VZCZCXYZ0010
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHTV #1171/01 1521052
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 011052Z JUN 09
FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1988
RHEHAAA/WHITE HOUSE WASHDC PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/WHITE HOUSE NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEAHQA/HQ USAF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEADWD/DA WASHDC PRIORITY
RHMFIUU/CNO WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEHAD/AMEMBASSY ABU DHABI PRIORITY 5487
RUEHAS/AMEMBASSY ALGIERS PRIORITY 2067
RUEHAM/AMEMBASSY AMMAN PRIORITY 6020
RUEHAK/AMEMBASSY ANKARA PRIORITY 6298
RUEHLB/AMEMBASSY BEIRUT PRIORITY 5528
RUEHEG/AMEMBASSY CAIRO PRIORITY 4087
RUEHDM/AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS PRIORITY 6352
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 3161
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS PRIORITY 1364
RUEHRB/AMEMBASSY RABAT PRIORITY 0057
RUEHRO/AMEMBASSY ROME PRIORITY 7566
RUEHRH/AMEMBASSY RIYADH PRIORITY 2544
RUEHTU/AMEMBASSY TUNIS PRIORITY 6559
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 8609
RUEHJI/AMCONSUL JEDDAH PRIORITY 1386
RUEHJM/AMCONSUL JERUSALEM PRIORITY 2115
RHMFISS/CDR USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY
RHMFISS/COMSOCEUR VAIHINGEN GE PRIORITY
RHMFIUU/COMSIXTHFLT  PRIORITY

UNCLAS TEL AVIV 001171 
 
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: 
------------------------- 
 
Ha'aretz and Israel Radio reported that DM Ehud Barak will arrive in 
Washington for talk with senior U.S. administration officials in an 
ttempt to ease the bilateral tension that has eruped over 
Washington's demand that Israel freeze cnstruction in the 
settlements.  Ha'aretz reporte that Barack Obama's administration 
has alreadyrejected Israel's contention that the President's 
predecessor, George W. Bush, had agreed to expansin of the 
settlement blocs that Israel hopes keepunder any agreement with the 
Palestinians.  According to Ha'aretz, the administration also told 
both Congress and American Jewish organizations not to bother 
entertaining hopes that Barak will budge Obama and Secretary of 
State Hillary Clinton from their demand for a complete halt to 
settlement construction.   However, The Jerusalem Post reported that 
Israel will not freeze settlement construction for natural growth. 
The Jerusalem Post reported that yesterday Netanyahu met with Likud 
Knesset members and reassured them that he did not intend to remove 
settlements. 
 
Media reported that Barak will also have to deal with American 
demands that Israel open its border crossings with Gaza to 
facilitate the Strip's reconstruction following Operation Cast Lead 
in January.  Ha'aretz and Yediot reported that, over the weekend, 
the London-based Sunday Times quoted senior administration officials 
as saying that Obama "has given himself two years for a diplomatic 
breakthrough on a two-state solution for Israel and the 
Palestinians," despite PM Benjamin Netanyahu's opposition "to 
America's minimum demand for a freeze on all settlement building in 
disputed territory."  The White House declined to comment on the 
report.  Yediot quoted a "close Netanyahu associate" as saying the 
Obama administration needed to understand that its demands on the 
Israeli premier would cause his government to fall.  The associate 
reportedly wondered: "What does [Obama] want from [Netanyahu], who 
"agrees to remove outposts, recognizes the Roadmap, and has 
announced he would honor past agreements?" 
Ha'aretz reported that Saudi Arabia and other Arab states have also 
made it clear to Washington that they view a settlement freeze as a 
precondition for any move toward normalization with Israel. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that GOI officials expressed their disappointment 
after Tuesday's round of meetings in London with U.S. special envoy 
George Mitchell. "We're disappointed," one senior official was 
quoted as saying: "All of the understandings reached during the 
[George W.] Bush administration are worth nothing."  Another 
official was quoted as saying that the U.S. administration is 
refusing every Israeli attempt to reach new agreements on settlement 
construction. "The United States is taking a line of granting 
concessions to the Palestinians that is not fair toward Israel," he 
said.  The Israeli officials attributed the unyielding U.S. stance 
to the speech Obama will make in Cairo this Thursday, in which he is 
expected to deliver a message of reconciliation to the Arab and 
Muslim worlds. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that senior Israeli officials were 
"dismissive and defiant" on Saturday, following PA President Mahmoud 
Abbas's visit to Washington, highlighted by a report in which PA 
officials said that their leadership is waiting for U.S. pressure to 
bring down the Netanyahu government. 
 
