VZCZCXYZ0001
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHTV #2696/01 3381238
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 031238Z DEC 08
FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
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UNCLAS TEL AVIV 002696 
 
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 reported on a violent day in Hebron yesterday, leading to 
the injury of 18 Israeli security personnel and settlers, including 
a 15-year-old boy whose skull was fractures after he was hit in the 
head by a rock.  HaQaretz quoted the PA as saying that 20 
Palestinians have been hurt in the clashes since Monday.  The 
settlers have inflicted significant damages to Palestinian property 
and vandalized mosques and tombstones.  The area surrounding what 
has been dubbed the House of Contention, which the settlers are 
calling the House of Peace, was declared a closed military zone 
yesterday.  HaQaretz reported that security forces are expected to 
carry out an evacuation of the house by the end of the week.  Israel 
Radio and the leading Internet news service Ynet reported that this 
morning four Jews stabbed an Arab in Jerusalem. 
 
All media reported that the Labor Party has postponed its primary 
election until tomorrow, after a series of technical malfunctions 
shut down its new touch-screen voting system yesterday.  When party 
members return to vote again, they will use the old system -- 
placing paper voting slips in envelopes and dropping them into 
cardboard ballot boxes, to be counted by hand.  The media reported 
that the glitch could have implications for Likud and Kadima, as 
both parties are also planning computerized primaries. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that PA officials in Ramallah told the 
newspaper yesterday that the PA is planning to replace all the 
Hamas-controlled municipalities and village councils in the West 
Bank in the coming weeks.  The officials were quoted as saying that 
the decision was aimed at undermining HamasQs influence in the West 
Bank and paving the way for the extension of PA President Mahmoud 
AbbasQs term after it ends on January 9, 2009. 
Major media reported that Martin Indyk, Director of the Saban Center 
at Brookings, and Richard Haass, President of the Council on Foreign 
Relations, proposed yesterday that President-elect Barack Obama 
should shift the main U.S. foreign policy focus in the Middle East 
from Iraq to curtailing Iran's nuclear program and promoting peace 
agreements between Israel and its Arab neighbors, including Syria. 
Israel Radio cited the concern of Israeli officials about the 
reportQs chapter on Iran. 
Media reported that yesterday the Israel Air Force killed two Gazans 
in the Rafah area, in an air strike the army said targeted a 
Palestinian cell launching mortar shells at Kibbutz Kerem Shalom, 
which borders southern Gaza.  Palestinians fired at least two Qassam 
rockets and five mortar shells at the western Negev yesterday, 
causing no injuries. HaQaretz and other media quoted Palestinian 
sources as saying that the fatalities were brothers, and that four 
others were hurt in the air strike, adding that the brothers and 
three of the other casualties were "youths."  It appears they may 
have been sent by the organization that fired the rockets in order 
to dismantle the launcher. 
HaQaretz reported that yesterday in Brussels FM Tzipi Livni spoke 
before the European Parliament and a meeting of NATO foreign 
ministers.  The newspaper reported that following the meeting, 
Israel and NATO will deepen their relations.  The Jerusalem Post 
reported that Israel is calling on the EU not to rush headlong into 
normalizing relations with an un-reformed Damascus. 
 
Maariv reported that during his recent visit to New York, President 
Shimon Peres met with Sheikh Al-Azhar Muhammad Sayed Tantawi, the 
highest-ranking Muslim cleric in Egypt.  However, in an official 
announcement released yesterday, Tantawi claimed: QI did not know 
whose hand I was shaking. 
 
Media reported that businessman Nir Barkat will take over today from 
Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupoliansky, who served six years in the post. 
 
Citing yesterdayQs Wall Street Journal, The Jerusalem Post reported 
that Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer may be a dark-horse 
candidate for the presidency of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York 
-- to replace Timothy Geithner. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported on QACRI Q Eyes,Q a 30-second public 
announcement that is a public service announcement created by ACRI, 
he Association for Civil Rights in Israel, as part of a three-week 
workshop sponsored by the State DepartmentQs Middle East Partnership 
Initiative (MEPI).  The aim is to encourage non-government 
organizations (NGOs) to use the visual media to spread their 
messages.  In addition to ACRI, six other Israeli organizations 
participated in the workshop, which ended this week.  A U.S. Embassy 
official was quoted as saying that the workshop, which was 
facilitated by the nonprofit, New York-based production company 
Barefoot, was aimed at furthering social causes in the Middle East. 
 
