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UNCLAS TEL AVIV 002381 
 
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 
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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 
 
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SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: 
-------------------------------- 
 
Mideast 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
Today, according to the Hebrew calendar, marks the 14th anniversary 
of the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. 
HaQaretz reported that President Obama has videotaped a message to 
be shown Saturday night at the annual memorial ceremony for Rabin in 
Rabin Square in Tel Aviv.  The message will relate to the murdered 
prime minister's legacy and the need to advance the peace process. 
It was prepared in response to a request from Rabin's daughter, 
Dalia Rabin.  HaQaretz reported that Obama's advisers are worried 
about his lack of popularity and the expressed feeling that he is 
hostile to Israel. They believe this seriously harms his ability to 
advance the peace process with the Palestinians.  Obama's advisers 
see this as the reason why Israelis view his diplomatic initiatives 
on both Iran and the Palestinians so negatively.  HaQaretz reported 
that recent weeks have seen a number of meetings on the matter in 
the White House, and that one of the ideas under discussion is an 
Obama visit to Israel.  It was decided at this stage to wait and 
send Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Jerusalem; she is 
scheduled to arrive Saturday night. 
 
The media cited objections by Knesset Speaker Reuven (Likud) and 
other right-wing politicians to aspects of the commemoration of 
RabinQs assassination, saying that it is too politicized. 
 
Leading media reported that, meeting with PM Benjamin Netanyahu and 
President Shimon Peres last week, Croatian President Stjepan Mesic 
offered his government's help in restarting negotiations between 
Israel and Syria and suggested that his country's Brijuni Islands be 
used as the site for talks.  Netanyahu reportedly asked Mesic about 
Assad's character and his willingness to reach a peace agreement 
with Israel and improve ties with the West.  Netanyahu said he was 
ready to relaunch talks with Syria without preconditions, as long as 
those talks were held directly without a mediator.  "I held 
negotiations with the elder Assad, and I see no reason that I cannot 
hold negotiations with the younger," Netanyahu reportedly said. 
Yesterday, several days after the Croatian President returned to 
Zagreb, Assad paid him a visit.  At a press conference, Assad said 
he would be willing to renew negotiations with Israel and called on 
Europe to help in such an effort.  "We call on European countries to 
also give their contribution, to help Turkey but also us to be able 
to resume from where we have stopped," Assad said, adding that the 
presence of a "third side" would be necessary if the talks resume. 
"As far as it concerns us in Syria we have national support to 
continue talks with Israel," Assad said. "However, there is a 
condition that on the Israeli side we also have those who want to 
continue the negotiations."  (Yediot and other media reported that 
yesterday Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was actually on a 
visit to Iran, expressed a message of reconciliation with Israel.) 
For his part, Mesic said that "the suspended talks should resume and 
[the] Golan be brought back under Syrian sovereignty .... Security 
for Israel should be also guaranteed."  Israel Radio quoted 
President Peres as saying that Israel is willing to make peace with 
Syria.  Leading media quoted DM Ehud Barak as saying that in the 
past Israel sought, and that it will continue to seek, ways to 
advance peace with Syria.  The Jerusalem Post and Israel Radio 
quoted Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey 
Feltman as saying in testimony before the House Subcommittee on the 
Middle East and South Asia that the U.S. wants to move beyond 
dialogue to a more constructive relationship with Syria but that 
Syria must address U.S. concerns about some of its regional 
policies, such as its support for terrorist organizations such as 
Hizbullah and Hamas and its control of foreign fighters trying to 
enter Iraq. 
 
The Jerusalem Post and other leading media reported that yesterday 
Hamas announced that it will not allow the PAQs Central Elections 
Committee to start preparations in Gaza for holding new presidential 
and parliamentary elections on January 24, 2010.  The Jerusalem Post 
says that Hamas's decision to ban the vote in Gaza raises doubts 
regarding PA President Mahmoud Abbas's ability to hold the elections 
on time.  The Jerusalem Post quoted Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri 
as saying that the committee was established in violation of 
"understandings" reached between Hamas and Fatah through Egyptian 
mediators in recent weeks.  He added that according to the 
ostensible understandings, the committee was supposed to be 
established in agreement between the two parties. 
 
The Jerusalem Post quoted U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon as 
saying yesterday he would defer to recommendations by the General 
Assembly regarding the Goldstone report accusing Israel of war 
crimes during Operation Cast Lead.  Israel Radio quoted Moon as 
saying that Israel must assist in the reconstruction of Gaza. 
 
