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TAGS: OPRC KMDR IS
 
SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION 
 
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SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: 
-------------------------------- 
 
Mideast 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
Yesterday major media reported that PM Benjamin Netanyahu plans to 
travel to Washington in two weeks to take part in this November's 
United Jewish Communities General Assembly (GA), where he is 
expected to meet President Obama.  HaQaretz quoted sources in the 
Prime Minister's Office as saying over the weekend that in view of 
the rapprochement between Israel and the American administration, a 
meeting with Obama, who is scheduled to speak at the GA, is likely. 
 HaQaretz reported that on Friday, Obama spoke to Palestinian 
President Mahmoud Abbas about resuming the peace process, and 
stressed his personal commitment to establishing a Palestinian 
state.  Abbas said he, too, was committed to the peace process, and 
called for a halt to construction in West Bank settlements. 
HaQaretz reported that U.S. Special Envoy Senator George Mitchell is 
due to arrive in Israel on Wednesday to discuss ways of jumpstarting 
the peace process.  HaQaretz cited the hope of Jerusalem officials 
that by the time Netanyahu reaches Washington, the gaps with the 
Palestinians will have been bridged and the talks will have 
resumed. 
 
The media reported that PM Netanyahu instructed Justice Minister 
Yaakov Ne'eman to coordinate the task force, which will present its 
recommendations as to Israel's course of action on the Goldstone 
report and its ramifications.  The team will make recommendations on 
what should be done in the diplomatic, legal, and public relations 
planes.  The PM was quoted as saying during the meeting that the 
establishment of an investigation committee was "not an option." 
"IDF soldiers and officers will not be subjected to investigation," 
he stressed.  Over the last couple of days the media cited 
NetanyahuQs wriggling interpretations of his own remark to The 
Washington Post (published on Saturday): QWe're looking into 
[conducting an independent inquiry] not because of the Goldstone 
report but because of our own internal needs.Q  HaQaretz quoted an 
official at the Prime Minister's Office as saying that there were 
"differing opinions on what should be done."  Media quoted DM Ehud 
Barak as saying that "we sent the fighters on the mission and they 
deserve our full support."  "Israel is prepared to fight against the 
legitimacy of the Goldstone report. In addition, Israel will act to 
amend rules of war to adjust them to the battle against terrorists 
who fight from among civilians," he said.  HaQaretz quoted a 
government aide speaking on condition of anonymity as saying that 
Netanyahu and Barak voiced hope that "this move will put the issue 
to rest."  Israel Radio quoted Labor Knesset Member Ophir Pines-Paz 
and eminent jurist Ruth Gabison -- a member of the Winograd 
Commission of investigation into the Second Lebanon War -- as saying 
that an independent body should probe Operation Cast Lead.  The 
Jerusalem Post reported that in a non-binding resolution, top 
Democratic and Republican foreign affairs leaders in the U.S. 
Congress are calling on the Obama administration to quash the 
Goldstone report. 
 
All media reported that after two weeks of relative quiet in the 
Jerusalem area, disturbances again broke out in the city and its 
periphery yesterday morning. Shortly after the Temple Mount was 
opened up to tourists and other non-Muslim visitors, several dozen 
Palestinians began throwing stones at both police and tourists.  The 
police attempted to disperse the stone throwers and the Temple Mount 
was closed to visitors.  Dozens of Palestinian worshippers on the 
Temple Mount were reportedly injured.  Among those detained was 
Hatem Abdel Kader, who holds the Jerusalem portfolio in the Fatah 
leadership.  Yesterday's disturbances appear to have been sparked, 
as in the past, by printed announcements by Jewish groups seeking to 
gain access to the Temple Mount to pray.  A meeting of 
Religious-Zionist rabbis on the same topic took place in the evening 
at the Chief RabbinateQs building in Jerusalem.  The northern branch 
of the Islamic Movement and other parties, including Abdel Kader, 
called on the Palestinian public to come to the Temple Mount to 
defend it.  The confrontations then ensued.  A senior member of the 
northern branch of the Islamic Movement, Ali Abu Sheikha, was 
detained yesterday in the Old City on suspicion of disturbing the 
peace and calling on Muslims on the scene to go out and demonstrate. 
 Israel Radio reported that the PA asked U.N. Secretary-General Ban 
Ki-moon to dispatch a special envoy to oversee events in Jerusalem. 
Leading media reported that Jordan has demanded that Israel refrain 
from provocations in Jerusalem and at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and that 
Egypt also complained to Israel. 
 
The media cited low-key ties with Jordan as the countries mark 15 
years of diplomatic relations.  Yediot reported that 15 Jordanians 
are studying emergency medicine at Beersheva University. 
Yesterday The Jerusalem Post reported that Vice PM Silvan Shalom 
called last weekQs offer to Iran a Qbad mistakeQ that the world will 
pay for in the near future. 
 
All media reported that on Saturday President Abbas called for 
presidential elections on January 24. 
 
