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UNCLAS TEL AVIV 002467 
 
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: 
-------------------------------- 
 
Mideast 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
HaQaretz quoted people whom PM Benjamin Netanyahu briefed after his 
meeting with President Obama on Monday as saying that the encounter 
centered mainly on the Palestinian issue.  According to HaQaretzQs 
sources, Netanyahu sought to convince Obama that he wants to conduct 
serious negotiations with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in an effort to 
reach a peace agreement.  He said that Abbas "must not be written 
off in advance."  "[Anwar] Sadat was also written off at first," 
Netanyahu reportedly told Obama. "Abbas is at the end of his career, 
and he will be thinking about what he will leave to his nation." 
Netanyahu reportedly said that Israeli politicians are urging him to 
conduct "a process for the sake of process," either merely for the 
sake of holding negotiations with the Palestinians, or in order to 
prevent a further outbreak of violence.  "I disagree with my 
colleagues on both sides," Netanyahu said.  "We need to try to reach 
an agreement."  Netanyahu purportedly asked Obama to convince Abbas 
to begin negotiations with him.  He expressed understanding for the 
political difficulties that Abbas found himself in several weeks ago 
over the Goldstone Report, when he succumbed to U.S. and Israeli 
pressure and agreed that the PA would not bring the matter before 
the U.N., only to reverse his position.  "Leaders need to do the 
right thing, and Abbas needs to be seen as such a leader," Netanyahu 
said.  "The absence of a political process would be deadly for the 
Palestinians and also for us," Netanyahu warned, "because that would 
strengthen Hamas, which in turn would be a victory for Iran."  He 
and the President also discussed concrete steps that would serve to 
advance the process. In his speech to the United Jewish Communities' 
General Assembly in Washington, Netanyahu said that Israel is ready 
to make great concessions for the sake of peace.  HaQaretz reported 
that Netanyahu told Obama that any final-status deal with the 
Palestinians will have to include a solution to the danger posed by 
the introduction of advanced weaponry into the territories.  "It 
can't be that Israel will be left with a piece of paper while arms 
smuggling goes on," he said.  "We must create security arrangements 
that will prevent the introduction of weapons across the border." 
He pointed to the advanced weapons now possessed by Hizbullah and 
Hamas, which are not made in Lebanon or the Gaza Strip, but are 
smuggled in from abroad, and gave as an example the arms seized 
recently from the freighter Francop.  "This is a critical problem, 
to which an answer must be given," Netanyahu warned.  "We suffered 
rockets twice, from Lebanon and from Gaza, and we do not want to 
suffer them a third time, in much larger doses."  According to 
HaQaretz, the PM was impressed with Obama's knowledge of the 
details.  According to Netanyahu, there is a major difference 
between his own image as someone who rejects peace, and his actual 
stance, and the same is true of Obama's attitude on Iran.  Netanyahu 
praised Obama to his Israeli interlocutors for his efforts to combat 
the Goldstone Report and the administration's actions against the 
Iranian threat.  Major media reported that senior U.S. officials are 
trying to assuage the tension created around the meeting. 
 
Over the past few days, Israeli Government spokespeople, in 
particular PM Netanyahu and his media adviser, Nir Hefetz, tried to 
dispel what they called negative accounts by the Israeli media of 
NetanyahuQs meeting with Obama.  Maariv and Israel Radio quoted DM 
Ehud Barak as saying at a Tel Aviv convention that the 
Obama-Netanyahu was good.  According to Barak, many barriers fell 
and a basis for an effective resumption of the negotiations was 
created during the meeting.  Barak said that Obama is committed to 
IsraelQs security and that he has a good understanding of the 
process.  Barak said that he refuses to give in to misgivings he 
said are reflected in the Israeli media.  Barak added that a timely 
start of negotiations with Syria is important and that Israel should 
not ignore recent indications of SyriaQs willingness for peace. 
Leading media quoted White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel as 
saying at the United Jewish CommunitiesQ General Assembly in 
Washington on Tuesday: QIt is only through dialogue [between the 
U.S. and Israel] that we can achieve the lasting peace that Israel 
seeks.Q  Yesterday leading meia quoted an American diplomat as 
saying that th feeling in Washington was that Netanyahu tried to 
manipulate the U.S. administration in recent week, and that the 
U.S. cannot accept that. 
 
