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TAGS: OPRC KMDR IS
 
SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION 
 
-------------------------------- 
SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: 
-------------------------------- 
 
Aftermath of PresidentQs Speech in Cairo 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
Nearly all media led with President ObamaQs speech at Cairo 
University yesterday.  Maariv bannered: QA New AgeQ.  Yediot led 
with an interview that the President granted to the dailyQs senior 
commentator Nahum Barnea as part of a roundtable that included six 
senior journalists from the Muslim world: Obama was quoted as saying 
that QNetanyahu can deliver concessions that the Left will find hard 
to pass over.Q  The eye-catching banner of HaQaretz (Hebrew Ed.) is 
an excerpt from the PresidentQs address in which he underlines the 
necessity for Israel to stop settlement construction.  HaQaretz 
(English Ed.) bannered: QU.S. Moves to Ease Tensions with Israel 
after ObamaQs Cairo Speech.Q   The Jerusalem Post bannered: QAs 
Obama Offers Muslims Qa New Beginning,Q Israel Gives a Wary Pledge 
to Play Its Part.Q  Globes bannered: QObama: No to the Settlements 
and to Hamas Violence. 
 
Media quoted the GOIQs official response: Q"President Obama's 
important speech in Cairo will lead to a new period of 
reconciliation between the Arab and Muslim world and the State of 
Israel.  We share President Obama's hope that the American effort 
will inaugurate a new era that will result in an end to the conflict 
and in pan-Arab recognition of Israel as the State of the Jewish 
people, which lives in security and peace in the Middle East. 
Israel is committed to peace and will assist as much as it can in 
broadening the circle of peace, while taking into account its 
national interests, first and foremost, its security."  However, 
HaQaretz and other media reported that, behind closed doors, 
Netanyahu and his aides adopted a Qsomewhat different tone.Q  While 
expressing satisfaction with Obama's call to the Arab states to 
recognize Israel and move ahead with normalization, as well as the 
emphasis on the strong ties between Israel and the U.S., they 
expressed disappointment with Obama's message regarding Iran and its 
nuclear ambitions.  HaQaretz quoted sources close to Netanyahu as 
saying that, contrary to expectations, Obama did not reiterate the 
statements he had made in the past about the need to prevent Iran 
from acquiring nuclear arms, or about the need to reevaluate the 
nature of dialogue between Washington and Tehran by the end of 2009. 
 Yediot quoted sources close to the PM as saying that, in fact, 
Obama has made peace with the fact that Iran is to become a nuclear 
power.  Yediot reported that one senior Israeli government source 
defined ObamaQs words as a Qchildish and naove approach.Q  HaQaretz 
also quoted sources in the Prime Minister's bureau as saying that 
the tensions with the U.S. over settlements had been aggravated by 
the Cairo speech. "There will be no agreement on this unless the 
Americans soften their stance," HaQaretz quoted a source close to 
Netanyahu as saying.  Maariv cited an internal Foreign Ministry 
document as saying that the speech was harsh toward Israel. 
Nevertheless, a senior White House official told HaQaretz that 
"there is no crisis with Israel.  We are working together with the 
Israelis in order to reach agreements and understandings regarding 
settlement construction and we will succeed in doing so."  The 
senior official added that the response of Netanyahu's bureau to the 
speech showed that "Israel understands that President Obama is 
trying to further peace in the region.  Their response shows that 
there is a good will and readiness to work together. A way must be 
found to progress on the peace process, but we must emphasize that 
the President has made clear to the Arab and Muslim world that the 
bond between the U.S. and Israel is powerful and will not be 
broken."  Similarly, The Jerusalem Post reported that a senior U.S. 
administration official told the newspaper yesterday that Washington 
feels that an Qarrangement that worksQ can be hammered out with 
Israel on the settlement issue, indicating that the U.S. recognizes 
some wiggle room in defining a Qsettlement freeze.Q  Yediot quoted 
an aide to Netanyahu as saying that QObama did not hit Israel on the 
head with a baseball bat. 
 
Israel Radio quoted Deputy FM Danny Ayalon as saying, after meeting 
U.S. administration officials and members of Congress in Washington, 
that Israel will honor the international agreements it signed and 
that he believes that the tensions with the U.S. administration will 
fade away.  However, Ayalon said that Israel will not give up 
Qnatural growthQ building in the settlements.  Concerning the 
Qtwo-stateQ solution, Ayalon said that Israel did not reject any 
form of solution but that it was first necessary to see what could 
be received from the other side, instead of only what Israel could 
provide. 
 
Media quoted settlers as saying that they cannot uprooted from the 
homes in which they have lived for decades and that they do not 
accept the notion of denying their need to expand due to natural 
growth. 
 