HaQaretz reported that the U.N. has asked Israel for clarifications 
on "listening devices" that the Lebanese authorities claim were 
revealed near the village of Hula in southern Lebanon last week. 
The request was made following an official Lebanese petition to the 
U.N.  Israel neither denied nor confirmed that it had placed 
intelligence-gathering equipment in the area, but informed the U.N. 
that collecting intelligence in southern Lebanon will continue as 
long as the government in Beirut is not in full control of its 
territory.  Last Wednesday, a tripartite meeting was held at the 
UNIFIL base near the Rosh Hanikra border crossing between 
representatives of Israel, Lebanon, and the U.N. regarding recent 
tensions in the area. 
 
Leading media reported that two IDF soldiers have been expelled from 
their brigade and sentenced to 20 days in military prison for waving 
a pro-settler banner during their swearing-in ceremony last week. 
The soldiers served in the Kfir Brigade, an infantry unit originally 
set up to battle Palestinian militants in the West Bank.  HaQaretz 
reported that a military spokesman called the incident "a 
disgraceful disciplinary aberration."  Leading media quoted IDF 
Chief-of-Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi as saying that political 
exploitation of soldiers is forbidden.  The contentious banner, 
which the soldiers held at their swearing-in ceremony Thursday at 
the Western Wall, bore the message: "We did not enlist in order to 
evacuate Jews."  Leading media reported that settler leaders are set 
to consider whether Pinchas Wallerstein can remain in his post as 
Director-General of the Yesha Council of Jewish Settlements in the 
Territories because he objected to those protest actions. 
 
HaQaretz and Israel Radio reported that today the KnessetQs 
Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee will discuss a bill 
forbidding the commemoration of the Nakba. 
 
Yesterday Yediot quoted U.S. Consul-General in Israel Andrew Parker 
as saying in the course of a meeting with officials from the Israeli 
Foreign Ministry that in the past year requests for visas filed at 
the American Embassy in Tel Aviv and the Consulate-General in 
Jerusalem fell by about 25 percent.  This amounts to a decline of 
about fifty thousand Israeli petitions and a loss of some $5-6 
million in income for the Embassy in Tel Aviv alone..  The 
Consul-General explained the phenomenon as resulting from the world 
economic crisis.    Meanwhile, Yediot reported that the number of 
rejected visa requests rose over the past year from 3 percent to 5.1 
percent.  Such an increase could hinder Israeli efforts to join the 
U.S. visa exemption program, currently enjoyed by 35 countries 
around the world. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that last week several teens from 
Ashkelon brutally attacked a female American tourist after being 
asked to quiet down.  The womanQs family subsequently shelved its 
plans to immigrate to Israel. 
 
Yediot and HaQaretz reported that Israeli director Oren PeliQs short 
horror movie QParanormal ActivityQ tops the blockbuster list in the 
U.S. 
 
-------- 
Mideast: 
-------- 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "The Big American Freeze" 
 
The Director of the Interdisciplinary Center's Global Research in 
International Affairs Center, columnist Barry Rubin, wrote in the 
conservative, independent Jerusalem Post (10/26): QThe President of 
the United States and senior officials have repeatedly announced 
that they consider final status negotiations between Israel and the 
Palestinian Authority (PA) as high priority.... The fly in the 
ointment here is the PA.  It forcefully insists that it won't even 
meet formally with Israel until all construction in all Jewish 
settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem stops completely. 
Already, however, U.S.-Israel discussions have moved past that 
point.  We don't know precisely where they stand, but clearly the 
administration isn't pushing for a total halt and it isn't pushing 
all that urgently on the issue.  Therefore, while Israel has 
succeeded in conciliating the U.S., the PA is defying Washington. 
We know that it's serious in doing so because of what has just 
happened with the Goldstone report in the UN.  The administration 
asked the PA not to take a lead role in pushing the report; the PA 
complied for about 48 hours and then internal pressure forced it to 
 
go back on its word.  Most of this pressure was not the masses 
spontaneous outrage but from the hard-line elements which dominate 
the ruling Fatah group as well as in the PA itself. 
 
II.  "Forget about Proportionality" 
 
Military correspondent Alex Fishman wrote in the mass-circulation, 
pluralist Yediot Aharonot (10/27): QIsraelQs enemies are counting on 
the Goldstone report.  They will launch rockets into Tel Aviv, and 
the world will stop Israel from carrying out punitive measures in an 
attempt to deter them.  They are wrong.  Israel cannot afford to 
wait until its ground forces act successfully in Syria, Lebanon, 
Gaza, or anywhere else to reduce the rhythm of the rocket fire. 
Time is a critical component, and successful movement on the ground 
is a matter of days and weeks, which means more losses and more 
critical hits on the home front.  Hundreds of rockets that will 
penetrate the Israeli-American defenses require an immediate 
response from Israel.  Here, then, is the cruel and simple equation: 
the more effective the terrorist rocket war becomes, the less 
QproportionateQ the response will be, in the terms of the old wars. 
In such a situation, a massive punitive blow painful enough to make 
the enemy stop firing will strike infrastructures and locations by 
air and by land.  If the world expects Israel to strike only at 
military targets and run after every rocket or launching area, it 
expects us to commit suicide.  That is not the right war.  The more 
painful the blow to the enemyQs critical areas, the better the 
chance that it will be more quickly convinced. 
 