The mdia reported that yesterday in Paris, Netanyahu told President 
Nicolas Sarkozy that Israel is prepared to hold immediate peace 
negotiations with Syria, as long as the talks are the talks are held 
without preconditions.  In a report based on an Al-Arabiya story 
which was later denied, Israel Radio reported that NetanyahuQs 
message to President Bashar Assad, which Sarkozy will convey to the 
Syrian leader during his visit to Paris tomorrow, includes IsraelQs 
agreement in principle to relinquish the Golan.  Media quoted Syrian 
President Bashar Assad as saying yesterday he would not set any 
preconditions for peace negotiations with Israel.  "Resistance is 
the essence of our policy in the past and in future. We have no 
conditions to achieve peace but rather rights and we will not 
abandon them," he said.  In a speech opening the 5th Conference of 
the Arab Parties, Assad stressed that Arab solidarity is a necessity 
for the independence of the Arab decision.  Israel Hayom quoted 
Netanyahu as saying that, should Assad provide Hizbullah with more 
missiles, Israel would respond. 
 
The media quoted Hizbullah Secretary-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah 
as saying in a video broadcast yesterday that during the next 
confrontation with Israel, Hizbullah will reach places beyond Haifa. 
 Nasrallah was responding to remarks made by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. 
Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi to the KnessetQs Foreign Affairs and Defense 
Committee on Tuesday that Hizbullah possesses missiles capable of 
reaching a range of 300 km or farther.  Major media quoted Nasrallah 
as saying that Obama is worse than Bush.  Yediot led with the 
disclosure of an internal Hizbullah document that the group has 
precise, QalarmingQ knowledge of how the IDF operates its drones in 
Lebanon, of how Israeli soldiers go on patrol, or even Qhow army 
dogs smell. 
 
The media continued to cover the controversy over whether the 
attorney generalQs functions should be split in two. 
 
HaQaretz and other media reported that this week President Shimon 
Peres told Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva that jurist 
Richard Goldstone is a petty man devoid of any sense of justice, a 
man who came on a unilateral mission to harm Israel, and that if an 
investigation were started, it should be of Goldstone himself.  The 
Jerusalem Post reported that the Military Police has launched a new 
criminal investigation into allegations that soldiers committed war 
crimes during Operation Cast Lead, amid efforts by the IDF to 
complete a report to counter the accusations leveled at it by the 
Goldstone Commission.  According to B'Tselem, Military Police 
investigators contacted the human rights organization and asked it 
to coordinate a meeting with several Palestinians at the Erez 
crossing to question them regarding the deaths of two Palestinian 
men who were killed in their car near Dir el-Balah on January 15. 
 
The media quoted French FM Bernard Kouchner as saying Tuesday on the 
French radio France Inter that Israelis appear to have lost their 
desire for peace.  He was quoted as saying: QBefore, there was a 
great peace movement.  It seems to me that this aspiration has 
disappeared. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that yesterday the U.S. Embassy told the 
daily that any commemoration in the Knesset of the anniversary of 
Rabbi Meir Kahane's assassination would be harmful to the peace 
process.  The American comments came after the Post obtained a 
series of e-mails in which an embassy official told Knesset Speaker 
Reuven Rivlin's office that the possibility of such a ceremony was 
"something that Senator [George] Mitchell and his team are following 
with concern."  Following a Post report describing Rivlin's denial 
that he had allowed far Right Knesset Member Michael Ben-Ari to 
commemorate Kahane in the Knesset plenum, the U.S. administration 
contacted Rivlin's office to keep abreast of further developments. 
In an exchange of e-mails between the Knesset Speaker's office and 
American officials, a Second Secretary cited stories in which he 
"read that Speaker Rivlin would decide whether such an event could 
take place in the Knesset."  The Embassy, he said, "would like to 
know if the Speaker has made a decision and, if so, what is the 
decision. If no decision has been made, we would like to know when 
he plans to decide." Additionally, the American diplomat added, 
"this is something that Senator Mitchell and his team are following 
with some concern."  Ben-Ari appealed Rivlin's decision against a 
memorial event to the House Committee, which is responsible for 
ruling on issues of Knesset procedure.  Leading media quoted Ben-Ari 
as saying: "I was elected to the Knesset by citizens of the 
independent State of Israel.  The flagrant involvement of Mitchell 
has crossed a red line and it testifies to the bowed head of the 
Knesset Speaker that is turning the Knesset into a dishrag."  "It is 
amazing to see how members of the U.S. administration are trying to 
become involved in the Knesset's daily order of business," he added. 
Earlier this week, Ben-Ari's office confirmed that the outspoken 
lawmaker's application for an American visa had been delayed, 
ostensibly due to an outstanding criminal file dating back to the 
period surrounding the 2005 disengagement.  Other media carried the 
story.  Although he decried KahaneQs anti-democratic politics, 
Israel RadioQs legal commentator Moshe Negbi criticized the American 
action in the matter. 
 