All media reported that on Thursday, after a manhunt that lasted 
more than 14 years, IDF troops killed Majid Dudin, a senior Hamas 
activist in the southern Hebron hills who was party to planning two 
major suicide bombings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv in 1995. 
 
 
The Jerusalem Post quoted Peace Now as saying yesterday that 44% 
(around 1730 acres) of the land on which outposts are built is 
private Palestinian land.  The newspaper also quoted data released 
yesterday by the GOI's Central Bureau of Statistics: work on new 
apartment units in the West Bank dropped sharply in the first 
quarter of 2009, down 39% compared to the first quarter of 2008. 
 
All media reported that PM Netanyahu announced yesterday that he has 
appointed former senior Mossad operative Haggai Hadas to head 
negotiations with Hamas over the release of Gilad Shalit.  (Hadas 
quit Mossad over disagreements with its Director, Meir Dagan.)  Over 
the weekend the media reported that Intelligence Affairs Minister 
Dan Meridor had turned down the position.  Shalit's parents 
participated in the annual Salute to Israel parade along New York's 
Fifth Avenue. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that Egypt has rejected an American proposal for 
gradual normalization between the Arab world and Israel that would 
have allowed Israeli planes to fly freely through Arab air space. 
The idea arose during discussions in Washington last week between 
senior Egyptian and U.S. officials.  The Jerusalem Post reported 
that Shin Bet head Yuval Diskin told the cabinet yesterday that 
Egypt is arresting officers who take bribes from arms smuggler, and 
that it is rotating its troops in the Sinai so that they do not get 
too close to the local population. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that while senior IDF officers are 
willing to recognize the PA security forces' success following the 
anti-Hamas operation in Qalqilya yesterday morning, those officers 
expressed concern regarding the possibility that the IDF would be 
asked to withdraw its forces from various West Bank cities and 
transfer responsibility to the Palestinian forces. 
 
All media reported that yesterday the Ministerial Committee on 
Legislation rejected a bill that would have conditioned Israeli 
citizenship on a declaration of loyalty to Israel as a Jewish state. 
 The bill would have required applicants for citizenship to pledge 
loyalty to Israel as a Jewish, Zionist, and democratic state and to 
the state's symbols and values.  It would also condition citizenship 
on either military service or alternative national service. 
However, only Yisrael Beiteinu ministers supported the bill.  All 
other committee members voted against it.  Israel Radio quoted 
Jordanian media as saying that Jordan is considering taking steps 
against Israel if it does not revoke a bill proposed by Knesset 
Member Arieh Eldad (National Union), which calls for "creating two 
states on the two banks of the Jordan River, one for the Israelis 
and one for the Palestinians." 
 
Leading media reported on the trial underway in Azerbaijan of two 
Hizbullah members and four Azeri collaborators accused of plotting 
to attack the Israeli Embassy in Baku to avenge the assassination of 
top Hizbullah operative Imad Mughniyah. 
 
Ha'aretz reported that the Foreign Ministry has instructed Israeli 
diplomats to organize demonstrations in front of Iranian consulates 
worldwide, stage mock stonings and hangings in public, launch a 
massive media campaign against Iran, and prepare other activities on 
the matter in the coming weeks.  The goal, according to a senior 
Foreign Ministry official, is "to show the world that Iran is not a 
Western democracy" in the run-up to the country's presidential 
election on June 12. 
 
Electronic media reported that early this morning rightists blocked 
a West Bank road and attacked Palestinians to protest a plan to 
evacuate outposts. 
 
Israel Radio reported that FM Avigdor Lieberman is leaving today on 
an official trip to Russia and Belarus. 
 
