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DE RUEHTV #2311/01 2821201
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P 081201Z OCT 08
FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
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RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 2110
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UNCLAS TEL AVIV 002311 
 
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 
 
Please note: There will be no Tel Aviv Media Reaction report on 
Thursday, October 9, 2008, due to the Yom Kippur holiday. 
 
-------------------------------- 
SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: 
-------------------------------- 
 
Mideast 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
All media reported that a surprise 0.5-percent cut in the Bank of 
Israel discount rate sent local stocks soaring yesterday. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that official Kadima and Labor 
negotiating teams met for the first time on Friday to try to 
finalize a deal on a new governing coalition led by Kadima leader 
Tzipi Livni.  HaQaretz reported that the coalition talks stalled 
yesterday after Labor called off a meeting between the two 
negotiating teams at the last minute.  Maariv and Makor 
Rishon-Hatzofe reported that Histadrut Labor Federation 
Secretary-General Ofer Eini will represent the Labor Party in the 
talks with Kadima.  Makor Rishon-Hatzofe reported that 
Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz and his associates are opposed 
to the establishment of a narrow-based government. 
 
Leading media published transcripts of generalsQ testimony to the 
Agranat Commission that investigated the Yom Kippur War.  The IDF 
released the tapes for publication yesterday.  Then Maj. Gen. (res.) 
Ariel Sharon was quoted as saying that there was no clear picture of 
what was going on.  The late Moshe Dayan, then Defense Minister, was 
quoted as saying that he lacked military qualifications to influence 
decisions.  Yediot revealed that East German pilots aided Syria 
during the war.  HaQaretzQs military correspondent commented that 
the same arrogance characterized the Yom Kippur War and the Second 
Lebanon War. 
 
EU envoy Marc Otte was quoted as saying yesterday in an interview 
with The Jerusalem Post that PM Ehud OlmertQs comments about Israel 
needing to make a nearly complete withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines 
will certainly be a reference point in the future, although Olmert 
and FM Tzipi Livni have insisted that the comments are not binding. 
Leading media quoted PM Ehud Olmert as saying yesterday that he 
received assurances that Russia would not allow Israel's security to 
be threatened, but he offered no indication that he won the concrete 
promises he sought on Russian arms sales or sanctions on Iran. 
After meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Olmert also 
said that Israel was not prepared to tolerate a situation in which 
Iran possesses nuclear weapons, but will not take the lead in 
preventing it from gaining nuclear capability.  Media reported that 
Olmert did not receive a clear commitment that Russia would refrain 
from supplying Syria with S-300 anti-aircraft missiles or selling 
advanced weapons to Iran.  However, he was quoted as saying that he 
succeeded in getting Medvedev to understand his fears that 
Russian-made missiles and other technology could fall into the hands 
of anti-Israeli militants in the region. 
 
The Jerusalem Post and Makor Rishon-Hatzofe reported that the IDF is 
finalizing a new PA deployment in Hebron.  Makor Rishon-Hatzofe also 
reported that six pipe bombs were seized during an IDF operation in 
Jenin. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that yesterday, in a letter to the 
police and the Internal Security Minister, the KnessetQs Internal 
Committee lamented the lack of resources available to law 
enforcement forces in the West Bank. 
 
HaQaretz reported that Israeli authorities are implementing a 
closure on settlements in the South Hebron Hills east of the 
separation fence for Yom Kippur, citing a lack of manpower to keep 
the road open.  So far, limitations on traffic have been in effect 
during Jewish holidays only for the Palestinian population. 
 
Maariv quoted the Italian daily Corriere Della Sera as saying that 
Iran sent a senior official to Lebanon to replace assassinated 
Hizbullah operative Imad Mughniyah.  Yediot reported that last week 
Jordanian intelligence arrested two flight cadets from Bahrain on 
suspicion of gathering intelligence that would be used to plan 
attacks against Israeli cities. The newspaper reported that 
involvement by Iran or Islamic radicals is being considered. 
 
HaQaretz reported that Khalid Dukhi, an Israeli Arab lawyer for the 
workers rights group Kav La'Oved, was handcuffed and briefly 
detained by police on Monday when he refused to take his pants off 
during an airport security check.  It was the second time in two 
months that local airport officials had asked Dukhi to remove his 
pants as part of a pre-flight security check.  Dukhi was flying from 
Tel Aviv to Eilat on Monday to provide legal assistance to Sudanese 
refugees. 
 
