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PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHTV #1531/01 1981045
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P 161045Z JUL 08
FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
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UNCLAS TEL AVIV 001531 
 
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: 
------------------------- 
 
All media led with the "return home" from Lebanon of the two 
abducted IDF soldiers after two years and four days in captivity. 
Yesterday, the Israeli cabinet voted 22-3 to proceed with the 
prisoner exchange.  The electronic media reported that this morning 
the caskets of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev were transferred at 
the border crossing of Rosh Hanikra.  Major media quoted Mossad 
Director Meir Dagan as saying that HizbullahQs report on MIA Ron 
Arad was deceptive and that it was only meant to clean Hizbullah and 
Iran of responsibility.  Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz was 
quoted as saying in an interview with The Jerusalem Post that 
Hizbullah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah knows more about Arad than 
was written in the report. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that in May police investigators asked PM Ehud 
Olmert about a $75,000 loan from Joe Elmaleh, a wealthy Israeli who 
now lives in Vermont.  The loan was never repaid.  Yediot and The 
Jerusalem Post quoted New York Magazine as saying, based on 
audiotapes, that 15 to 20 years ago Morris Talansky made serious 
threats on businesspeople in America.  The media reported that 
Olmert's defense lawyers would try to undermine Talansky's 
credibility during his cross-examination tomorrow. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that Hamas representatives postponed negotiations 
with Israel yesterday over Gilad Shalit.  They were expected to 
begin this week in Cairo.  Israel believes Hamas is trying to force 
Egypt to open the Rafah crossing before beginning talks.  In another 
development, Ha'aretz cited AP quoting Nablus residents as saying 
that IDF troops arrested seven Hamas activists yesterday, including 
two municipal council members, in a widening crackdown on Hamas 
operations in the city. 
 
Leading media quoted senior security officials as saying yesterday 
that Sinai-based gangs have immediate plans to kidnap Israelis and 
transfer them to terrorist organizations.  The Israeli National 
Security Council's Counter Terrorism Bureau reissued its warning 
advisory for Sinai. 
 
Israel Radio reported that today in Washington the Palestinian 
negotiating team will meet with Secretary of State Condoleezza 
Rice. 
 
Various media reported that Iran warned Syria against making peace 
with Israel. 
 
The Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom reported that it was Defense 
Minister Ehud Barak who warned Tony Blair against visiting Gaza. 
 
Ha'aretz and The Jerusalem Post reported that yesterday a PA 
security court in Jenin sentenced two Palestinians to death for 
"collaboration with the Israeli enemy." 
 
Ha'aretz reported that the current drought is creating tension 
between Israel and Jordan along both banks of the Jordan River.  The 
Jerusalem Post reported that Mekorot, the government water supply 
company that provides 80 percent of Israel's water, is hoping to 
solve Jerusalem's water shortage by building a fifth pipeline to the 
city. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that National Infrastructure Minister 
Benjamin Ben-Eliezer will propose at the next cabinet meeting 
earmarking 3.5 billion shekels (around $1.06 billion) toward 
reinforcing buildings against a major earthquake along the Dead Sea 
fault, deemed inevitable by many experts. 
 
 
 
 
 
-------- 
Mideast: 
-------- 
 
Summary: 
-------- 
 
Senior Middle East affairs analyst Zvi Bar'el wrote on page one of 
the independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz: "Hizbullah has been touting 
the prisoner exchange deal with Israel as confirmation that the 
Shi'ite militant group ultimately defeated Israel in the Second 
Lebanon War, but the swap is at least as much of a Hizbullah victory 
within Lebanon." 
Ha'aretz editorialized: "We must act to free [Gilad] Shalit 
immediately.  The ongoing war on terror must not be fought on his 
back." 
 
Arab affairs correspondent Jacky Hoogie wrote in the popular, 
pluralist Maariv: "Israel should learn the lesson carefully and make 
use of it: From the day [Hizbullah] was founded in 1982, all the 
military confrontations with it only strengthened it." 
 
Uri Elitzur, who was director of former prime minister Benjamin 
Netanyahu's bureau, wrote in the editorial of the nationalist, 
Orthodox Makor Rishon-Hatzofe: "[Israel] is the only [country] that 
surrendered and gave up the basic principle recognized all over the 
world: one doesn't start any debate over a price without clear 
evidence and guarantees by a neutral source that its people are 
alive." 
 
The ultra-Orthodox Yated Ne'eman editorialized: "Today, with the 
conclusion of the prisoner swap, both sides are returning to the 
starting-point, as the murderous Shi'ite organization, supported by 
Syria and Iran, will try to improve its achievements in the next 
round." 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized: "Today 
will bring difficult images of a Hizbullah-dominated Lebanon 
celebrating a slaughterer of innocents, and of an Israel mourning 
its fallen.  That disparity of images reflects the yawning gulf of 
values between Israel and too many of its neighbors." 
 
 
 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "A Hizbullah Victory" 
 
Senior Middle East affairs analyst Zvi Bar'el wrote on page one of 
the independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (7/16): "Hizbullah has been 
touting the prisoner exchange deal with Israel as confirmation that 
the Shi'ite militant group ultimately defeated Israel in the Second 
Lebanon War, but the swap is at least as much of a Hizbullah victory 
within Lebanon.... Hizbullah, which presents itself as a national 
resistance organization working for the interests of Lebanon, must 
still produce one more achievement: Israel's withdrawal from the 
Sheba Farms area.  The Sheba Farms function as Hizbullah's 
justification for the claim that Israel did not fully withdraw from 
Lebanon, requiring Hizbullah to be armed so it can complete this 
mission too.  Hizbullah is not opposed to negotiations aimed at 
giving Lebanon control over the Sheba Farms; it simply does not 
believe in the Lebanese government's ability to achieve anything 
through talks with Israel.  The prisoner swap will serve Nasrallah 
as a banner to wave before the Lebanese government to prove the 
justness of Hizbullah's path." 
 
