave has come here in the form of Hamas.  And 
until that wave is quelled, mainly by means of Muslim 
counter-forces, Peace Now is going to continue to be a movement of 
daydreamers. " 
 
III.  "Peace Now at 30" 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (4/8): 
"This month marks Peace Now's 30th anniversary.... Over the years, 
many but not all of Peace Now's positions have been mainstreamed. 
Israel is indeed negotiating with the PLO.  Most Israelis are 
reconciled to a Palestinian state, though only in the context of a 
deal that guarantees them real security.  And most accept -- 
unenthusiastically -- that Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria 
[i.e. the West Bank] would have to be uprooted were the Palestinians 
prepared for peace.  But they are not.... While claiming it does not 
want to push Israel back to the indefensible 1949 Armistice Lines, 
Peace Now nonetheless opposes any construction over the Green 
Line.... Peace Now also stands squarely outside the consensus by 
favoring 'joint sovereignty' over Jerusalem's Old City.  And while 
it opposes the 'implementation' of the Palestinian 'right of 
return,' it does not necessarily oppose its affirmation.... Peace 
Now helps remind us that Jewish civilization attaches the highest 
value to peace.  Yet by remaining ideologically stagnant, holding to 
positions that experience has shown risk rendering Israel 
indefensible, and keeping its decision-making methods and funding 
sources mystifying, the organization places itself on the periphery 
of Israel's body politic." 
 
IV.  "Judenrein Palestine" 
 
Former Ambassador to the U.S., former Minister of Foreign Affairs, 
and former Minister of Defense Moshe Arens wrote in Ha'aretz (4/8): 
"It is generally agreed that Israel should not incorporate all of 
Judea and Samaria [i.e. the West Bank], with its large Arab 
population, within its borders.  But does it necessarily follow that 
all areas not incorporated within Israel's borders need to be 
cleared of all Jews?  The Palestinian negotiators currently engaged 
in the phantom negotiations with Israel's Foreign Minister are in 
any case not capable of making and carrying out any commitments. 
But when and if serious Palestinian negotiators appear, it will have 
to be made clear to them that the continued presence of Jews on 
territory which they will have sovereignty in the future, and the 
assurance of their safety, must be part of a durable peace agreement 
between Israel and the Palestinians.  An agreement that does not 
include such a provision will not be an agreement worthy of being 
called a peace agreement." 
 
--------- 
¶2.  Iran: 
--------- 
 
Summary: 
-------- 
 
Former IDF spokesman Nachman Shai wrote in the independent Israel 
Hayom: "There is a lot of oil and fuel in the Middle East, there is 
a smell of oil fumes in the air, and statements [by Israeli cabinet 
ministers] are liable to be the match that lights them." 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
"Statements Can Also Light a Fire" 
 
Former IDF spokesman Nachman Shai wrote in the independent Israel 
Hayom (4/8): "Israel must act with extreme caution on the Iranian 
matter.... A balance of terror is developing between Israel and 
Iran: the Iranians fear Israel's capabilities and claim that this is 
the reason they are developing parallel abilities to Israel's, which 
promised in the past that it would not be the first country to use 
nuclear weapons in the Middle East.  There is definitely cause for 
concern.  Iran ignores international public opinion, continues on 
its path and within a few years, if it is not stopped, it will have 
nuclear capability.  But that is not the only threat.  The fact that 
semi-military organizations, such as Hizbullah in the north and 
Hamas in the south, have impressive rocket fire ability, is a second 
strategic threat.  At any given moment Iran is capable of ordering 
them to put these capabilities into use and then the Israeli home 
front will be a convenient and soft target.  There is a lot of oil 
and fuel in the Middle East, there is a smell of oil fumes in the 
air, and statements [by Israeli cabinet ministers] are liable to be 
the match that lights them." 
 
JONES