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P 020618Z NOV 09
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UNCLAS TEL AVIV 002394 
 
STATE FOR NEA, NEA/IPA, NEA/PPD 
 
WHITE HOUSE FOR PRESS OFFICE, SIT ROOM 
NSC FOR NEA STAFF 
 
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PARIS ALSO FOR POL 
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SIPDIS 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OPRC KMDR IS
 
SUBJECT: SPECIAL ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION 
 
-------------------------------- 
SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: 
-------------------------------- 
 
Special Envoy Mitchell to Israel, West Bank 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
The media reported that U.S. Special Envoy for Middle East Peace 
Senator George Mitchell has arrived in the region.  Israel Radio 
reported that he met with DM Ehud Barak yesterday and that he is 
scheduled to meet with PM Benjamin Netanyahu today.  The Jerusalem 
Post said that expectations of progress in talks with Israel and the 
Palestinian Authority are low, citing concern that the PA election 
campaign will make launching negotiations even more difficult than 
before.  Maariv expects Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as saying 
during her visit to Israel and the PA that the U.S. administration 
is losing patience and is determined to swiftly bring about the 
resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.  Maariv reported 
that Clinton will try to convince PA President Mahmoud Abbas to 
return to the negotiations.  However, Maariv quoted a senior Israeli 
diplomatic official as saying: QWe are not the problem, but the 
Palestinians, who present preconditions, are. 
 
Both HaQaretz and Maariv devoted their lead stories to the 
presentation of President AbbasQ negative views about PM NetanyahuQs 
policies.   HaQaretz reported that Israeli officials have told the 
newspaper that PA President Mahmoud Abbas is deeply suspicious of 
Netanyahu and is losing faith in his intentions to reach a peace 
agreement.  "I know Netanyahu is pragmatic and everyone tells me he 
has changed," Abbas reportedly told the officials recently.  "But I 
don't see it. I fear it's the same Netanyahu of 1996. How much 
longer can I still give him credit?"  Abbas reportedly said he 
missed former PM Ehud Olmert, with whom he had "almost closed [a 
deal]."  QAnd I'm willing to give Netanyahu one more chance. But we 
have no more than two to three weeks during which something must 
happen," an Israeli official quoted Abbas as saying.  An Israeli 
source said Abbas was extremely frustrated by Netanyahu and the 
changes in Israel's policy, especially by the "extreme rhetoric." 
Abbas was quoted as saying in an interview with Maariv that not only 
has Netanyahu not advanced the diplomatic process and not done 
anything tangible for peace, but he continues building settlement 
and inflicting mortal wounds to the process. 
 
HaQaretz reported that last night Croatian President Stjepan Mesic 
called President Shimon Peres to brief him on the details of a 
conversation he had held earlier that day with Syrian President 
Bashar Assad and relay another message from Assad about the 
possibility of resuming peace negotiations between the two 
countries.  Peres then reportedly called PM Netanyahu and briefed 
him on the details of the conversation.  Leading media quoted 
TurkeyQs new Ambassador to Israel, Ahmet Oguz Celikkol, as saying 
yesterday before an Israeli academic conference that good relations 
with Israel are part of TurkeyQs global aspirations. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that yesterday Israel maintained a low 
profile on the issue of Iranian President Mahmoud AhmadinejadQs 
pledge not to retreat Qeven an iotaQ on his countryQs nuclear 
program, with no comment from PM Netanyahu and restrained remarks 
from DM Barak.  According to the newspaper, this low-key response 
appeared to reflect a desire to avoid Israel "becoming the story," 
which is now focused on whether Tehran will accept the Vienna 
agreement.   This morning Israel Radio reported that Iran rejected 
the terms of the agreement. 
 
