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UNCLAS TEL AVIV 002454 
 
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.  U.S.-Israel Relations 
 
¶2.  Mideast 
 
¶3.  Iran 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
All media reported that PM Benjamin Netanyahu will meet President 
Obama in the White House today.  HaQaretzQs banner -- QObama Showing 
Israel WhoQs Boss with Semi-Snub of Netanyahu in WashingtonQ -- 
emphasizes the newspaperQs view of the upcoming meeting.  The media 
reported that the President announced his willingness to meet with 
Netanyahu at the last moment.  Israel Radio reported that DM Ehud 
Barak will meet with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and National 
Security Advisor James Jones. 
 
The media cited President ObamaQs videotaped address that was shown 
at Saturday nightQs Tel Aviv rally marking the 14th anniversary of 
the late PM Yitzhak RabinQs assassination.  Obama was quoted as 
saying "On that terrible November night, Yitzhak left us with his 
death.  Now it is up to us to carry on its meaning, to carry on his 
work.Q  The President cited the necessity of saying QyesQ to peace, 
reassured the crowd that QAmericaQs bond with our Israeli allies is 
unbreakable,Q and pledged that U.S. support for IsraelQs defense 
will never be undermined.  Speaking at the demonstration, President 
Shimon Peres urged PA President Mahmoud Abbas to remain in office 
and to work with Israel on a peace agreement. 
 
Yesterday HaQaretz reported that concerns are growing in Israel's 
Government over the possibility of a unilateral Palestinian 
declaration of independence within the 1967 borders, a move which 
could potentially be recognized by the U.N. Security Council. 
According to HaQaretz, Netanyahu recently asked the Obama 
administration to veto any such proposal, after reports reached 
Jerusalem of support for such a declaration from major EU countries, 
and apparently also certain U.S. officials.  The reports indicated 
that Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad has reached a secret understanding 
with the Obama administration over U.S. recognition of an 
independent Palestinian state.  Such recognition would likely 
transform any Israeli presence across the Green Line, even in 
Jerusalem, into an illegal incursion to which the Palestinians would 
be entitled to engage in measures of self-defense. 
 
Addressing supporters during a rare visit to Bethlehem and Hebron, 
Abbas said that the Palestinians would not make any additional 
concessions and would continue to demand their rights.   Leading 
Israeli media quoted him as saying: "I don't know what the Israelis 
want.  They must start thinking about what needs to be done if they 
really want peace."  The Jerusalem Post also reported that Hassan 
Khraisheh, deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, 
called on Abbas to seriously consider dissolving the PA because of 
the failure of the peace process.  Maariv quoted chief Palestinian 
negotiator Saeb Erekat as saying that he tried to arrange meetings 
with Uzi Arad, the Chairman of IsraelQs National Security Council, 
but that his efforts were repeatedly rejected. 
 
HaQaretz reported that Palestinian sources told the newspaper that 
President Abbas said in private meetings in recent days that he 
intends to resign from his post in the near future.  The remarks, 
which Abbas reportedly made to an Egyptian delegation, came after 
Thursday's announcement that he would not seek reelection as 
Palestinian president.  HaQaretz and other media quoted U.S. 
officials as saying that they have not given up on him and that they 
still see him as essential to the peace process.  HaQaretz reported 
that top Palestinian officials predicted yesterday that if Abbas 
makes good on his declaration that he won't run in the upcoming 
Palestinian presidential election, Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad and 
his entire cabinet would resign, signaling the destruction of the 
PA.  However, HaQaretz quoted sources close to Abbas as saying they 
expect him to retract his decision to quit politics if PM Netanyahu 
commits publicly to freezing settlement construction during 
final-status talks.  HaQaretz wrote that as an alternative to such 
an Israeli commitment, Abbas is seeking a guarantee from President 
Obama that would explicitly mention cessation of Israeli 
construction in East Jerusalem. 
 
Maariv revealed that Yitzhak Shapiro, the Rabbi of the Od Yosef Hai 
Yeshiva in the militant settlement of Yitzhar, has written a book 
describing when a Jew is allowed to harm QgoysQ [foreigners] and 
their children. 
 
The media quoted the Turkish state-run news agency Anatolian as 
saying yesterday Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan denied that Omar 
Hassan al-Bashir was responsible for genocide in Darfur and said he 
would be more comfortable talking to the indicted Sudanese President 
than to PM Netanyahu.  Erdogan was quoted as saying: "I wouldn't be 
able to speak with Netanyahu so comfortably but I would speak 
comfortably with Bashir. I say comfortably: QWhat you've done is 
wrong.   And I would say it to his face.  Why?  Because a Muslim 
couldn't do such things.  A Muslim could not commit genocide. 
 