HaQaretz reported that over the past few days the Israeli Foreign 
Ministry has accused Sweden of trying to carry out a speedy 
diplomatic action in order to change the EU stance on the status of 
Jerusalem, officially defining the city as the capital of Palestine 
and Israel. 
 
Media reported that on Tuesday Israel opened the Jalami border 
crossing to boost the Palestinian economy. 
 
Yesterday HaQaretz reported that Kadima Knesset Member Shaul Mofaz 
was slated to meet with the ambassadors of Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, 
and Russia in the next few days, signaling a rise in international 
interest in the former defense ministerQs proposal for establishing 
a Palestinian state.  Mofaz will head to the U.S. on Tuesday to 
present his plan to the U.S. administration. 
 
Yesterday major media reported that according to a newly introduced 
bill, it will not be possible to sign any diplomatic agreement with 
any state or foreign entity without arranging for the interests and 
rights of the Jewish refugees from Arab countries.  Maariv says that 
the law would be an obstacle to a peace treaty with the Arab world. 
 
Leading media reported that seven bereaved mothers of Israeli 
soldiers -- including Rona Ramon, Miki Goldwasser, and Esther 
Wachsman Q have written to Netanyahu, asking him to show the 
determination and the courage to stop gambling over Gilad ShalitQs 
life. 
 
HaQaretz cited the belief of Israeli Foreign Ministry officials that 
Turkey, Iran, and Syria are discussing the division of IraqQs 
resources among them after the exit of the American troops. 
 
HaQaretz reported that last week Shin Bet warned two residents of 
the West Bank settlement bloc of Dolev-Talmonim that it holds them 
responsible for the unrest that has hit the area in recent weeks. 
Extremist settlers have hurled stones at Palestinians' vehicles and 
vandalized property to retaliate for the removal of illegal 
settlement outposts, a tactic they call "the price tag." 
 
Speaking on Channel 10-TV last night, far-Left peace activist Uri 
Avnery stated his conviction that Yasser Arafat was assassinated. 
 
Leading media reported that yesterday Israel Aerospace Industries 
signed a $350 million contract to supply drones to the Brazilian 
police -- the largest such deal between Israel and Brazil. 
 
HaQaretz (English Ed.) quoted local accountants and activists 
working on behalf of American citizens in Israel as saying yesterday 
that a controversial clause in the U.S. health care overhaul, 
charging Americans living abroad a $750 annual tax for insurance 
they might never use, is unlikely to pass.  On Tuesday, the 
Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel called on people to 
protest the bill, which is being discussed in the Senate as part of 
U.S. President Barack Obama's health care reform.  The copy of the 
bill passed by the House of Representatives excludes citizens living 
overseas.  However, some people fear the merged bill may wind up 
including the tax. 
 
-------- 
Mideast: 
-------- 
 
¶I.  QWith Mofaz as Beilin 
 
The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (11/11): 
Q[Former Defense Minister Shaul] Mofaz's proposal is not perfect. 
Its feasibility is in doubt and it's hard to find a Palestinian 
counterpart who would, at the start of the negotiations, recognize 
Israeli sovereignty over West Bank communities such as Ariel and 
Ma'aleh Adumim, as the Mofaz plan provides.  The plan's details are 
less important, however, than the very existence of the initiative, 
which poses a challenge to Netanyahu and his government and 
stimulates public debate.  This is the opposition's classic role in 
a democratic system.  It's what Yossi Beilin did when he proposed 
the Geneva Initiative as a recipe for breaking the diplomatic 
stalemate when Ariel Sharon was prime minister.  The Geneva 
Initiative was one of the factors that led Sharon to announce the 
Gaza disengagement.  The Mofaz plan, along with the pressure from 
the United States, can play a similar role in the Netanyahu era and 
prod the prime minister to go beyond the peace process' paralysis 
and submit an initiative of his own as a solution to the Palestinian 
conflict. 
 