The media quoted Yonatan Ben-Artzi, the grandson of the slain Prime 
Minister Yitzhak Rabin, as saying yesterday at the official ceremony 
in memory of his grandfather at Mt. Herzl Cemetery in Jerusalem that 
leaders attending the event had led protests in which Rabin was 
called a a murderer and traitor.  The media reported that in his 
speech at the Knesset session commemorating Rabin, PM Netanyahu 
raised the possibility that extremists may carry out a similar 
assassination today.  Media reported that, claiming that the popular 
rally in memory of Rabin in Tel Aviv tomorrow does not represent 
their views, left-wing leaders -- particularly from Meretz -- 
decided not to attend the demonstration.  Maariv reported that, in 
his videotaped address to the rally, President Obama is expected to 
say that QYitzhak left us a legacy on that awful November night. 
 
Maariv (Ben Caspit) reported on a meeting of senior diplomats from 
all over the world -- including Israelis -- in Morocco this week, 
which encompassed sincere, promising talks about peace and 
coexistence. 
 
HaQaretz reported that the QBrigades of Abdullah Azzam,Q a 
Lebanon-based group linked to al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for a 
rocket salvo against Israel this week, saying the attack was in 
retaliation for IsraelQs crackdown on protesters at JerusalemQs 
 
Temple Mount.  The Jerusalem Post quoted Lebanese President Michel 
as saying in an interview with the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar that 
one Qmust not rule outQ the possibility that Israel was behind the 
attack. 
 
Maariv headlined a feature about the visit to Israel of USS Higgins 
as part of the Juniper Cobra 10 exercise with the banner, QWe Are 
Protected. 
 
Citing the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, The Jerusalem Post reported 
that President Obama has named retired Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), 
an QIsrael critic,Q to co-chair the PresidentQs Intelligence 
Advisory Board. 
 
Israel Radio quoted a senior Hamas member as saying that the gap 
with Israel over the release of Gilad Shalit has narrowed and now 
concerns only 107 Palestinians whom Israel refuses to free. 
HaQaretz reported that Shimshon Liebman, who heads a special task 
force to win ShalitQs release, told the daily that both the task 
force and the Shalit family would develop their own strategy and 
resume intensive lobbying if the negotiations make little progress. 
 
Makor Rishon-Hatzofe reported that Semyon Mogilevich, an 
Israeli-Russian oligarch, appears on the list of the FBIQs 10 most 
wanted criminals. 
 
All media reported that a gunman shot and wounded two men in the 
parking lot of a North Hollywood, California synagogue early 
yesterday.  Jewish schools and synagogues in the area were put on 
alert shortly afterward in the event that it was not an isolated 
attack.  HaQaretz reported that the Anti-Defamation League expressed 
Qdeep regretQ over the incident. 
 
The Jerusalem Post cited a nationwide Anti-Defamation League survey 
that found that only 12% of Americans hold anti-Semitic views. 
 
---------------------- 
Special Envoy Mitchell to Israel, West Bank: 
---------------------- 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  QIn Favor of a Deal with Damascus 
The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (10/30): QThe 
Israeli approach to relations with Syria needs to be managed from 
the end to the start, and the end is a vision of regional peace 
between Israel and its neighbors.  In parallel to efforts to reach a 
permanent settlement with the Palestinians and without hurting their 
interests, Israel must seek peace with Syria in the context of 
Security Council Resolution 242 of November 1967: full and secure 
peace in return for complete withdrawal.  Those who do not want such 
a deal will seek to undermine it using arguments of procedure.... In 
the past, Netanyahu spoke indirectly with Hafez Assad, the late 
father of the current leader in Damascus, through U.S. businessman 
Ron Lauder.  The contacts failed and there is some dispute over what 
happened.  There is no dispute, however, that seeking peace with 
Syria, through talks between chiefs of staff and shuttle diplomacy 
by secretaries of state, is a key element in Yitzhak Rabin's 
diplomatic legacy, which Netanyahu's Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, 
says should be seen through.  Rabin's memory should extend beyond 
flowery speeches, eulogies, and arguing over the Oslo process. 
Energized efforts toward peace with Syria would perpetuate the Rabin 
legacy. 
 