All media reported that yesterday, during a press conference in Tel 
Aviv, Kadima Knesset Member and former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz 
publicly presented his peace plan.  Mofaz called for talks with 
Hamas, if the latter chooses and wants to sit at the negotiating 
table. 
 
HaQaretz quoted the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. 
Michael Mullen, as saying last week in Washington that a nuclear 
Iran would pose an existential threat to Israel. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that U.S. House of Representatives 
Minority Whip Eric Cantor told the newspaper that the climate toward 
Israel on Capitol Hill could be changing.  In an unrelated matter, 
The Jerusalem Post reported that Senator Joe Lieberman (Ind.-CT) 
informed Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat that six senators had sponsored 
a bill that would put an end to a currently needed presidential 
confirmation on initiatives to recognize Jerusalem as the Qundivided 
capital of IsraelQ and call to move the U.S. embassy there, and 
implement the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act. 
 
The media reported that a formal split in the Labor Party was pushed 
off for now, after Knesset Member Daniel Ben Simon refused to join 
the four party "rebels" in launching a new faction despite attending 
the conference they held yesterday.  By law, Knesset members can 
only split off and be recognized as a new faction if they comprise 
at least one-third of their former party's representatives.  Since 
Labor has 13 MKs, that means five are needed for a split. 
 
HaQaretz and other media reported on the opening of the Jenin 
Cinematheque in four months in the historic building that housed a 
movie theater from the 1950Qs through the first Intifada in 1987. 
 
The media reported on a public debate held last Thursday at Brandeis 
University between jurist Richard Goldstone, who headed the U.N. 
Human Rights Council-mandated commission of investigation into 
Operation Cast Lead, and former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., Dr. 
Dore Gold.  Yesterday Maariv reported that Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. 
Gabi Ashkenazi has decided to appoint Brig. Gen. Yuval Halamish as 
the figure responsible for coordinating the IDFQs inquiries 
concerning the Goldstone Report. 
 
HaQaretz reported that two academics who authored the military's 
ethical code in 1992 -- Prof. Moshe Halbertal and Prof. Avi Sagi -- 
are now calling on Israel to investigate some of the claims raised 
in the Goldstone Report over Operation Cast Lead.  While the 
scholars level harsh criticism at the report, they believe there is 
no alternative to probing several specific conclusions contained in 
it.  Last week Halbertal authored an article entitled "The Goldstone 
Illusion" in the U.S. magazine The New Republic, and Sagi posted an 
article on the Web site of Jerusalem's Shalom Hartman Institute. 
Both pieces called on Israel to examine some of the findings of the 
report, flawed though they believe it is. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
-------------------------- 
¶1.  U.S.-Israel Relations: 
-------------------------- 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  QA Relationship in Crisis 
 
Diplomatic correspondent Aluf Benn wrote on page one of the 
independent, left-leaning HaQaretz (11/9): QRelations between Israel 
and the United States are in crisis.  This is the conclusion that 
stems from the difficulty in arranging a meeting between Prime 
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Barack Obama.  The 
White House wanted Netanyahu to sweat before being granted an 
audience with the president, and wanted everyone to see him 
perspire.... The relations are not symmetrical.  Netanyahu may be an 
experienced diplomat and politician, and Obama may be a novice, but 
Obama is the president of a superpower, and Netanyahu represents a 
small country that depends greatly on the United States.  It 
sometimes appears that Netanyahu forgets this, and pretends he is 
the head of a superpower.... The opaqueness of the administration 
rallied Israeli public opinion behind Netanyahu, instead of creating 
domestic divisions.  But even when the President is not being nice, 
he is still stronger in the relationship.  Instead of making excuses 
and explaining the terrible situation, Netanyahu should make the 
effort to resolve the crisis with the American administration.  He 
should listen to the American complaints which sound like the gripes 
of a couple married for 30 years.  Israel complains about the 
absence of intimacy but only takes and does not give anything in 
return. 
 
