VZCZCXRO3077
PP RUEHC RUEHSD
DE RUEHTV #2376/01 3011238
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 281238Z OCT 09 ZDK
FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4010
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 6157
RUEHAS/AMEMBASSY ALGIERS PRIORITY 2728
RUEHAM/AMEMBASSY AMMAN PRIORITY 6761
RUEHAK/AMEMBASSY ANKARA PRIORITY 6974
RUEHLB/AMEMBASSY BEIRUT PRIORITY 6215
RUEHEG/AMEMBASSY CAIRO PRIORITY 4858
RUEHDM/AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS PRIORITY 7067
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 3836
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS PRIORITY 2053
RUEHRB/AMEMBASSY RABAT PRIORITY 0718
RUEHRO/AMEMBASSY ROME PRIORITY 8241
RUEHRH/AMEMBASSY RIYADH PRIORITY 3246
RUEHTU/AMEMBASSY TUNIS PRIORITY 7224
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 9299
RUEHJI/AMCONSUL JEDDAH PRIORITY 2047
RUEHJM/AMCONSUL JERUSALEM PRIORITY 3055
RHMFISS/CDR USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY
RHMFISS/COMSOCEUR VAIHINGEN GE PRIORITY
RHMFIUU/COMSIXTHFLT  PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 07 TEL AVIV 002376 
 
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: 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶1.  Mideast 
 
¶2.  Iran 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
All media reported that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is 
expected to arrive in Israel on Saturday after preparatory talks by 
U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace Senator George Mitchell, 
who arrives tomorrow. 
 
Makor Rishon-Hatzofe led with what it says is President ObamaQs 
rapprochement with Israel and the American Jews.  The newspaper 
expects Obama to deliver a conciliatory speech at the United Jewish 
Communities General Assembly (GA) next month. 
 
Major media (lead story in The Jerusalem Post) reported that Deputy 
Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon is the latest Israeli to face possible 
arrest on war crimes charges during an official visit to the UK. 
Ayalon returned to Israel last night after a two-day visit to 
London, during which pro-Palestinian activists attempted to use a 
section of British law to have him arrested.  Ayalon was also 
heckled at the London School of Economics on Monday. 
 
All media reported that last night a Katyusha rocket fired from 
southern Lebanon struck the Upper Galilee, causing a deafening 
explosion and setting a field on fire, but failing to cause 
casualties or significant damage.  The IDF Spokesman's Office was 
quoted as saying that the IDF immediately shelled the Lebanese 
territory from which the projectile was launched, using several 
rounds of artillery.  It was not immediately clear who fired the 
rocket, though initial assessments by Israeli defense officials were 
that a Palestinian group was responsible.  Yediot cited the belief 
of security sources that the rate of arms smuggling to Hizbullah is 
at its peak, since the land border between Syria and Lebanon is 
completely porous.  Yediot reported that Israel complained to UNIFIL 
about the fire from Lebanon.  Israel Radio reported that Israeli 
Ambassador to the U.N. Gabriela Shalev lodged a complaint with the 
President of the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) and U.N. 
 
TEL AVIV 00002376  002.3 OF 007 
 
 
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.  The radio reported that Lebanese PM 
Fouad Siniora condemned both sidesQ actions, saying that the Israeli 
shelling constituted an Qaggression.Q  Israel Radio reported that 
the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL disarmed four rockets aiming at Israel 
from the village of Hula.  Israel Radio quoted Terje Roed-Larsen, 
the U.N.Qs special envoy to Syria and Lebanon, as saying a closed 
UNSC meeting that Hizbullah has retained substantial military 
strength in Lebanon.  A few hours before the attack, Defense 
Minister Ehud Barak toured the North and praised the "nine years of 
calm we have had" in the region, "which were interrupted for a 
number of painful weeks during the Second Lebanon War."  "I hope 
that we can continue this quiet," he said, but warned that Israel 
was "preparing for other possibilities, including the possibility 
that you [the residents of the North] will be tested again." 
 