Citing Reuters, Ha'aretz reported that on Friday Ben-Ami Kadish, an 
85-year-old U.S. Army civilian employee, was fined $50,000 but 
avoided pleading guilty to giving classified documents to Israel in 
the 1980s. 
 
All media reported that Ephraim Katzir, Israel's fourth president 
(1973-1978), passed away on Saturday at the age of 93. 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "How We Beat Obama" 
 
Senior op-ed writer Akiva Eldar commented in the independent, 
left-leaning Ha'aretz (6/1): "Let's agree that Obama in his naivete 
really has become preoccupied with inconsequential matters, such as 
a handful of pathetic outposts.  Should Israel risk a crisis with 
the most important power in the world because of what it considers 
'inconsequential matters'?  Does Israel have a greater existential 
strategic asset than its relations with the U.S. and its neighbors' 
understanding that these intimate relations are unshakable?.... Does 
Israel really have an interest in winning the battle over the 
settlements?  What will happen if we destroy the prestige of the 
strongest man in the world and portray him as an empty vessel, 
incapable of halting the settlement program of a U.S. protege?  Will 
an Israeli 'victory' strengthen the status of the U.S. in the 
international campaign against Iran?.... Israel itself, the Israel 
that does not understand the connection between the settlement of 
Yizhar and the reactor in Bushehr, claims that Hamastan is nothing 
more than a subsidiary of Iran.  Iranian President Mahmoud 
Ahmadinejad will not shed a tear if Israel blows off Obama with his 
two-state solution.  The sharper the conflict between the Jews and 
E 
the Americans on 'inconsequential matters,' the greater Iran's 
joy." 
 
II.  "Putting on the Pressure" 
 
Diplomatic correspondent Aluf Benn wrote on page one of Ha'aretz 
(5/31): "United States President Barack Obama lays out long-term 
visionary goals, such as Middle East peace, but he moves with 
political pragmatism in advancing them.  This is as true of his 
domestic and economic objectives as it is of his complex approach to 
Israel.  His statements are carefully tailored to the measure of 
Congress's support for Israel.  Congressional representatives are 
committed to preserving Israel's security and dealing with Iran, but 
do not support strengthening the settlements.  So Obama stresses his 
support for Israel's security, but is willing to confront Prime 
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the settlements.... Netanyahu faces 
a difficult dilemma, whose outcome will also affect his coalition's 
fate.  He does not have too many cards to play with, but realizes he 
must give the Americans something.  In the coming weeks he will try 
to concoct a formula that will keep his coalition and party intact, 
and satisfy Obama as well." 
 
III.  "Paradigm Shift" 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (6/1): 
"U.S. policymakers have always opposed Israel's presence beyond the 
Green Line.  Condoleezza Rice was here only last June complaining 
about settlements.  Still, there's no denying the disturbing change 
in tone emanating from Washington, which is elevating the 
settlements issue to an importance which is disproportionate. It's 
being accompanied by a paradigm shift: pressing Israel while 
coddling the Palestinians.  This approach is destined to leave both 
Israelis and Palestinians embittered and no closer to resolving the 
conflict.  Final borders need to be negotiated.  And when they are, 
all settlements on the 'wrong' side of the line will be dismantled 
-- just as they were when Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza. It 
would therefore be reasonable, in the interim, for Washington not to 
make an issue of modest levels of natural growth in these 
communities.  At the same time, a freeze within the strategic 
settlement blocs, including Jerusalem, which Israel intends to 
retain in any agreement, is simply not on the agenda.  That said, 
the Israeli government needs to better articulate the fact that no 
new settlements are being authorized beyond the security barrier. 
And it needs to move with all deliberate speed to dismantle illegal 
outposts permanently.  When American dcision-makers denigrate 
painful Israeli sacrifices -- including disengagement; when they 
disregard the commitments of their predecessors, they are not 
fostering peace.  Rather, they're giving mainstream Israelis cause 
to fear making further sacrifices." 
 