II.  QObama Has No Idea 
 
Columnist Shmuel Rosner, who was HaQaretzQs correspondent in 
Washington, wrote in the popular, pluralist Maariv (11/9): QIn his 
awkward choice to speak at the [Rabin commemoration] rally ... 
[Obama] stormed the public square with yesterdayQs messages, 
yesterdayQs legacy.  He had good intentions.... The speech per se 
was fair if not exciting.  The choice of venue revealed how hard the 
incumbent Democratic administration finds it to digest the fact that 
between [Bill] ClintonQs eight years and ObamaQs four, there also 
were George BushQs years.... Obama may get one or two points for his 
efforts, but, substantially, on Saturday he gained less than one 
point of support in Israeli public opinion -- perhaps even the other 
way around. 
 
------------ 
¶2.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
 
 
¶I.  QWashington Chill 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (11/9): 
QFrom Eisenhower to Bush II, past administrations have 
intermittently cold-shouldered Israel or sought to drive a wedge 
between the Jewish state and its supporters in the United States. 
In this regard, the Obama administration is breaking no new ground. 
Nevertheless, if Obama buys into the insidious canard, as Thomas 
Friedman promotes it, that the Palestinian leadership Qwants a deal 
with Israel without any negotiationsQ while Israel's leadership 
Qwants negotiations with the Palestinians without any deal,Q he will 
invariably spend the remainder of his term veering from one dead end 
to another.  Through a multitude of blunders -- failure to dismantle 
illegal outposts among them -- successive Israeli governments have 
empowered the West Bank Palestinian leadership to frame the current 
stalemate as resulting from Israel's preference for settlements over 
peace.  In reality, it is persistent Palestinian intransigence 
combined with the fragmentation of their polity that has made 
progress impossible.  No one wants peace more than Israel.  Most 
Israelis support a demilitarized Palestine living side-by-side with 
the Jewish state of Israel -- the very vision articulated by 
Netanyahu in his seminal June 14 Bar-Ilan [University] address. 
 
II.  QA Peace that No One Wants 
 
Political commentator Shalom Yerushalmi wrote in the popular, 
pluralist Maariv (11/9): QNothing will come of this trip by the 
Prime Minister and Defense Minister to Washington.  Benjamin 
Netanyahu and Ehud Barak do not believe in the peace process and 
want to obstruct it.  Netanyahu envisions the Palestinian state to 
which he committed himself in the Bar Ilan speech last June.  His 
greatest nightmare is to see it materializing.... Minister Barak, 
who joined the government in order to lead the peace process, still 
bears the trauma of his encounter with Yasser Arafat at Camp David, 
and as a result has despaired of any chance of reaching an 
agreement.... President Shimon Peres was quoted yesterday as saying 
that Netanyahu and Barak had injured Abu Mazen.  It is difficult to 
exempt the Palestinian President from responsibility for the stalled 
negotiations.  Abu Mazen is posing as an unfortunate and playing on 
the thin line between QwillingQ and Qable.Q  Even if he is willing, 
he is unable to reach a solution or even conduct serious 
negotiations that entail concessions during a PA election period or 
in general.  It is also difficult to understand why he abandoned the 
discussion room after Ehud Olmert offered him almost everything, and 
why he does not leverage what he was promised in order to move 
forward.  U.S. President Obama is a partner to this general travesty 
of peace.  A year ago, he committed himself to bring about a 
solution to the conflict within two years, but since then he has not 
succeeded in advancing the negotiations by a single millimeter. 
Even the small-scale deal that the Americans tried to devise, a 
settlement freeze in exchange for nickel-and-dime normalization and 
flights to India through Saudi Arabia, did not work.  It is 
interesting to consider how the President wants to advance peace 
quickly, if he evades meeting the prime minister when he comes to 
Washington?  Perhaps he too has already given up. 
 
III.  QWhat Abu Mazen Deserves 
 
Dov Weisglass, who was former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's top 
diplomatic advisor, wrote in the mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot 
Aharonot (11/8): Q[Palestinian President Mahmoud AbbasQ] strange way 
of coping with his troubles ought not to distract us from the truly 
troubling matter: the growing sense among the Palestinians that 
Israel is not interested in reaching a political resolution of the 
conflict. That is to say that even if the resignation is phony, the 
despair and loss of faith are real.... It is possible that a partial 
construction freeze would have satisfied the Palestinians, but 
ObamaQs demand for an absolute settlement construction freeze 
created a problem. Now that the Americans have publicly backpedaled 
away from that demand, the Palestinians feel cheated, and their 
faith in the United StatesQ ability to influence and to mediate has 
been lost.... At the beginning of this decade, when the rampage of 
Palestinian terrorism was at its peak, IsraelQs fundamental 
condition for negotiations was a cessation of terrorism and 
violence.  The current Palestinian government has delivered those 
goods.  It behooves Israel, as such, to make every effort to ensure 
the continued existence of that government.  The Israeli government 
needs to go out of its way to resolve the crisis with Abu Mazen 
swiftly.  We must not reach a situation in which there is no fire -- 
but no negotiations either.  The worst of all will be if the 
Palestinians come to believe that a sincere effort to eradicate 
terrorism does nothing to change IsraelQs position, and that no 
political progress will ever be made in any event.  What do we stand 
to lose, they will ask themselves in that case, by renewing terror 
attacks? 
 