II.  I Will Not Be Coming to Rabin Square Tomorrow 
 
Former Meretz Knesset Member Zahava Gal-On wrote in HaQaretz 
(10/30): QThis is not my rally any more.  This is no longer the 
rally of those committed to democracy and peace, those who recognize 
the need to divide the land, end the occupation, evacuate 
settlements, and establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel. 
Above all, this is no longer the rally of people who acknowledge and 
respect painful majority decisions even if they don't like them.  So 
I will not be coming to the square on Saturday.  Yitzhak Rabin was 
murdered because of the policy he charted.  In the early years, when 
the memory was still fresh, the rally reminded us of Rabin's 
political path and of what he was murdered for.  But as the years 
passed, the organizers rewrote history, toadied up to the right 
wing, and invited politicians from parties that refuse to compromise 
and end the occupation. With the main speakers being people like 
Defense Minister Ehud Barak and opposition chairman Tzipi Livni, the 
captains of Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, why shouldn't Education 
Minister Gideon Sa'ar [Likud], who is by no means a member of Peace 
Now, also speak?.... By turning the rally on Saturday into a 
nonpolitical event, they are erasing the fact that the Prime 
Minister's assassination was entirely political.  They are erasing 
the rabbis' incitement against Rabin and the balcony in Zion Square 
[in October 1995 in Jerusalem].  They are erasing the fact that an 
entire political camp was engaged in a campaign to delegitimize the 
Prime Minister by claiming that a government supported by Arab votes 
was illegitimate and had no mandate to give up parts of the Land of 
Israel.  And thus they exonerate those political and public figures 
who were abettors and accomplices.  Thus they take part in papering 
over the controversy and the rift.   But no fake consensus can be 
allowed to cover up this basic truth. 
 
III.  QYes, Rabin Can Already Be Regretted 
 
The nationalist, Orthodox Makor Rishon-Hatzofe editorialized 
(10/30): QThere is no need to agree with the path and consequences 
of Oslo to long for the late Yitzhak Rabin.  Israeli society has few 
heroes.... Despite the wretched expression Qvictims of peace,Q there 
can be no doubt that had Rabin reached the recognition that the 
[peace] process had turned into an exercise in deception, he would 
have said this clearly.  It is therefore possible to state that he 
believed in peace until the day of his death.  Even this belief is a 
source of nostalgia.  One should remember that RabinQs peace 
included [in IsraelQs possession] the entire Jordan Valley, the 
settlement blocs (Qsuch as Gush Katif,Q as he said in his last 
Knesset speech), and all of Jerusalem.  Let us mention that what is 
now considered as RabinQs way is very far from his peace vision. 
 
 
 
 
IV.  QThe Week in Blood 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (10/30): 
QIt's been another dreadful week in the war of civilizations.... 
This is a war of civilizations in the sense that Muslim extremists 
with imperial ambitions are engaged in a zero-sum struggle against 
the values associated with modernity -- liberty, enlightenment, and 
tolerance.  For now, the battle is being played out mostly in 
Muslim-majority lands, though New York, London, Madrid, and Israel's 
cities have also been killing fields.  Western elites have tended to 
deny, downplay or reject outright the systemic nature of the 
Islamist menace.  Under these circumstances, there has been no real 
will to mobilize Western publics for the sacrifices ahead.... 
Israelis have demonstrated that it is possible to defend their 
country with precisely the means [Philip] Alston [of the U.N. Human 
Rights Council, who this week took the Obama administration to task 
for its policy of targeted assassinations of terrorist chieftains] 
finds so distasteful against an enemy that is driven by an 
unfortunate -- some would say perverted -- reading of Islam.  Like 
other Islamist groups, both Hamas and Hizbullah have no compunction 
about launching attacks from behind their civilian populations. 
Yet, contrary to the mendacious assertions of the Goldstone Report, 
our army has protected us without losing its soul. 
 
CUNNINGHAM