Former World Jewish Congress President Edgar Bronfman was quoted as 
saying yesterday in an interview with HaQaretz: "Judaism must open 
up and fully accept families where one of the parents is not Jewish. 
 If a revolutionary change is not made in the present rejectionist 
attitude toward mixed couples, the Jewish community in America will 
shrink and lose its influence, and American support for Israel will 
be in danger." 
 
Yediot reported that a 12-year-old cancer patient from Iran will 
arrive in Israel on Friday for treatment at the Shiba Medical Center 
in Tel Hashomer.  His parents will accompany him. 
 
The Jerusalem Post printed a feature article on Dan Ben-David 
(Kadima), the QU.S. immigrant whoQs turned down the Knesset.Q  He 
gave up a Knesset seat in favor of Rachel Adato-Levy. 
 
Leading media reported that Israeli archeologists have discovered a 
fragment from the lid of a sarcophagus, bearing the inscription "son 
of the high priest" in a Second Temple-era script.  The fragment was 
found north of Jerusalem, near Nebi Samuel, in a salvage excavation 
conducted by the Civil Administration to prepare for the separation 
fence. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
-------- 
Mideast: 
-------- 
 
Summary: 
-------- 
 
The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: QIt is clear 
that the good of the country is ... [to] establish a government 
whose plans and makeup reflect the fundamental guidelines of the 
outgoing government. 
 
Conservative Jewish affairs correspondent Nadav Shragai wrote in 
Ha'aretz: QOne must beware of those who talk about the greatness of 
the rule of law even as their hearts are full of hatred when it 
comes to the Other. 
 
Columnist Michael Freund, who was an assistant to former prime 
minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wrote in the conservative, independent 
Jerusalem Post: QIt is regrettable that Peres could not ... offer 
some acknowledgement of failure or at least a plea for forgiveness 
from the victims of Oslo. 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "A New Government - Now" 
 
The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (10/8): QIn 
this period of uncertainty and financial crisis threatening to 
become a recession, the cabinet must prepare an emergency plan, but 
it needs to do so in secret, without talking about it in the media. 
But to carry out such plans there must be a new government as soon 
as possible, a government that will last for two years, until the 
scheduled 2010 elections.  It [should be] clear that the good of the 
country is the top priority for Barak and for Shas chairman Eli 
Yishai, both of whom now need to put aside all the so-called 
achievements for their voters they were trying to win, and establish 
a government whose plans and makeup reflect the fundamental 
guidelines of the outgoing government. 
 
II.  "The Left Marked Them" 
 
Conservative Jewish affairs correspondent Nadav Shragai wrote in 
Ha'aretz (10/8): QOne must beware of those who talk about the 
greatness of the rule of law even as their hearts are full of hatred 
when it comes to the Other.  Someone who beats up Palestinians and 
damages their property should sit in jail.  But are the settlers as 
a whole -- all 300,000 of them -- responsible for that?.... From the 
perspective of the left and the media, settlers have become the 
ultimate Other, mainly because of the ideological threat that they, 
religious Zionists and anyone who identifies with them, poses to 
those who pride themselves on an absence of ideology.  The Kadima 
party, with its blurred identity and limited values, is just one 
example of this.  The settlers -- in the path they have chosen, in 
their faith, and even in their appearance -- represent the exact 
opposite.  That is their sin, and that is their reward. 
III.  "Atonement for Oslo" 
 
Columnist Michael Freund, who was an assistant to former prime 
minister Benjamin Netanyahu, wrote in the conservative, independent 
Jerusalem Post (10/8): QIn an interview last Friday with Makor 
Rishon, our President [Shimon Peres] showed little inclination 
toward introspection when the subject turned to the disastrous 1993 
Oslo Accords with the PLO that he helped to fashion.  Asked what he 
now thought of Oslo in retrospect, the putative peace-maker had only 
words of praise for the unmitigated catastrophe that he brought on 
this country.  Disproving the notion that with hindsight necessarily 
comes knowledge, Peres insisted that QOslo gave us the basis for 
peace.Q  What it also gave us, of course, was murder and mayhem on 
an unprecedented scale, as a surge in Palestinian terror left 
hundreds of Israelis dead and thousands of others injured over the 
course of subsequent years.... It is regrettable that Peres could 
not rise to the occasion in his interview and offer some 
acknowledgement of failure or at least a plea for forgiveness from 
the victims of Oslo.  But not a single, solitary word of contrition, 
penitence, or remorse is to be found on the subject.... Peres' 
obstinate refusal to come clean is also reflective of a larger 
problem in Israeli society: a lack of willingness to accept personal 
responsibility for one's actions.   It plagues our lives in so many 
spheres, from the playground to the boardroom to the Knesset. 
 
CUNNINGHAM