VZCZCXRO0020
PP RUEHROV
DE RUEHAM #0164/01 0191340
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 191340Z JAN 09
FM AMEMBASSY AMMAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4222
INFO RUEHXK/ARAB ISRAELI COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 000164 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA/ELA, NEA/PPD, IIP/GNEA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OPRC KPAO KMDR JO
SUBJECT: JORDAN: JANUARY 19 MEDIA REACTION TO GAZA 
 
¶1. SUMMARY:  Ceasefire announcements along with rescue and recovery 
efforts led Jordanian media coverage of developments in and around 
Gaza over the long weekend.  The U.S. - Israel MOU also received 
front-page attention.  King Abdullah's participation at the Sharm 
El-Sheikh meeting headed local coverage.  Public demonstrations saw 
calls for economic boycotts and criticism of Palestinian President 
Abbas and the EU.  Op-ed commentators expressed deep skepticism that 
the ceasefires would hold.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶2. Throughout the local weekend, Sunday and today, major newspapers, 
especially Al-Ghad, stuck to banner headlines and large color photos 
of each day's major developments of events in and around Gaza. 
Events in Gaza and outside Jordan were almost exclusively sourced to 
international wire services. 
 
¶3. All broadsheets on Monday led with rescue and recovery efforts in 
Gaza, reporting how "dozens of bodies were pulled from the mountains 
of rubble left by Israel's three-week offensive."  Al-Ghad newspaper 
went further, describing the scene in Gaza an outcome of Israel's 
"scorched earth" policy.  Newspapers gave front-page attention to 
Israeli Prime Minister Olmert's statement that IDF units would be 
withdrawn "as quickly as possible."  The one-week ceasefire 
announced by Hamas and other militants also received prominent 
coverage.  In addition, dailies carried extensive coverage of the 
outcomes of the "international summit" at Sharm El-Sheikh, focusing 
on King Abdullah's warning that without a lasting solution according 
to the two-state formula, "world leaders will again find themselves 
forced to meet endlessly to tackle a new Israeli aggression on the 
Palestinian people." 
 
¶3. Monday's Jordan Times published a front-page report quoting 
Interior Minister Fayez as saying that more than 600 demonstrations 
had been held in Jordan during Israel's three-week offensive.  Fayez 
boasted that the demonstrations took place under the supervision of 
law enforcement authorities who performed "without shooting a 
bullet, despite some provocations."  He reportedly made the remarks 
during a meeting at the Lower House of Parliament on Sunday. 
 
¶4. Israel's declaration of a unilateral ceasefire led Sunday's 
newspapers along with an Agence France Presse (AFP) photo of a 
missile strike early Saturday on an UNRWA-sponsored school in Beit 
Lahiya in northern Gaza.  Sub-headlines reported King Abdullah's 
decision to participate Sunday in an "international summit" called 
by Egyptian President Mubarak at Sharm el-Sheikh.  Al-Ghad reported 
that a "high-level Jordanian official source" described the call by 
Arab League member states meeting in Doha to suspend the Arab Peace 
Initiative as "a risky measure that would rob Arab negotiators of 
all tools and would deprive them of key means of managing the 
struggle with Israel." 
 
¶5. Saturday's newspapers gave prominent coverage to the Memorandum 
of Understanding (MOU) signed by Secretary Rice and Israeli Foreign 
Minister Livni on Friday to stem the flow of weapons and explosives 
into Gaza.  Al-Arab Al-Yawm published a front-page photo of the 
signing beside a larger photo of an Israeli tank firing a shell. 
Both photos were credited to AFP.  Reports on Friday's public 
demonstrations in Jordan also received front-page attention. 
"Thousands" of students, labor unionists, Islamists and opposition 
party members staged protests around the kingdom.  Protestors burned 
Israeli and American consumer products in front of the Professional 
Associations complex.  At a civil society conference organized by 
Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, participants condemned Palestinian 
President Abbas for not attending the Doha summit.  Journalists at 
the conference reported that MB leader Hammam Said called for 
annulling the Wadi Araba treaty and cutting all ties with Israel. 
Elsewhere on Friday, activists delivered a petition to the EU 
mission in Amman opposing the EU's position on the conflict.  Riot 
police reportedly dispersed a crowd of approximately 200 young men 
who tried to approach the Israeli embassy in Amman's Rafieh 
neighborhood.  Three persons received minor injuries, according to a 
PSD spokesman. 
 
¶6. Editorial Commentary 
 
-- "The Same Conclusion!" 
 
Columnist Jamil Nimri in the January 19 edition of the independent 
Arabic daily Al-Ghad comments, "As we expected and feared, the 
formula for stopping the war did not come as part of a comprehensive 
package that includes withdrawal and ending the siege, but rather 
connected with only one thing, which is arrangements to prevent arms 
smuggling and supply....  Indeed, the main conclusion from this 
fascist and bloody campaign, which should be focused on and repeated 
day and night, is that without resolving the Palestinian issue and 
ending the occupation, there will always be disruptions and wars in 
the region." 
 