II.  "Gilad Shalit Now" 
 
Ha'aretz editorialized (7/16): "The cabinet's approval of the 
prisoner swap with Hizbullah, despite the 'blatantly unsatisfactory' 
report the organization delivered on the fate of Ron Arad, requires 
the cabinet to now act urgently to free Gilad Shalit.... We know for 
sure that one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, is still alive, in the 
hands of Hamas.  No one can imagine what he is going through in 
captivity or how much he has suffered since he was abducted two 
years ago.... Can those opposed to the swap assure the public that 
in another five or 10 years, Shalit's case will not be where [MIA 
Ron] Arad's case is today?  Will we then demand that Hamas, too, 
supply 'only' a report on Shalit's fate?  Will anyone remember then 
that there was a real chance to release him in exchange for a few 
hundred prisoners?  We must act to free Shalit immediately.  The 
ongoing war on terror must not be fought on his back." 
 
III.  "Nasrallah's Coupon" 
 
Arab affairs correspondent Jacky Hoogie wrote in the popular, 
pluralist Maariv (7/16): "We should make no mistake: The sense of 
victory that will arise from [Hizbullah's celebrations] is not a 
lie.  It is true that in order to reach this deal, Hizbullah had to 
sacrifice 250 of its members, paid with the destruction of large 
parts of Lebanon and lost full control over southern Lebanon.  The 
deal is a limited achievement, for which a disproportionate price 
was paid.  But in terms of a battle over consciousness, Nasrallah 
will clip the coupon he wanted today, and will add another victory 
to his list.  The Hizbullah leader will entrench his image as the 
only Arab leader who fought against Israel and defeated it....  It 
is true that not everyone in Lebanon shares in this celebration.... 
[HizbullahQs rivals] despise the path of violence chosen by 
Hizbullah, and fear the influence that it gives Syria and Iran in 
their homeland.  In their heart of hearts, they would like to make 
peace with Israel.  They are not a minority in Lebanon, they are at 
least half the population.  They are adherents of the diplomatic 
path, but unfortunately they are politically weak, and they are not 
the ones who have shown results on the ground.... Israel should 
learn the lesson carefully and make use of it: From the day the 
organization was founded in 1982, all the military confrontations 
with it only strengthened it.  This was the case after the Lebanon 
War, and after Operation Accountability in 1993 and Operation Grapes 
of Wrath in 1996.  After the Second Lebanon War as well, the 
organization did not collapse, it survived and demonstrated to 
everyone who is the boss in Lebanon.  As an organization that fights 
for its life every day anew, this prisoner exchange deal arrived 
just in time for Nasrallah." 
 
IV.  "A Grave Failure of Principles" 
 
Uri Elitzur, who was director of former prime minister Benjamin 
Netanyahu's bureau, wrote in the editorial of the nationalist, 
Orthodox Makor Rishon-Hatzofe (7/16): "The prisoner swap that is 
taking place between Israel and Hizbullah today will be recorded in 
history as one of Israel's blatant failures and a purulent symptom 
of the leadership crisis it is going through.... We haven't invented 
the wheel.  Israel isn't the first country holding such negotiations 
with an enemy; neither is it the only one that was forced to haggle 
with a savage, cruel enemy that is not a state but a terrorist 
organization.  However, [Israel] is the only one that surrendered 
and gave up the basic principle recognized all over the world: one 
doesn't start any debate over a price without clear evidence and 
guarantees by a neutral source that its people are alive." 
 
 
 
¶V.  "Back to the Starting-Point" 
 
The ultra-Orthodox Yated Ne'eman editorialized (7/16): "As the 
current round of fighting between Israel and Hizbullah is coming to 
an end, both sides will find a new starting-point.  Hizbullah will 
try to heat up the northern front and provoke Israel, as it did 
before the war.  It is still owed an unpaid 'debt,' in the form of 
avenging the elimination of its operations officer, Imad Mughniyah. 
It might try to act abroad or again kidnap soldiers.  Israel will 
think twice about the way to respond to Hizbullah's provocations; it 
is doubtful whether such a hasty decision to go to war will be made. 
 Today, with the conclusion of the prisoner swap, both sides are 
returning to the starting-point, as the murderous Shi'ite 
organization, supported by Syria and Iran, will try to improve its 
achievements in the next round." 
 
VI.  "A Disparity of Images" 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (7/16): 
"Israelis are steeling themselves today for the painful images that 
will doubtless accompany the anticipated exchange of unrepentant 
terrorist Samir Kuntar for IDF reserves Eldad Regev and Ehud 
Goldwasser.... There is no surefire way to calibrate the right 
combination of image and substance that might pave the way to 
Arab-Israel peace.... Plainly, though, Assad avoiding Olmert, Assad 
opting not to replicate Sadat by coming to the podium of the 
Knesset, tells us much about his intentions.  Today will bring 
difficult images of a Hizbullah-dominated Lebanon celebrating a 
slaughterer of innocents, and of an Israel mourning its fallen. 
That disparity of images reflects the yawning gulf of values between 
Israel and too many of its neighbors." 
 
MORENO