Leading media reported that yesterday the lower house of the Bahrain 
Parliament passed legislation banning any contact with Israelis, 
with one source saying this was a direct result of the viciously 
hostile anti-Israel mood in the Arab world following the Goldstone 
Report and confrontations over the Temple Mount.  The Jerusalem Post 
reported that a source in PM NetanyahuQs office termed the move 
"unfortunate," and quoted him as saying it was a throwback to the 
Arab rejectionist positions of the 1960s and 1970s.  The Jerusalem 
Post noted that the parliamentary move stands in stark contrast to a 
July Washington Post op-ed written by Bahrain's FM Sheikh Salman bin 
Hamad al-Khalifa, calling for more engagement with Israel. 
 
Maariv, The Jerusalem Post, and other media reported that PM 
Netanyahu has selected Attorney General Menachem Mazuz, IDF Advocate 
General Brig. Gen. Avihai Mandelblit, and Cabinet Secretary Zvi 
Hauser as the members of the team that will examine the Goldstone 
report. 
 
Yediot (Shimon Shiffer) reported that, following the U.S. 
administrationQs strong aversion to comments made by Israeli 
diplomatic and defense officials against the agreement reached by 
major powers with Iran, Israeli criticism of the understanding has 
entirely disappeared.  The daily quoted a diplomatic source in 
Jerusalem as saying: QThe agreement that is shaping up is a 
positive, correct step towards preventing nuclear weapons from 
Iran.Q  The newspaper cited contacts between the U.S. and IsraelQs 
regarding IranQs QmeltingQ of the agreement.  The media reported 
that Iran demands significant changes in the agreement.  Israel 
Radio quoted U.S. National Security Advisor Gen. James Jones as 
saying yesterday that the U.S. is prepared to respond if Iran does 
 
TEL AVIV 00002376  003 OF 007 
 
 
not abide by its commitments over its nuclear program. 
 
Major media reported that a Patriot missile battery has been 
deployed in recent days in the Central Region by forces taking part 
in the joint Juniper Cobra 10 exercise Juniper Cobra 10, which 
simulates missile fire on the Israeli home front.  Journalists were 
given access to the site overlooking a major city, and shown Israeli 
and American air defense crews who were working together to turn the 
missile battery into an active component of a multi-tiered air 
defense system.  Leading media quoted Col. Tony English, commander 
of the Germany-based U.S. 357th Army and Missile Defense Detachment, 
as saying: QSince the Gulf War of 1991, not only have we made great 
strides, but our capabilities have also increased. 
 
Yediot reported that the Defense Ministry and the Tel Aviv 
ProsecutorQs Office have received notices that Gaza Palestinians 
will file around 1,500 Operation Cast Lead-related civil lawsuits 
against the IDF for tens of millions of dollars. 
 
HaQaretz and other leading media reported that yesterday settlers 
threw stones at security forces, who responded by firing tear gas in 
two separate incidents in the West Bank. 
 
Maariv cited a Hebrew University study that found that many state 
religious schools tend to replace memorial ceremonies for the 
assassinated PM Yitzhak Rabin with religious ceremonies to remember 
the passing of the biblical matriarch Rachel, who had not been 
commemorated so far.  The study says that awareness of the Rabin 
legacy is increasing in state secular schools. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that seeking to place the liberal Jewish 
lobby J Street firmly in the Israeli and American mainstream, 
Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami compared his organizationQs 
positions to that of IsraelQs centrist Kadima party.  Various media 
reflected a debate as to whether the group defines itself more as 
Qpro-peaceQ or Qpro-Israel. 
 
HaQaretz reported that PM Benjamin Netanyahu is considering 
attending the Copenhagen climate summit. 
 
All media reported that yesterday a French court sentenced 
Israeli-Russian businessman Arkady Gaidamak to six years in jail and 
a 5 million-euro fine for his role in selling arms illegally to the 
Angolan government in the 1990s and in laundering hundreds of 
millions of dollars.   Gaidamak was one of 42 people charged in the 
 
TEL AVIV 00002376  004.2 OF 007 
 
 
case, popularly known as Angolagate.  Others include the son of 
former French President Francois Mitterrand; a former French 
Interior Minister, Charles Pasqua; and several senior French 
government officials.  All but six defendants were convicted. 
Because of the sentence, Gaidamak is now considered unlikely to 
return to Israel, which has an extradition treaty with France. That 
is why he left for Russia 10 months ago, two months after the trial 
began. 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "No Talk about Justice" 
 