IV.  QLet Him Go 
 
Professor Eyal Zisser, the Chairman of the Department of Middle 
Eastern History at Tel Aviv University, wrote in the independent 
Israel Hayom (11/8): QSurprisingly enough, the reaction to Abu 
MazenQs statement -- both from the Palestinian street and the PLO, 
as well as in Israel and the United States -- was one of 
indifference, a reaction he has earned himself.  Abu Mazen is an 
affable man who rejects violence and terrorism.  That is despite the 
fact that anyone who really knows his positions knows that the 
disparity between his world view and that of Yasser Arafat is not as 
great as one might otherwise assume.  And indeed, the Palestinians 
do not need an affable grandfather, but a determined leader.  After 
all, Abu Mazen lost Gaza to Hamas and is hard put to enforce his 
will on the West Bank.  Nor has he been truly capable of advancing 
the negotiations with Israel, regardless of who the prime minister 
of Israel is.  As such, it would be better -- for the Palestinians, 
Israel and the U.S. -- to let Abu Mazen go.  And then it will become 
evident whether a new and determined, daring and decisive leader 
will emerge from the younger generation of Palestinians, a leader 
who will be able to lead them forward, or whether it will become 
evident, once again, that they wonQt miss the opportunity to 
squander the chance of closing ranks and producing from their midst 
an effective leadership that will lead them to safety and to an end 
of the conflict with Israel. 
 
¶V.  QThe Israeli Perversion 
 
Senior op-ed writer Akiva Eldar commented in Ha'aretz (11/9): QWe 
are being assuaged and told that nothing will affect the good-old 
status quo.  We are promised that [Mahmoud] Abbas will cancel 
elections and will continue serving the occupation until his final 
days.  At the same time, we rally our perversion against the [Salam] 
Fayyad initiative to unilaterally declare a Palestinian state.  The 
option has been and remains one of the following: two states for two 
peoples along the 1967 borders; or one state, in which two peoples 
continue to make each other miserable.  Israel is galloping toward 
this latter disaster with eyes wide shut. 
 
--------- 
¶3.  Iran: 
--------- 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
QAn Imprudent Missile Umbrella 
 
Avigdor Haselkorn, the author of QThe Continuing Storm: Iraq, 
Poisonous Weapons, and Deterrence,Q wrote in the independent, 
left-leaning HaQaretz (11/9): QBy conducting the [current Juniper 
Cobra] defense drill, Israel and the United States are implicitly 
recognizing that a nuclear-armed Iran is a fait accompli.... 
[Furthermore,] the drill fosters an undue reliance on the defense 
commitment of a foreign power, not to mention the effectiveness of 
its antiballistic-missile technology.  In this regard, past lessons 
should not be forgotten.... The net result of [IsraelQs] forced 
restraint [during the 1991 Gulf War] was a severe blow to Israeli 
strategic deterrence.... While Israel views the exercise largely as 
a signal to Iran, Washington wants the drill to further tie down 
Israel's hands so it does not act unilaterally to preempt Tehran's 
nuclear gambit.... Finally, and most important, the size and scope 
of the exercise are undoubtedly linked to the overall concept 
pronounced this past July by the United States, which envisions 
extending an American Qdefensive umbrellaQ over the Middle East if 
Iran goes nuclear.  There should be little doubt in Jerusalem that 
in due course the Obama administration will use the umbrella 
argument to pressure Israel into disarming its reported 
Qbomb-in-the-basementQ posture and giving up its option of last 
resort.  Yet, paradoxically, the U.S. umbrella solution would allow 
Iran to go nuclear while an Israeli preemption is blocked under the 
pretext that the U.S. defense guarantee would deter the Iranians, or 
failing this, beat back any attack.  It is incomprehensible that 
Israel is taking part in this scheme. 
 
CUNNINGHAM