IV.  "It's Not the Settlements, Stupid" 
 
Senior columnist Nahum Barnea wrote in the mass-circulation, 
pluralist Yediot Aharonot (6/1): "President Obama has made it clear 
from the first week of his term that he is determined to turn over a 
new leaf with the Muslim and Arab world.  Incidentally, his 
declarations also reflected a natural desire to do the opposite of 
his pQecessor.  Bush behaved the same way with regard to Clinton's 
foreign policy, as did other presidents.  In substantive terms, the 
appeal to the Arab world is intended to help the administration cope 
with the difficult legacy left behind by the previous 
administration.  The assumption is that the support of Arab and 
Islamic states for the U.S. will help it extricate itself from Iraq 
and successfully deal with its enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan 
and with the Iranian nuclear program.  Obama is not adopting this 
initiative to serve Israeli interests, but it can be of substantial 
benefit to Israel, mainly on the Iranian issue.  The speech that 
President Obama is scheduled to give in Cairo on Thursday is 
supposed to clear the atmosphere and renew the confidence of the 
Arab street in the U.S.  Such a speech cannot skip over the 
Palestinian issue.  The administration expected, in the most 
legitimate manner, to receive something from Netanyahu that it could 
take hold of.  Not giving up territory.  Not giving up rights.  A 
foreign policy plan.  A vision.  Netanyahu came empty-handed and 
created a vacuum that was filled, with full force, by the issue of 
settlements." 
 
¶V.  "The Price of Netanyahu's Smugness" 
 
Diplomatic correspondent Ben Caspit wrote in the popular, pluralist 
Maariv (5/31): "The closer President Barack Obama's speech in Cairo 
draws, the higher the panic level rises in the prime minister's 
inner circle.  'What do they want from me?' Netanyahu asks.  'Do 
they want the government to fall?" Well, they don't care if the 
government does fall.   Netanyahu has only himself to blame: the 
amateurism and smugness that he used in his dealings with the new 
American administration, and the dismissive gesture with which he 
disregarded the winds that were blowing from Washington.  All of 
that has now exploded in his face.... Netanyahu, who could have 
given Obama Israeli encouragement and become his partner, tried 
instead to create an alternative, and now he finds himself like a 
millstone around the neck of the new American policy and a 
completely different American administration that is eager to go to 
battle, which doesn't care what AIPAC thinks, and enjoys a rare 
freedom of action and broad public support.  People warned him, told 
him, that was what was going to happen, but he knew better.  And now 
he doesn't know what to do." 
 
 
VI.  "An Ill Wind from the White House" 
 
Veteran journalist and television anchor Dan Margalit wrote in the 
independent Israel Hayom (31/5): "The leaders of the Jewish 
organizations did not need the meeting between Barack Obama and Abu 
Mazen to sense the ill wind blowing from the White House in the 
direction of Jerusalem.... The focus on the settlements makes things 
easier for Obama and for Abu Mazen, since in this matter they have 
many partners among supporters of Israel.  'Even Congress is not 
what it was,' explained one major Jewish activist.  There is also 
disappointment in Hillary Clinton.  The Jews had hoped that she 
would be the one to stop the United States' flood of Israel, but as 
of now their hopes have proven false. It is likely that the 
'Archimedes Point' for changing Obama's position in favor of Israel 
may be found in international developments that are far from the 
Middle East." 
 
VII.  "They Will Give Iran, They Will Get a Freeze" 
 
Correspondent Shmuel Rosner wrote in the popular, pluralist Maariv 
(6/1): "The most interesting question regarding the Obama 
administration is whether it has already decided that it should work 
with a different Israeli government.  Some of Obama's advisers (Rahm 
Emanuel is rumored to be one of them) apparently espouse such a 
view.  Defense Minister Ehud Barak's visit to Washington will 
indicate to Israel whether the position of those advisers was 
adopted.  If so, Netanyahu faces harsh months of crisis until he can 
prove that his government is stable, or until he falls.  If this is 
not the case, it means he has trump cards.  When Netanyahu hints 
that there will be no [settlement] 'freeze' without 'something in 
exchange,' he does not mean that he will get something from the 
Palestinians.... What are the Americans promising to do on the 
Iranian issue?" 
 
CUNNINGHAM