-- "What Ceasefire After the Blood Hysteria?!" 
 
Columnist Barhoum Jaraisi in the January 19 edition of Al-Ghad 
fulminates, "The experience of Israeli criminality does not at all 
 
AMMAN 00000164  002 OF 002 
 
 
encourage expectations that the ceasefire, which Israel announced, 
will last.  This is because Israel has maintained the trigger which 
it could use as pretext for another strike, while it has been 
reassured by the 'understanding' of world decision-making countries, 
especially the United States.  Most likely, the Israeli decision is 
wily and maneuvering decision to justify the next massacre.... 
Israel sits at the bottom of a pit never known to humanity.  Israel 
did not commit a 'holocaust' and there is no need to summon 
descriptions or names of racist and terrorist regimes from past 
history by which to describe Israel.  Israel is a model all on its 
own.  There is no need to draw comparisons or similarities.  In 
fact, if those old regimes were here today, they would have a lot to 
learn from Israel." 
 
-- "Arab Weakness" 
 
Columnist Amr Hamzawy also in the January 19 edition of Al-Ghad 
inveighs, "The fact is that Israel launched its war on Gaza and 
arrogantly continued it, using excessive military force and 
committing war crimes against civilians, and then finished it 
unilaterally with very limited losses, and all the while not paying 
any attention to the angry world public opinion or to the concerns 
of the Arab countries, the moderate and the opposition.  We, in the 
Arab world, have the responsibility ... of rationalizing this very 
miserable fact, without those ideological exaggerations or enthused 
speeches that ignore the Palestinian and Arab helplessness to 
prevent Israel from achieving its objectives from the war on 
Gaza....  I have no doubt that there are three factors for our 
helplessness, which have become very clear in the past few weeks. 
They are: the absence of the strategic compass for the Palestinian 
action, the hegemony of Arab conflicts and differences, and the 
weakness of the Arab League.  The outcome is the actual liquidation 
of the Palestinian cause... and the complete marginalization of the 
Arab countries that have become mere objects in the context of 
international and regional security arrangements beyond their power. 
 The United States, which rarely enters into foreign commitments of 
a strategic nature during a presidential transition period, finds no 
problem in pledging extensive support for Israel to prevent arms 
from going into Gaza, which even a mention of Washington's ally and 
Gaza's neighbor, Egypt.  It is as if Cairo's position, regardless of 
its nature, is of no consequence for the Americans and Israelis. 
The new arrangements are going to be put in place, like it or 
not....  Meanwhile, the Palestinians celebrate their differences and 
entrench them through the exchange of obnoxious remarks between 
Ramallah and Gaza, as if Israel's brutality and the blood of 
civilians in Gaza are not enough for one moment of truth for 
national unity.  As for the Arabs, they have a store-load of verbal 
confrontations... and calls for consultative summit meetings that 
turn into productions for bad and empty political rhetoric or 
conferences for passing the will of Israel and the west." 
 
-- "For Gaza To Be Better" 
 
Columnist and Al-Jazeera Amman bureau chief Yaser Abu Hilala in the 
January 19 edition of Al-Ghad :  "With Israel's declaration of a 
unilateral ceasefire, the same scene of the June war [Lebanon 2006] 
repeats itself.  The resistance came out with its head held high and 
its banner un-surrendered....  The Arabs convening in Kuwait must 
exercise pressure towards a national reconciliation government, 
because this will unify the Arabs who are divided on the basis of 
the Palestinian division and because it is the only point of entry 
for rebuilding Gaza." 
 
-- "Salah Al-Bashir's Defense of the Peace Initiative and Jumping 
Past the Israeli Crime" 
 
Managing editor Fahed Khitan in the January 19 edition of the 
independent, opposition Arabic daily Al-Arab Al-Yawm confesses, 
"Until recently, I had thought that the policy of open options with 
regard to relations with Israel was still valid, but remarks by 'a 
responsible Jordanian source' to the press on the sidelines of the 
Kuwait economic summit gives the impression that the government has 
folded that policy....  It was not at all appropriate to say those 
remarks.  The minister should have waited until the current 
developments have been reviewed and until the Jordanian foreign 
policy has been redrawn in line with the national interest.  Only 
then will be appropriate to defend or oppose the peace initiative. 
Commitment to peace as a strategic option does not mean continuing 
the negotiations, the handshakes, and the secret and public meetings 
as we have seen in the past few years.  This path has not brought 
peace and has degraded us and became a cover for unforgivable crimes 
and a way to confiscate the Palestinian people's right to 
resistance." 
 
BEECROFT