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P 071123Z JUL 08
FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 7393
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RUEHAS/AMEMBASSY ALGIERS PRIORITY 0710
RUEHAM/AMEMBASSY AMMAN PRIORITY 4383
RUEHAK/AMEMBASSY ANKARA PRIORITY 4881
RUEHLB/AMEMBASSY BEIRUT PRIORITY 4095
RUEHEG/AMEMBASSY CAIRO PRIORITY 2394
RUEHDM/AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS PRIORITY 4847
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 1709
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS PRIORITY 2156
RUEHRB/AMEMBASSY RABAT PRIORITY 8698
RUEHRO/AMEMBASSY ROME PRIORITY 6186
RUEHRH/AMEMBASSY RIYADH PRIORITY 1095
RUEHTU/AMEMBASSY TUNIS PRIORITY 5208
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 7165
RUEHJM/AMCONSUL JERUSALEM PRIORITY 0026
RHMFISS/CDR USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY
RHMFISS/COMSOCEUR VAIHINGEN GE PRIORITY
RHMFIUU/COMSIXTHFLT  PRIORITY

UNCLAS TEL AVIV 001442 
 
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.  Iran 
 
¶2.  Mideast 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
Major media reported that preparations for the prisoner swap with 
Hizbullah continue.  The radio also reported today that the family 
of policeman Eliyahu Shahar, a victim of Samir Kuntar, will petition 
the High Court of Justice against KuntarQs release.  Maariv quoted a 
senior Israeli diplomatic official as saying that the HizbullahQs 
pending report on the fate of MIA Ron Arad will not harm the deal. 
Yesterday Maariv reported that PA officials were angry at Israel for 
giving in to Hizbullah. 
 
The Jerusalem Post quoted Israeli diplomatic and defense officials 
as saying on Sunday that the recent spate of leaks and reports from 
Washington about whether Israel will, or should, take military 
action against Iran, and what that would mean for the U.S., is a 
reflection of deep divisions on the matter inside the Bush 
administration.  The officials were quoted as saying that the two 
sides of the argument, the "hawkish camp," led by Vice President 
Cheney, and the "dovish camp," led by Defense Secretary Robert 
Gates, are leaking assessments about Israeli intent to further their 
own agendas, and in this regard using Israel as a "pawn" in their 
own political battles.  The newspaper quoted an Israeli diplomatic 
official as saying that as the debate rages in Washington, it was 
clear that Israel would be unable to take military action without a 
green light from the U.S.  On Friday The Jerusalem Post quoted GOI 
officials as saying that this week's warnings from President Bush 
and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 
against an IDF strike on Iran are a sign that Washington is 
concerned that Jerusalem may indeed attack Iran. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that the IDF will soon be stepping up its campaign 
against Hamas's civilian infrastructure in the West Bank, shutting 
down a large number of Hamas-affiliated charities, confiscating 
their property, and searching computers and documents that detail 
their activity.  The IDF has been carrying out similar raids in the 
Hebron, Qalqilya, and Ramallah areas since the beginning of the 
year, but the campaign will now be expanded to additional parts of 
the West Bank, in the wake of approval from Israel's legal 
authorities. 
 
Yesterday The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel warned on Saturday 
that any delay by Hamas on contacts over a prisoner swap involving 
Gilad Shalit's s release may torpedo the Egyptian-mediated Gaza 
truce agreement reached last month. 
 
The media reported that yesterday, for the first time since the 
start of the truce, a Palestinian sniper fired from the Gaza Strip 
at civilians inside Israeli territory (near Kibbutz Nahal Oz). 
 
Ha'aretz reported that the Israel Police fraud squad is 
investigating the authenticity of some of the documents involving 
the sale of lands in Migron, an outpost outside Ramallah inhabited 
by Jewish settlers. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that yesterday police arrested two 
settlers who were allegedly involved in beating a Palestinians they 
had tied to a utility pole near the outpost of Assa'al in south 
Hebron in an incident that was caught on camera by activists. 
 