The Jerusalem Post noted that one of the most notable political 
processes currently taking place in Gaza is the growing prominence 
of QSalafi jihadQ organizations. 
 
Citing the semi-official Iranian news agency ISNA, The Jerusalem 
Post quoted Iranian lawmaker Muhammad Karamirad as saying that 
Tehran would formally respond on Thursday to a UN-drafted plan to 
ship much of its uranium abroad for enrichment.  Leading media 
reported that yesterday the House Foreign Affairs Committee voted to 
approve legislation blocking refined petroleum from reaching 
Tehran. 
 
The Jerusalem Post cited the State Department's annual International 
Religious Freedom Report on Israel released this week that Israel 
discriminates against non-Orthodox streams of Judaism and against 
Jewish-born believers in Christianity, while the PA has not been 
doing enough to combat Muslim violence against Christians.  The 
report states: "Israeli government policy continued to support the 
generally free practice of religion, although government 
discrimination against non-Jews and non-Orthodox streams of Judaism 
continued." 
 
Referring to the bloody terrorist attacks in Pakistan, leading media 
dubbed Secretary ClintonQs visit to that country Qwarm. 
 
Leading media reported that Industry, Trade, and Labor Minister 
Benjamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor Party) will be the only government 
minister attending tonightQs Turkish Republic Day reception at the 
home of the Turkish Ambassador in Kfar Shmaryahu, a reflection of 
the current tension between the two countries. 
 
HaQaretz and Israel Radio reported that PM Netanyahu has secretly 
asked Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi to keep his country in charge of 
UNIFIL, the U.N. force in Lebanon, rather than handing control to 
Spain as planned, causing chagrin in Madrid. 
 
Yediot reported that PM Netanyahu is trying to make DM Barak and 
Justice Minister Yaakov NeQeman agree to a compromise regarding the 
issue of splitting the functions of the attorney general. 
 
HaQaretz reported that yesterday Supreme Court President Dorit 
Beinisch accused the Government of ignoring illegal settlement 
construction in one of several barbed remarks that could presage a 
first High Court of Justice decision ordering the demolition of 
illegal housing in the West Bank. 
 
HaQaretz reported that yesterday Channel 2-TV News fired its 
Palestinian affairs reporter Suleiman al-Shafi over events 
surrounding a letter by Gilad Shalit that he had obtained while 
writing a book on the captive soldier. 
 
HaQaretz reported that although there is growing support in the 
Knesset for a controversial government bill that aims to prevent 
asylum seekers from entering via the Israeli-Egyptian border, human 
rights groups charge that this support stems from false information 
from the IDF.  (Two weeks ago, the media quoted IDF units 
responsible for guarding Israel's expansive western border with 
Egypt as saying that there are one million would-be infiltrators 
from Africa waiting to cross the mostly barrier-less border and 
enter Israel illegally.)  The bill, which has passed its first 
reading, states that anyone who enters Israel without a permit, 
including refugees, will be subject to immediate expulsion or 
imprisonment. The human rights organizations say this violates 
Israel's commitments under the international Convention Relating to 
the Status of Refugees. 
 
Yediot reported that two Jewish groups in Switzerland, which 
represent the majority of the Swiss-Jewish community, are 
campaigning for the rights of Muslims in the country. 
 
All media reported that yesterday police interrogated Elior Chen, a 
self-styled rabbi who allegedly influenced some of his followers to 
abuse their children in order to "correct their corrupt souls," 
after landing at Ben-Gurion Airport following his extradition from 
Brazil. 
 
-------- 
Mideast: 
-------- 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  "And the Time Passes, My Friend" 
 
Eytan Haber, veteran op-ed writer and assistant to the late Prime 
Minister Yitzhak Rabin, opined in the mass-circulation, pluralist 
Yediot Aharonot (10/29): QThat which was advocated almost solely by 
Yitzhak Rabin (with the formidable partnership of Shimon Peres), has 
become an accepted belief by nearly everyone, including the Likud. 
Words like QPalestinian state,Q which Rabin hesitated (and never 
actually uttered) to say publicly are today the recurring refrain 
sung by Q unbelievably -- Arik Sharon, Ehud Olmert, Tzipi Livni, and 
now, please welcome the groom with a loud round of applause, 
Benjamin Netanyahu.  To remind you: this is the very same Netanyahu 
from the coffin in RaQanana and the balcony of the Zion Hotel in 
Jerusalem [well-known cases of incitement against Rabin in 1995]. 
Sharon and Olmert have already said out loud that they had been 
mistaken.  Netanyahu will say the same.  We need to be 
compassionate: it isn't easy to replace a worn out CD that has been 
playing in your head ever since you were an infant in the cradle. 
In practice, nearly all of the Zionist parties have adopted the 
principles that were signed at Oslo, each one using its own 
terminology.  Yitzhak Rabin can rest in peace in his grave.  He has 
successors. 
 
