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DE RUEHTV #1866/01 2371044
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P 251044Z AUG 09
FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
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UNCLAS TEL AVIV 001866 
 
STATE FOR NEA, NEA/IPA, NEA/PPD 
 
WHITE HOUSE FOR PRESS OFFICE, SIT ROOM 
NSC FOR NEA STAFF 
 
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HQ USAF FOR XOXX 
DA WASHDC FOR SASA 
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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: 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶1.  Mideast 
 
¶2.  Anti-Terrorism Efforts 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
The media reported that PM Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in London 
yesterday.  Major media reported that officials in his entourage 
continued to lower expectations in advance of his meeting with U.S. 
Special Envoy for Middle East Peace George Mitchell tomorrow, saying 
that although there has been a degree of progress in the discussions 
leading up to the meeting, a QbreakthroughQ was not expected.  Major 
media quted State Department Spokesman Ian Kelly as saying 
yesterday:  QWhat George Mitchell is trying to do is lay the 
foundation that will lead to the resumption of meaningful 
neotiations.  And this is part of that whole process. There have 
been some reports that weQre close t a breakthrough.  I think I 
would say that -- I ould characterize it as that weQre getting 
close to an agreement.  But any reports that weQve cometo an 
agreement, or that we expect one on Wednesday necessarily, I would 
have to call premature.  ut I will say that we hope that this 
particular hase of the discussions will end very soon.Q  Leading 
media noted that Kelly did not add more details.  HaQaretz cited the 
belief of Israeli officials that the understandings to be reached 
between U.S. and Israeli representatives will call for a settlement 
freeze of 9-12 months, but will not include East Jerusalem.  Within 
the supposed agreement, building that has already begun will be 
allowed to be completed. 
 
Leading media quoted Netanyahu as saying upon his arrival in London 
that no one will limit IsraelQs sovereignty in Jerusalem. 
 
Leading media reported that today at dawn IAF craft attacked a 
smuggling tunnel in southern Gaza.  Israel Radio quoted medical 
sources in Gaza as saying that at least two Palestinians were killed 
in the raid.  The attack was a reaction to mortar fire that was 
directed at Israel yesterday, lightly wounding one IDF soldier. 
Earlier yesterday, a Palestinian gunman was killed in a shootout 
with IDF troops on the northern border of the Strip.  According to 
reports, the exchange of fire occurred after an IDF patrol spotted 
the gunmen planting a bomb near the security fence.  When the troops 
attempted to apprehend the group, they were met by gunfire.  Two of 
the gunmen succeeded in escaping back to Gaza, while the third died 
on the spot.  Following the firefight, Palestinians launched a small 
volley of mortar shells into Israeli territory.  The soldier wounded 
was hit by shrapnel from one of the shells.  The incident broke 
nearly two weeks of quiet along the Israel-Gaza border. 
 
The online service walla.co.il reported that the Binyamin Regional 
Council (north of Jerusalem), which published a tender a month ago 
for the development of 74 plots in the settlement, has scheduled a 
tour of the settlement for construction contractors today. 
 
Israel Hayom and Israel Hayom quoted PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad 
as saying in an interview with the London Times that the PA intends 
to create a de-facto Palestinian state within two years.  Israel 
Radio cited Finance Minister Yuval SteinitzQs anger over FayyadQs 
remark. 
 
All media reported that yesterday, during a meeting with his 
ministry's management, FM Avigdor Lieberman proposed that anyone who 
has not served in the IDF or completed national service would not be 
eligible to take part in the Foreign Ministry's prestigious cadets' 
course and represent Israel abroad.  Lieberman is seeking to 
encourage members of the Arab and ultra-Orthodox sectors, who wish 
to be accepted into the Israeli Foreign Service, to commit to 
national service at the very least, if not to full military service. 
 The media cited angry responses from left-wing and Israeli Arab 
politicians.  Channel 2-TV suggested that LiebermanQs suggestion and 
recent diplomatic statements result from his being apparently 
spurned by Netanyahu and DM Ehud Barak, as well as from his legal 
entanglement. 
 
Leading media reported that the Shalit family-run campaign for the 
release of Gilad Shalit -- whose 23rd birthday falls on Thursday -- 
intends to protest today against the visit of families of Hamas 
detainees to three prisons.  The media reported that the Israel 
Prisons Service subsequently canceled todayQs family visits to 
Palestinian prisoners.  The Jerusalem Post reported that several 
American Jewish communities will mark ShalitQs birthday on Friday 
with a series of events and rallies, as well as a postcard campaign 
urging the International Red Cross to visit him. 
 
The Jerusalem Post and Israel Radio reported that The Elders group, 
of which former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is a member, will meet a 
cross section of Israeli and Palestinian societies during their 
week-long visit to Israel and the West Bank. 
 
Maariv reported that Al-Masry Al-Youm, one of the more popular 
newspapers in Egypt printed an excerpt from the successful novel by 
the Israeli poet and novelist, Almog Bahar, QAna Min al-Yahud. 
Maariv writes that the decision to excerpt the book was a decidedly 
unusual step to make by an Egyptian media outlet, as many people in 
Egyptian intellectual circles are in the midst of a debate over the 
translation of Israeli art. 
 