Ha'aretz cited the belief expressed by officials that a state 
comptroller's investigation into the use of wiretaps, will take 
seven to nine months.  All media reported that the cabinet voted for 
this comprehensive probe of the police and the prosecution's 
handling of wiretaps, which will include an investigation of 
"complaints raised on this matter in recent years," as an 
alternative to Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann's proposal to set 
up a governmental inquiry committee on misconduct in the 2006 trial 
of minister Haim Ramon -- specifically, with respect to the failure 
to give him transcripts of wiretaps related to his sexual offenses 
case, or even to inform him of the wiretaps' existence.  Israel 
Hayom banners that the "Justice Minister got a lesson in the rule of 
law." 
 
Maariv reported that Israel-Jordan relations might be impaired if 
following the freeing of Kuntar, Jordan released four of its 
nationals who killed two Israeli soldiers Yehuda Lipshitz and 
Pinchas Levy 18 years ago.  Israel repatriated the Jordanians to 
their country a year ago, on condition they serve 18 months in 
Jordanian jail.  On Friday The Jerusalem Post reported that Israeli 
officials dismissed as "nonsense" an Iranian diplomat's accusation 
on Thursday that Israel is secretly imprisoning four Iranians -- 
three diplomats and their driver -- who disappeared in Lebanon in 
¶1982.  Their fate was supposed to be discussed ahead of the swap. 
 
Yesterday Yediot reported that Barack Obama is slated to come to 
Israel in another two weeks as part of a regional tour. 
 
On Friday Ha'aretz quoted President Shimon Peres as saying that he 
believes that there is no chance of an agreement between Israel and 
the Palestinians.  He made the statement last Saturday at a dinner 
with the Jordanian and French ambassadors in Defense Minister Ehud 
Barak's Tel Aviv apartment. 
 
Over the weekend some media reported that Israelis contributed to 
the release of Franco-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt.  Ha'aretz 
and other media reported that she compared her "impeccable" rescue 
operation to Israeli commando operations. 
 
As the government prepares to seal the homes of the families of two 
Arab residents of East Jerusalem who carried out the last two terror 
attacks in the city, The Jerusalem Post quoted officials as saying 
yesterday that the Jerusalem Municipality continues to plan new 
construction for Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem, including in 
the very neighborhood the bulldozer attacker came from. 
 
All media reported that yesterday the customs authorities at Haifa 
Port seized 104 kilograms of pure cocaine, worth $15 million, on 
board a Colombian ship. 
 
 
 
 
--------- 
¶1.  Iran: 
--------- 
 
Summary: 
-------- 
 
Columnist Calev Ben-David wrote on page one of the conservative, 
independent Jerusalem Post: "If Israel has to act alone to protect 
itself it will do so -- but only because once again, the world has 
left it alone." 
 
Very liberal columnist Kobi Niv wrote in the popular, pluralist 
Maariv: "Absurdly, the only thing that apparently can prevent 
Israel's expected suicidal running amok ... actually is a nuclear 
weapon in Iran's hands." 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
"Disquiet on the 'Third Front' between the U.S. and Israel" 
 
Columnist Calev Ben-David wrote on page one of the conservative, 
independent Jerusalem Post (7/7): "The complications [resulting from 
Saddam's downfall] are now abundantly clear in the face-off over the 
Iranian nuclear threat, to the extent of it possibly limiting an 
Israeli response to a potential existential threat.... Yet the 
premise that Washington has -- or even wants -- straight-up veto 
power over the Israeli response to the Iranian threat, or that 
Jerusalem would cede it, is a gross simplification of a more complex 
reality, both past and present.... The route of diplomatic efforts 
and economic sanctions against Tehran will play itself out in the 
coming year, resulting in either success or failure. At the end of 
that day, though, a day that increasingly cannot be too long in 
coming, if Israel has to act alone to protect itself it will do so 
-- but only because once again, the world has left it alone." 
 