 
 
III.  "A Seething Volcano" 
 
The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (10/26): QThe 
clashes yesterday between Israeli police who entered the Temple 
Mount plaza and Palestinian stone throwers and inciters seemingly 
ended calmly.... Yet it is that very routine which indicates that 
the Temple Mount is behaving like an active, simmering volcano; the 
timing of its next major eruption is impossible to gauge. The 
government's attitude, by which it views these events as just 
another competitive front between Israel and the Palestinians, is 
likely to foment a violent outburst which will ignite the entire 
Middle East.  The trepidation of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims 
from what is referred to as the QJudaization of Jerusalem,Q or the 
Jewish takeover of the Temple Mount, cannot be overstated.... [The 
policeQs success] will be measured by its ability to hold a dialogue 
and reach understandings with the Muslim interlocutors in order to 
prevent a conflagration. 
 
IV.  "Does Israel Control the Temple Mount?" 
 
Former editor-in-chief Moshe Ishon wrote in the editorial of the 
nationalist, Orthodox Makor Rishon-Hatzofe (10/26): QThe closure of 
the Temple Mount to the Jews causes a great detriment  to IsraelQs 
sovereignty.  Instead of removing the rioters from the site and 
[protecting the honor of the remnant of the Temple, [the Israeli 
authorities] responsible for keeping the law in Israel chose for 
some reason to harm the honor of the State of Israel, Judaism, and 
the Torah.  This is a problematic behavior that has more drawbacks 
than advantages. 
 
¶V.  QLook Eastward 
 
Oded Eran, Director of the Institute for National Security Studies 
in Tel Aviv, who served as Israel's Ambassador to Jordan and as 
Deputy Director General for Economic Affairs in the Foreign Ministry 
(10/26): QInstead of overreaching by demanding normalized relations 
with the countries of North Africa, Israel would do better to focus 
on normalizing relations with countries in closer geographical 
proximity.  Developing energy, water and transportation networks 
with those countries is more important to securing peace and 
stabilizing it.  Israel must try to develop a diplomatic-economic 
dialogue with Jordan and expropriate it from the security officials 
currently in charge of it.  As much as a dialogue on security issues 
is important, it isn't enough. 
 
 
VI.  Q15 Years of Peace" 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (10/26): 
QIt's not exactly the peace Yitzhak Rabin, King Hussein, and Bill 
Clinton envisioned when Jordan and Israel signed their treaty on 
October 26, 1994 at what is today the Arava Border Crossing 
connecting Aqaba and Eilat.  And yet this unsatisfactory peace 
trumps what preceded it.... Opposition to Israel-Jordan 
normalization is driven not only by tendentious Arab satellite news 
coverage, but also by Jordan's semi-tolerated Islamist opposition, 
which includes the parliamentary Islamic Action Front bloc and the 
Muslim Brotherhood.  Anti-normalization campaigners maintain a 
blacklist of Jordanian companies, journalists, academics, and 
cultural figures that have contact with Israel.  Jordanians who 
appear on the same dais as Israelis are invariably either government 
officials or forced to take chances because of their dependence on 
European or American largesse.  Because of internal pressures, 
Jordan needs momentum in the stalled negotiating process between 
Israel and the Palestinians, perhaps more than the parties 
themselves.  Unfortunately, by being tone deaf to reasonable Israeli 
concerns, and oblivious to Palestinian intransigence, Amman has 
abdicated a more constructive role in bringing the parties closer 
together.  It needn't be so. 
 
VII.  "A Nation in a Coma" 
 
Contributor Haim Assa wrote in the popular, pluralist Maariv 
(10/267): QIsrael is in a coma not only because of its sedated 
government.  It is in a coma because it lacks any political 
discourse.  Because one side (the Left) has betrayed those who sent 
it. For how can it be explained that nobody, as of yet, has 
criticized Operation Cast Lead?  Yes, the operation itself.  The 
fact that the IDF granted Hamas what Hamas was seeking.  The 
Goldstone report.  This does not mean that the IDF is unethical. 
The IDF is the most ethical army in the world, but precisely because 
of this we emerge as idiots.  Both ethical and appearing as war 
criminals in a war that achieved nothing.  This is what ought to be 
investigated.  The IDF apparently does not know how to wage a war 
against a terror organization.  It fails to comprehend its own 
objectives as well as the objectives of the enemy it faces.  But my 
emphasis is on the lack of criticism.  If there were a Left, there 
would be criticism.  There would be a debate.  It would also benefit 
the right in understanding where it lives. It would help all of us 
understand where we are living.  This way we all find ourselves in a 
vacuum. 
 
 
CUNNINGHAM