Eytan Haber, veteran op-ed writer and assistant to the late Prime 
Minister Yitzhak Rabin, opined in the mass-circulation, pluralist 
Yediot Aharonot (10/28): QWe've always known that a billion and a 
quarter Muslims are more than seven million Israelis and that 57 
Muslim countries are more than one State of Israel. We bought our 
special place in the family of nations, first and foremost, thanks 
to the United StatesQ recognition of our uniqueness: a lone 
democracy, the values of the prophets, and the Bible.  The change in 
this view in the U.S. is what has (nearly) turned the entire world 
against us: the U.S. is fed up with cooperating with us in 
everything related to the occupation.  The great America, which 
chose to turn a blind eye for 42 years, opened both eyes at once and 
signaled to the world that the rules of the game had changed.  The 
world was waiting for this moment, and it is reveling in it.  The 
fact is that it woke up.  What in the view of a large part of our 
population looks and sounds completely unjust is, in the view of the 
new administration, very just, and how.  In its view, the 1967 
occupation has to end and it is not budging from this position by 
even a millimeter.... [From another perspective,] Netanyahu is torn 
within himself -- but the Americans are quietly waiting for him in 
the corner.  They are confident that Netanyahu's moment of decision 
is approaching.  QSometimes life brings you to your knees,Q goes 
that song about peace and justice.  The Americans are convinced that 
in order to stand tall, you have to start by going down on your 
knees. 
 
II.  "Facing a Weakened Abbas" 
 
TEL AVIV 00002376  005 OF 007 
 
 
 
Palestinian affairs correspondent Avi Issacharoff wrote in the 
independent, left-leaning HaQaretz (10/28): Q[Mahmoud] Abbas will 
come to the meetings with the Americans when Palestinian elections 
will be approaching, and the last thing he needs is the renewal of 
negotiations with Israel without a complete freeze of construction 
in the settlements.  Nonetheless, Clinton will ask Abbas to restart 
the negotiations without getting what he has been seeking for so 
long -- a halt to Jewish construction in the West Bank and 
especially in East Jerusalem.  The U.S. Secretary of State may have 
the United States to blame for the current situation.  The Obama 
White House and State Department pushed Abbas not to seek a hearing 
at the United Nations on the Goldstone Commission report on 
Operation Cast Lead in Gaza.  This greatly damaged Abbas' standing 
in Palestinian public opinion.  The Americans had engendered a 
feeling in Abbas' office that this time the administration was 
serious in its determination to apply pressure on Israel to stop all 
construction over the Green Line.  President Obama, his Secretary of 
State and Middle East Envoy were the ones who, over and over, said 
they were demanding this as part of the first stage of the Roadmap 
peace plan.  The moment they came to an agreement with Israel on a 
partial construction freeze, they left Abu Mazen high and dry.  He 
was up a tree they had helped him climb.  The embarrassing situation 
in which Abbas finds himself may leave him feeling more than a 
little betrayed.  This helps explain his implied threat in the 
course of a weekend conversation with Obama that he would not submit 
his candidacy for the presidency in the upcoming Palestinian 
elections -- in other words, he would resign.  A high-ranking figure 
in Fatah explained the situation well when asked about it by 
HaQaretz: QYou can remain calm.  On our side, no senior official 
resigns. 
 
III.  "Let Palestinians Challenge their Leadership" 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (10/28): 
QIt is simply undeniable: neither Fatah's crooked, dead hand nor 
Hamas's firm grasp of belligerent medievalism is going to lay the 
groundwork for a viable Palestinian state.  What to do?  One way 
forward is to let the Palestinian Authority die a natural death and 
encourage its replacement with a completely new, apolitical, and 
technocratic provisional Palestinian government.  Its task, with 
Europeans playing a trusteeship role, would be political 
institution-building, socialization toward tolerance, the 
development of transparent government, and day-to-day administration 
of Palestinian affairs.  Such a provisional government would also 
 