II.  "In Favor of the Iranian Bomb" 
 
Very liberal columnist Kobi Niv wrote in the popular, pluralist 
Maariv (7/7): "Absurdly, the only thing that apparently can prevent 
Israel's expected suicidal running amok (This month? This year?) 
actually is a nuclear weapon in Iran's hands.  Thus, we would be 
sitting quietly and doing nothing to burn ourselves as a wick 
destroying the world by fire.  Let us say this to those who fear an 
Iranian bomb: Contrary to Israel, Iran is a rational state, which 
will do nothing to harm itself, so that its possessing that weapon 
would not only deter a certain country in the region from going 
berserk and destroying its environment and life." 
 
------------ 
¶2.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
Summary: 
-------- 
 
Senior op-ed writer Akiva Eldar commented in the independent, 
left-leaning Ha'aretz: "Perhaps [the razing of terrorists' East 
Jerusalem homes] will help us understand that an accord in the West 
Bank, without a solution in Jerusalem, is a dangerous illusion." 
Senior Middle East affairs analyst Zvi Bar'el wrote in Ha'aretz: 
"Syria is hoping to pave its way out of the American 'axis of evil,' 
while emphasizing to the Arab states that it is a central player, 
still capable of fulfilling a role that countries like Egypt and 
Saudi Arabia have so far found difficult to play." 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "A Binational Reality" 
 
Senior op-ed writer Akiva Eldar commented in the independent, 
left-leaning Ha'aretz (7/7): "How nice that this time, too, the 
terrorist was a 'lone wolf, a drug addict or just a nut case.  Just 
so long as Jerusalemite murderers are not acting on behalf of 
terrorist groups.  'Wild weeds' can grow in any garden.  We also 
once had a strange doctor who carried out a massacre in a mosque; 
his family erected a glorious tombstone in honor of the 'saint'.... 
The murderer at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva and the terrorist with the 
bulldozer did not represent an organization.  Worse still: They 
reflect the mood of thousands of residents in Israel's capital.... 
Many years ago, a U.S. diplomat who served in Jerusalem said the 
following about the Arabs of the city: 'You will not be able to 
break them or buy them.'  Razing two homes in Jerusalem will destroy 
yet another superficial division between Palestinians and 
Palestinians.  Perhaps this will help us understand that an accord 
in the West Bank, without a solution in Jerusalem, is a dangerous 
illusion." 
 
II.  "Assad Pushing for Palestinian Unity" 
 
Senior Middle East affairs analyst Zvi Bar'el wrote in Ha'aretz 
(7/7): "'When we come to Syria we are coming to our second country,' 
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told Syrian President Bashar 
Assad flatteringly when the two met in Damascus on Sunday.  This 
'homecoming' was initiated by Assad, who recently stepped up his 
involvement in the Palestinian arena -- at Egypt's expense.... 
Assad, who is scheduled to participate early next week in the 
Euro-Mediterranean conference in Paris, would like to arrive with 
two successes under his belt.  The first is the forming of a new 
Lebanese government; the second is the beginning of a Palestinian 
national reconciliation.  With two such achievements, in addition to 
the start of talks with Israel, Syria is hoping to pave its way out 
of the American 'axis of evil,' while emphasizing to the Arab states 
that it is a central player, still capable of fulfilling a role that 
countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia have so far found difficult to 
play.  Palestinian reconciliation has become a central element in 
the media dialogue between Hamas and Fatah.... If the sort of 
reconciliation that Syria is putting forth does emerge, and an 
interim unity government is established, Israel may be faced with an 
old dilemma: Should it recognize such a government and establish a 
working relationship with it -- or adopt, anew, the policy of 
boycotting such a government, and thus bring the talks with Mahmoud 
Abbas to a standstill?" 
 
JONES