The media reported that, during the past two days, over 10,000 
Israelis have signed an online petition that was set up after the 
Swedish government declined a request by Israel to officially 
condemn the Aftonbladet article that alleged that IDF soldiers 
harvest organs from slain Palestinians.  The petition calls for a 
boycott of IKEA, a home products retailer, and the automobile firm, 
Volvo, among other companies.  Yediot noted that business was brisk 
at the IKEA outlet in Israel yesterday. 
 
Yesterday Channel 10-TV and Channel 2-TV broadcast footage of what 
appears to be Hamas executing rebels from the al-Qaida affiliated 
Jund Ansar Allah.  The video apparently was taken during clashes 
between the groups on August 15 in Rafah.  Channel 2-TV said Fatah 
distributed the video. 
 
Israel Radio reported that Israeli military envoys in Houston have 
defrauded the defense establishment. 
 
The Jerusalem Post quoted the Vatican as saying last week that it 
would not interfere in a conflict that has flared up between U.S. 
Catholic bishops and leading Jewish groups over Catholic 
proselytizing. 
 
All media reported that yesterday Bank of Israel Stanley Fischer 
raised the lending rate for September to 0.75% (from 0.5%).  The 
media, which say that Fischer wants to stop an inflationary trend, 
noted that the central bank made the move ahead of other nations. 
 
Leading media reported that yesterday the American clothing and 
accessories retailer GAP opened a store in JerusalemQs newest mall. 
 
Yediot reported that David Ben-Gurion, an immigrant from Israel, has 
been elected Mayor of the Californian town of Calexico that abuts 
the Mexican border.  Calexico has one of the highest Hispanic/Latino 
percentages of any California city. 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "WhoQs Not Recognizing Whom?" 
 
Senior op-ed writer Akiva Eldar commented in the independent, 
left-leaning Ha'aretz (8/25): QAs was reported in this column last 
week, the phrase the state of the Jewish peopleQ was omitted from 
the prime minister's remarks at the opening of the cabinet meeting 
when he presented to the ministers and the media his position on 
negotiations with the Palestinians.  Instead of that, he said that 
he was expecting Qgenuine recognitionQ from them of the state of 
Israel, and that was it.  The Prime Minister's Bureau went to the 
trouble of pointing out this important update to the foreign 
diplomats.  Eagle-eyed diplomats made a note of the fact that 
Netanyahu had exercised self-restraint over the remarks made by the 
Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, at the Sixth Congress of the 
Fatah, and of the organization's announcement, both of which 
vehemently rejected the Israeli demand to recognize Israel as a 
Jewish state.  In a break with his usual conduct, the Prime Minister 
did not look for weak spots in the Bethlehem texts and forwent the 
opportunity to gain points in the eyes of the public.  Netanyahu's 
silence is particularly salient against the background of the choir 
of senior ministers who have been competing with one another to 
raise their voices about the Fatah congress' decisions. 
 
III.  "A Friendship that Has Withstood Tests" 
 
Berlin correspondent Eldad Beck wrote in the mass-circulation, 
pluralist Yediot Aharonot (8/25): QExactly one month before the 
German general elections, whose outcome is far from being clear-cut, 
Angela Merkel will this week host Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 
in Berlin.  The importance of MerkelQs diplomatic gesture cannot be 
underrated.  She is presently fighting for a four-year extension of 
her term. Her willingness to host Netanyahu in such circumstances 
is further evidence of her deep commitment to Israel.  Netanyahu and 
his government do not promote political causes -- neither in Germany 
nor in Europe.  Most Germans and Europeans love to hate Netanyahu, 
its government, and Likud -- not because their policies or their 
actions.  This is an automatic, traditional, instinctive enmity, 
which rejects the Israeli Right without even trying to understand 
its positions.  The European media, for one, fills a most central 
role in this incitement campaign. 
 
--------------------------- 
¶2.  Anti-Terrorism Efforts: 
--------------------------- 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
"How to Lose a War" 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (8/25): 
QFundamental errors are being repeated in the struggle against 
Islamist extremism.  People in Europe and America do not grasp why 
their troops are fighting in Afghanistan.  On Iran, Western leaders 
have not only avoided a head-on confrontation with the mullahs, but 
are even seeking to appease their Hizbullah and Hamas proxies.  In 
fairness, Obama has tried to explain that Afghanistan is not a war 
of choice, but of necessity.... What message does the Brown 
government's decision to play footsie with Muammar Qadhafi -- while 
hiding behind the Scottish justice secretary -- send to Britons 
already feeling cynical about staying the course in Afghanistan? 
This sordid episode, moreover, does nothing to illuminate who really 
blew Pan Am flight 103 out of the sky[, as a possible Iranian-Syrian 
connection to the crime exists.]  If patience is running thin on 
Afghanistan, and there is no stomach to stop Iran, the reasons are 
obvious.  From Lockerbie to Afghanistan, Western decision-makers 
have compartmentalized Islamist violence -- rather than defined it 
as a strategic menace to the Western values of tolerance and 
liberty.  The lesson of Vietnam is that wars become unwinnable when 
leaders fail to identify their true enemies, leaving their societies 
unmobilized, confused and lacking in motivation. 
 
CUNNINGHAM