TEL AVIV 00002376  006 OF 007 
 
 
assume the PLO's legal standing as representing the Palestinians. 
But the idea would work only if the Palestinians -- perhaps via a 
referendum in both the West Bank and Gaza -- were given the chance 
to embrace a new beginning... and did so.  A recent New York Times 
dispatch from Gaza revealed just how fed up modernizing Palestinian 
elites are with both Fatah and Hamas -- while pointing out that they 
had no mechanism for effecting change.  A referendum that proposes 
to replace the Fatah-dominated PA and Gaza's Hamas government with 
an apolitical provisional regime could at least offer Palestinians a 
means to choose between more Fatah and Hamas, or something far 
better.  If Abbas is really fed up and ready to go, his departure 
could presage a revolutionary opportunity. 
 
IV.  "ItQs Time to Deal Separately with Gaza" 
 
Yossi Alpher, Co-Editor of the bitterlemons.org family of 
Israeli-Palestinian Internet publications and former director of the 
Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, wrote in 
The Jerusalem Post (10/28): QA Hamas-Fatah unity agreement is bad 
for the prospect of an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, at least 
in the near term.... Under present circumstances, a successful peace 
process means an agreement with the West Bank alone, even though 
both Israel and the PLO would declare their intention that it 
eventually apply to the Gaza Strip as well.  Eventually -- because 
there currently is no prospect that Gaza will be pried loose of the 
Hamas grip.  But an agreement with the West Bank alone is better -- 
for Israel, the Palestinians, the Arab states and the world -- than 
none.... Moderate Palestinians obviously shy away from contemplating 
the consequences of moving forward on the West Bank without Gaza: 
This would shatter their narrative of a two-state solution based on 
a Palestinian state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza.  Yet, 
if there is to be any viability to the notion of an 
Israeli-Palestinian peace process mediated by the United States, 
it's time for all parties concerned to recognize that, for the time 
being at least, Gaza is a separate entity.  We all have to begin 
reevaluating our failed strategies for Gaza.  We need to look for 
new strategies that don't interfere with the process but are not, of 
necessity, a part of that process. 
 
¶V.  QWhat I Want to Know 
 
Diplomatic correspondent Aluf Benn wrote in the independent, 
left-leaning HaQaretz (10/28): QI want to know how and why it was 
decided to embark on Operation Cast Lead in Gaza and to expand it 
into a ground offensive.  I want to know if the decisions were 
 
TEL AVIV 00002376  007 OF 007 
 
 
affected by the Israeli election campaign then underway and the 
change in U.S. presidents.  I want to know if the leaders who 
launched the operation correctly judged the political damage it 
would cause Israel and what they did to minimize it.  I want to know 
if those who gave orders to the Israel Defense Forces assumed that 
hundreds of Palestinian civilians would be killed, and how they 
tried to prevent this.  These questions should be at the center of 
an investigation into Operation Cast Lead.  An investigation is 
necessary because of the political complexities that resulted from 
the operation, the serious harm to Palestinian civilians, the 
Goldstone report and its claims of war crimes, and the limits that 
will be imposed on the IDF's freedom of operation in the future. 
There is no room to argue that the government should be allowed to 
govern without interference and investigations, with the public 
passing judgment at the ballot box.  The government changed after 
the Gaza operation and the questions remain troublesome. 
 
--------- 
¶2.  Iran: 
--------- 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
"Ankara Has Crossed the Lines" 
 
Veteran journalist and television anchor Dan Margalit wrote in the 
independent Israel Hayom (10/28): QErdogan is adding to his sins as 
his anti-Israel incitement means that there no longer is an isolated 
voice from Tehran but a chorus in AhmadinejadQs and his neighborQs 
axis of evil.  The Turkish Prime Minister has freed Iran from its 
loneliness.  No one has risen up against him and the damage can 
already be seen in some Arab states that refuse to extend their hand 
in peace and assist in the process led by Obama.  When, in a 
parliamentary decision, a Persian Gulf country bans ties with 
Israeli citizens, Jerusalem gets a real notion of the harm caused by 
Erdogan.... Israel would delude itself if it lets its wishes 
overshadow the reality unraveling in Turkey.  Ankara has crossed the 
lines.  We have to wait for its sobering up under another 
leadership. 
 
CUNNINGHAM