II.  "Where to?" 
 
Senior commentator Ari Shavit wrote in the independent, left-leaning 
Ha'aretz (10/29): Q[Yitzhak] Rabin was great because during his 
second term as prime minister he realized the existential danger of 
occupation and decided to take action.  The specific action he took 
-- the Oslo process -- was quite flawed.  But the septuagenarian's 
willingness to foment change and take risks to extricate Israel from 
its troubles turned Rabin into a historic figure and role model. 
When Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak give speeches about Rabin at 
this week's memorial ceremonies, they should ask themselves where 
they are compared to him.... At a time when Israel faces dramatic 
challenges, its leadership isn't saying anything or striving for 
anything.  Yes and no, mutters Netanyahu.  No and yes, whispers 
Barak.  This isn't how you lead a nation.  This isn't how you 
rebuild a country.  If this is the government's price, there isn't 
any point to it.... Rabin's great insight was that the Jewish 
democratic state of today cannot choose the status quo.  It has two 
options: getting out of the mud or sinking into it.  This is an 
insight the current government must internalize.  The time has come 
to know where we are going. 
 
III.  "The Right, the Obligation, and the Sin" 
 
Liberal columnist Yigal Sarna wrote in the mass-circulation, 
pluralist Yediot Aharonot (10/29): QIt should be said in defense of 
Benjamin NetanyahuQs days in power that there have been no wars 
during his period. What can be said against him is that [his 
periods of power] have generally not been times of hope.  Hope is an 
essential ingredient in a nationQs existence.  There is no war, but 
neither is there peace.  There is no battle, but thereQs no 
conciliation.  There is a limbo, an abyss -- an empty space that 
arouses curiosity and a nightmarish feeling about our interim 
leaderQs internal world.  His days are always confused, gloomy, and 
filed with frictions -- as if he had brought with him a worldview of 
an inquisitorial world solely populated with persecutors or 
persecuted people, with no compromise or solution.  This is why he 
fends off wars, letting his successors fight them. 
 
IV.  "Some Victims We Are" 
 
Liberal columnist Larry Derfner wrote in the conservative, 
independent Jerusalem Post (10/29): QThe truth is that Israel has 
never been a victim, and our likening of ourselves to the 6 million 
has been embarrassing from the beginning -- but now?  After what we 
did in Gaza?  With the stranglehold we have on that society, while 
we over here live free and easy?  Victims?  Lambs to the slaughter? 
Us?  No, this has gone beyond embarrassing; this is out-and-out 
shameful.... The reason we tell ourselves and the world that we are 
victims is because we know, whether we admit it to ourselves or not, 
that victimhood is power.  Victimhood is freedom.  A victim can't be 
told to restrain himself.  A victim fighting for survival can't be 
accused of abusing his power because, after all, his back is to the 
wall, he's desperate.... Instead, let's take a good, hard look at 
what we did and what we're doing in Gaza.  Then let's take a good, 
hard look in the mirror.  And then let's admit who's the true victim 
here and now, and, more importantly, who isn't. 
 
¶V.  QFar from Watertight 
 
The Jerusalem Post editorialized (10/29): QIsrael is under fire 
again for supposed human rights contraventions.  Hot on the heels of 
the Goldstone Report, which is at the behest of the U.N. Human 
Rights Council charged Israel with war crimes against Gazan 
civilians in Operation Cast Lead, Amnesty International this week 
accuses Israel of depriving the Palestinians of the most basic and 
vital of all commodities -- water.... So-called human rights 
organizations have become the prime weapon of choice with which to 
whack Israel.  In the name of ostensible liberality, Israel is 
repeatedly placed in the dock of world opinion, where it is 
tarnished as the villain among nations.  There's almost no sphere 
where Israel can remotely expect a fair shake.... While ostensibly 
pursuing a well-intentioned attempt to improve Palestinian welfare, 
Amnesty seems more intent on coming up with pretexts to justify its 
assertion that Israel Qdenies hundreds of thousands of Palestinians 
the right to live a normal life, to have adequate food, housing or 
health, and to economic development.Q  A readiness to first hear, 
and then take into account, the Israeli side of the vexed water 
dispute would have enabled a more credible report -- and one more 
likely to have practical impact. 
 
CUNNINGHAM