Media cited the RightQs dissatisfaction over the PresidentQs tying 
the Holocaust with the PalestiniansQ suffering.  The Jerusalem Post 
cited the disappointment of some U.S. Jewish leaders over the 
PresidentQs comments on Iran. 
 
Leading media reported that Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe YaQalon 
will travel to Washington on Saturday for meetings with U.S. 
officials. 
 
Maariv reported that the PA security forces have informed the 
Israeli defense establishment that they intend to bring in 50 
unarmed armored personnel carriers from Jordan -- a gift from Russia 
-- over the next few weeks.  The newspaper quoted an Israeli defense 
source as saying that they will be able to move only in cooperation 
with the IDF. 
 
HaQaretz cited a World Bank report issued yesterday that the massive 
aid for Gaza and the West Bank has had little effect, as economic 
growth and development continues to be stymied by Israeli 
restrictions on Palestinian trade and movement.  The report was 
published ahead of the donor countries conference. 
 
Yediot printed the results of a Dahaf/Mina Zemach poll (taken before 
the speech): 
 
QShould Netanyahu give in to ObamaQs demands, or reject them even at 
the cost of sanctions?Q  He should give in: 56%.  He should not give 
in: 40%. 
 
QShould Israel agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state as 
part of a peace agreement?Q  Yes: 55%; no: 41%. 
 
QIs ObamaQs policy good for Israel?Q  No: 53%; yes: 26%. 
 
----------------------------------------- 
Aftermath of PresidentQs Speech in Cairo: 
----------------------------------------- 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "A Double New Start" 
 
The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (6/5): QMany in 
the [Israeli] public would like to consider the speech mere lip 
service to the Arab and Muslim countries, at the expense of Israel. 
On the other hand, there will be many on the Arab and Muslim side 
who will celebrate a victory of their QrighteousnessQ over Israel's, 
and consider the speech an achievement and a strategic change in the 
direction that the American iceberg is taking.  However, both sides 
would make a historic error if they allow Obama's superb rhetoric to 
sink and become a footnote in their wrangling.  Because it was not 
only before Islam and the West, but also, perhaps mostly, before 
Israel, the Palestinians, and the Arabs, that an opportunity for a 
new beginning was laid out in Cairo yesterday.  Without threats or 
force came an American promise and commitment to serve as a guiding 
light, and to encourage and cultivate the diplomatic process.  The 
government of Israel, like that of the Palestinians, has no right to 
ignore this opportunity and place it in the drawer alongside all the 
other missed opportunities.  The price of missing out will not be 
measured in the quality of relations with Washington, but in human 
lives. 
 
II.  "The Speech of Our Lives" 
 
Columnist and former Meretz Party Chairman Yossi Sarid wrote in 
Ha'aretz (6/5): QObama yesterday offered a broad, world-embracing 
vision, one more seminal and sweeping than pundits had predicted. 
It encompassed more than Iraq and Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, 
and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  The new American President 
traveled to this region to call an end to the clash of 
civilizations, which had blown new wind into the tattered sails of 
the old cold warriors. 
 
 
 
 
 
III.  "Nuances to Please Israel, and to Worry Us" 
 
Former Mossad Director Ephraim Halevy wrote in the conservative, 
independent Jerusalem Post (6/5): QWhat the President was doing for 
the very first time was not extending a hand to Hamas, but telling 
them Qyou are a factor in the situation.Q That Hamas has a role in 
unifying the Palestinian people.  In other words, without Hamas, 
there is no Palestinian unity, and without Palestinian unity, there 
can be no Palestinian state: You cannot build a state upon a 
national movement that is hopelessly divided, split down the middQ. 
 This is the first hint of what might come, a straw in the wind. 
Hamas will treat this as a significant step taken by the United 
States toward it.  There was recognition in the address that the 
Palestinians currently do not have the necessary institutions that 
serve a people. 
 
IV.  QGreat Expectations 
 
The Jerusalem Post editorialized (6/5): Q[In parts of his speech,] 
Obama's moral equivalency was disconcerting.  Undeniably, 
Palestinians have endured dislocation  -- but it would have been 
courageous of the President to say that much of this pain has been 
self-inflicted, thanks to 60 years of intransigence.  He was right 
to remind the Arab states that their peace initiative was only an 
Qimportant beginning.Q  And we were gratified when he insisted Hamas 
end its violence, recognize past agreements, and accept Israel's 
right to exist.  But we cringed when he associated the Palestinian 
struggle with the U.S. civil rights movement and with the campaign 
for majority rule in South Africa -- even if the punch-line of this 
false analogy was: Terrorism is always unjustifiable.  We were 
braced for his reiteration of long-standing U.S. policy against the 
settlement enterprise.  But he missed a crucial opportunity to 
prepare the Arabs for territorial compromise.  No Israeli government 
is going to pull back to the hard-to-defend 1949 Armistice Lines. 
 