--------- 
¶1.  Iran: 
--------- 
 
Summary: 
-------- 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized: QThe 
best place to hit-the-ground-running is on the Iranian issue.... If 
Iran gets the bomb, Hamas and Hizbullah will be emboldened and 
Muslim moderates throughout the world will be marginalized.  So, 
too, will the idea of taking risks for peace. 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
QTeam Obama 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (12/3): 
Q[ObamaQs] appointments sent a message that was, by and large, 
reassuring.... [Nonetheless,] the Obama administration can be 
expected to pursue the same fundamental U.S. Mideast policy that has 
been in place since 1967: finding the right modality to exchange 
land for peace.... As the Obama team takes over on January 20, 
neither Palestinians nor Israelis will be in a position to make 
substantive negotiating progress.  Israel will be in post-election 
diplomatic limbo, while the Palestinian polity will still be 
physically divided and politically fragmented.  So the best place to 
hit-the-ground-running is on the Iranian issue.... If Obama shows 
himself truly committed to preventing the apocalypse-seeking Tehran 
regime from going nuclear, if he rejects the notion that the mullahs 
can be managed via deterrence, he will lead his team in pressing for 
full bore sanctions, backed by the threat of force as a last resort. 
 This does not preclude talking to Iran.  It only means he'd have 
their full attention.   If Iran gets the bomb, Hamas and Hizbullah 
will be emboldened and Muslim moderates throughout the world will be 
marginalized.  So, too, will the idea of taking risks for peace. 
 
------------ 
¶2.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
Summary: 
-------- 
 
The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: QIsrael has 
many QassetsQ in its hands -- more than 11,000 prisoners, some of 
whom could certainly be exchanged for Gilad Shalit. 
 
Former Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami wrote in the 
mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot: QObamaQs election is a 
revolutionary landmark in the history of America, which cannot be 
allowed to dissipate due to excessive expectations. 
 
American-born historian and journalist Gershom Gorenberg wrote in 
Ha'aretz: Q[The late Moshe] Dayan didn't learn from the experience 
of other nations.  Netanyahu wants to recycle the failure of his own 
nation. 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "The Folly of the Detentions" 
 
The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (12/3): 
QAbducting people solely for bargaining, whether in Lebanon or the 
territories, cannot be accepted as a legitimate part of the struggle 
being led by the government.  That is the way of terror 
organizations.  Israel has many QassetsQ in its hands -- more than 
11,000 prisoners, some of whom could certainly be exchanged for 
Gilad Shalit.  The stalled negotiations for his release must be 
revived quickly and sincerely, with Israel knowing full well the 
price of his welfare.  The state must immediately speed up the 
negotiations, offer the necessary price, and stop the superfluous 
nickel-and-diming.  Shalit must come home. 
 
II.  QHot Potato for the President 
 
Former Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami wrote in the 
mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (12/3): QBarack ObamaQs 
plans for the Middle East represent a welcome shift away from the 
idea that the ills of regions suffering from dysfunction should be 
treated by Qconstructive chaos.Q  But it is very possible that the 
far-reaching promises of the new U.S. president will also prove to 
be unrealistic.   ObamaQs agenda is breathtaking.... The magnitude 
of the task should be examined versus the depressing legacy of the 
Middle East, which is fraught with confrontations.  The entire 
region is undergoing a dangerous process of extremism, while a 
growing chain of organizations, mainly radical Muslim groups, are 
opposed to the very existence of an orderly state.... Obama may 
understand fairly quickly that his schedule for a withdrawal from 
Iraq is simply unrealistic.  A quick U.S. disengagement could end in 
a disintegration of the country into fragments of political 
entities, one of which could certainly be a Muslim republic 
controlled by Iran.... As for Iran, the new U.S. president may 
return to a strategy of military pressure much sooner than he wants: 
Iran has no intention of deviating from its progress towards nuclear 
status. The Middle East poses an almost impossible task to Obama: 
To deal with historical and political ills while the United States 
he inherited no longer enjoys a status of unquestioned hegemony, 
while it and its allies are immersed in the most severe economic 
crisis since 1929.... ObamaQs election is a revolutionary landmark 
in the history of America, which cannot be allowed to dissipate due 
to excessive expectations.  His idealistic urge will have to be 
moderated in light of the United StatesQ limited power at present. 
The challenge that faces his foreign policy is not to change the 
Middle East but rather to repair it, and by the good old diplomatic 
means.  If the goal is thus defined, the fulcrum for achieving it is 
resolving the Israeli-Arab conflict in general and the Palestinian 
issue in particular.  Obama will have to start keeping his promise 
to deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Qfrom the moment I am 
sworn inQ without wasting time.... There is no need to reinvent the 
wheel. 
 
 
III.  "Dayan as Tragedy, Bibi as Farce" 
 
American-born historian and journalist Gershom Gorenberg wrote in 
Ha'aretz (12/3): QStraightforwardly, [the late Moshe] Dayan sought 
to establish a colonial regime, supposedly benevolent.  Israel would 
rule; the natives would work, study and be happy with their lot.... 
But his proposal treated the Palestinians practically as different 
species: They would be satisfied with economic improvements and 
wouldn't seek political expression as individuals or a 
collective.... Netanyahu's platform is a con game twice over. 
Palestinians will not abandon their demand for independence because 
of economic growth.  And given the absolute lack of free movement in 
the territories, even a colonial economy can't grow there.  The 
question is what will happen first: a new violent confrontation or 
an international economic boycott.... Still, there's a difference 
between Dayan and Netanyahu: Dayan didn't learn from the experience 
of other nations.  Netanyahu wants to recycle the failure of his own 
nation.  Perhaps that's the difference between tragedy and farce. 
 
MORENO