¶V.  "Everybody Got Spanked" 
 
Chief Economic Editor and senior columnist Sever Plotker wrote in 
the mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot Aharonot (6/5): QThe Middle 
East choir of hypocrites responded to [ObamaQs] speech in its 
traditional, twisted manner: disregard of everything that is 
inconvenient and sycophancy towards everything that is not.  But 
Barack Obama is not only a great speaker who is always to the point 
and in control.  Obama is also the great communicator.  He is a 
statesman of a new kind: no friendly slaps on the back, no laughs, 
and no games.  Therefore his first Middle East test is not to be 
liked by the moderate Muslim world.  That would be easy.  His test 
lies in his ability to cause the regionQs leaders and opinion 
shapers to speak truthfully, to recognize the truth, to confront the 
truth head on -- to change fundamentally.   Obama will not let up on 
the Middle East because he is personally committed to bringing about 
a new order in the region.  Today he expects -- and tomorrow he will 
demand -- that we will act and then listen [a play on a biblical 
phrase when the Israelites accepted GodQs order].  A topsy-turvy 
order of things, to listen and then to act, has not succeeded in the 
region until now. 
 
VI.  "The BrokerQs Dream" 
 
Diplomatic correspondent Ben Caspit wrote in the popular, pluralist 
Maariv (6/5): QIt was a breathtaking speech, delivered perfectly, 
sometimes even touching, and it contained everything that a speech 
should contain.  Nevertheless, the speech will not leave behind any 
special historical landmarks, because it did not contain any. 
Obama, as analyzed yesterday in an official Foreign Ministry 
document, Qapplied a conciliatory approach (although not an 
apologetic one), but nonetheless did not shy away from placing a 
mirror before his audience in all matters concerning civil rights, 
democracy, freedom of religion and the status of womenQ.... Israel 
watched Obama fearful and crouched in a corner.  Official Israel 
that is.  JerusalemQs response was feeble and lacking in 
imagination, as anticipated.  Yeah sure, eternal peace is on its 
way, one could almost hear Netanyahu mumble from under [far-Right 
Israeli politician] Yaakov KatzQs moustache. 
 
VII.  "The High Commissioner" 
 
Military correspondent Alex Fishman wrote in Yediot Aharonot (6/5): 
QNext week the Qhigh commissioner,Q George Mitchell, is to return. 
But this time he is not coming alone.  He will be arriving with a 
whole organization aimed at executing Barack ObamaQs policies for 
the Middle East. The presidential bulldozer has started work.  If 
prior to his visit to the United States, [Ehud] Barak had plans to 
slow down the pace of the tracks and have these comply with the 
requirements of the coalition, there was really never any chance of 
this happening.  Before leaving, the Defense Minister gave orders to 
Central Command to draft a plan which would include conspicuous 
components aimed at easing the daily lives of the Palestinians, but 
the most creative idea that the army was able to fabricate was a 
plan to remove four or five roadblocks, out of which it was able to 
implement -- in the course of BarakQs visit -- two.  The Americans 
refused to be impressed by this profound gesture.  In ObamaQs 
Washington this is not the language they speak. In the inner 
chambers Barak began hearing the new background music: QThe two 
previous administrations failed in resolving the Middle East 
conflict your way.  WeQre going to go at it with a new approach, and 
youQre welcome to join.Q  No one in the American capital will say 
this directly for the record, for the sake of courtesy, so as not to 
offend previous presidents, but after a short visit there even a 
deaf man could catch the tune. 
VIII.  QWho Is Paying for the Party? 
 
Editor Peter Lukimson wrote on the front page of in popular, 
pluralist Russian-language Novosty Nedely (6/4): QAn attempt to 
improve relations at least with some Arab countries is very 
important for the U.S.... The real question is what exactly would be 
the way Barack Hussein Obama is going to achieve reconciliation?.... 
The U.S. is no longer interested in calling for human and civil 
rights in the [Arab] countries; it is  actually ready to allow the 
ruling regimes to do whatever they decide with their people.... The 
scariest part [of the reconciliation] is that Obama picked Israel to 
play the role of a sacrificial lamb, which he is ready to sacrifice 
for the sake of friendship with Arab leaders and eat [the lamb, 
while] sitting at the same table with them.... Obama became the most 
unfriendly President towards Israel during the entire course of 
U.S.-Israel relations.  Probably no other U.S. president has twisted 
the arms of Israel as Obama and his administration have. 
 
MORENO