II.  QThe Vision of Shaul 
 
Settler leader Israel Harel wrote in HaQaretz (11/12): QOnly in 
Israel could a former chief of staff who failed both ethically and 
operationally in a long war on terror, and then became a hapless 
defense minister (who predicted that the disengagement would bring 
an end to the Qassam rockets, and then contended with such 
impressive success with the thousands of missiles of Qpeace and 
quietQ that were fired at Negev residents), be taken seriously by 
the public rather than being seen as a political adventurer.  Only 
in Israel could a politician who cheated his party and his voters 
(saying that Likud was his home and then defecting to Kadima) almost 
win the leadership of another major party and then vie for the prime 
minister's crown (Qas prime minister, I will have the right to 
 
implement the planQ).... There is almost no important detail in 
Mofaz's innovative plan that has not been discussed in the past with 
the Palestinians and rejected out of hand.  Genuine research would 
have revealed that.  Such research would also have discovered that 
in response to every one of the QplansQ conceived in Israel with the 
goal of avoiding Qdiplomatic stalemateQ (plans whose guiding 
principle always involved concessions on Israel's part), the 
Palestinians only hardened their stance.  Instead of seeing these 
plans as a demonstration of Israel's sincere desire for peace, they 
viewed them, and with justification, as a product of weakness.  More 
than once, the Palestinians have reacted to these plans with 
outbursts of lethal terror.  And why should they respond to them in 
any other way, when they know that rejecting these plans, and 
certainly if coupled with violence, will lay the groundwork for the 
next concession-filled plan, including the absurd idea (which Mofaz 
includes in his plan) of giving the Palestinians territory within 
the Green Line? 
 
III.  QThe Love Affair Is Over 
 
Middle East affairs commentator Dr. Guy Bechor, a lecturer at the 
Interdisciplinary Center, wrote in the mass-circulation, pluralist 
Yediot Aharonot (11/12): QAccording to newspaper reports, the U.S. 
has basically given up on the inflexible settlement freeze condition 
that it posed at first.... Even worse, the Palestinians also fear 
that the U.S. has given up its original intention of establishing a 
Palestinian state on the entire area of 1967.... But what stunned 
the Palestinians even more was the near hostility that the U.S. 
administration has begun to display towards them.  Obama realized 
that the problem of the Middle East is the Arabs, and not the 
Israelis.  The latter are willing to accept bold arrangements, but 
the Arabs are not willing to recognize Israel at any price.  He was 
stunned when the QmoderateQ Arab regimes, which he approached 
personally to ask for normalization steps, such as Egypt, Saudi 
Arabia and Morocco, replied almost scornfully.  They were not 
willing for there to be any rapprochement with Israel, not with the 
settlements and not without the settlements.  Obama also began to 
demand clear things of the PA: not to display hostility toward 
Israel, not to take part in hostile votes toward Israel in the U.N., 
and more.  They, of course, turned down his requests.  As a result, 
instead of a honeymoon and a happy marriage, relations almost 
reached the point of Palestinian-American divorce, and all this, 
within one year.  This also puts into doubt the question whether the 
Americans will lend a hand to unilateral Palestinian initiatives, 
such as those reported in the media.  Abu Mazen also walked into the 
trap that the Israeli government set, and to which he has no 
solution: why does he not take the Palestinian state that it is 
offering him?  After all, Netanyahu is willing for there to be such 
a state, he says, subject to a number of reasonable conditions, such 
as its demilitarization, or the non-return of refugees and settling 
them in Arab states.  If he so yearns for a state, why does he turn 
down the offer?  The Americans are also beginning to ask this 
question, and this is very awkward for the Palestinians. 
Disappointed from his expectations of the Americans, disappointed 
with the lack of a response to the Israeli Government, and fearing a 
Hamas victory in the upcoming elections in January for the 
presidency, there was nothing for Abu Mazen to do but to resign. 
The great Palestinian euphoria has turned into deep 
disillusionment. 
 
IV.  QThe Outcome of the Meeting: Israel Will Help Abu Mazen 
 
Zalman Shoval, a senior Likud member and former ambassador to the 
U.S., wrote in the independent Israel Hayom (11/12): QThe 
Palestinians enthusiastically adopted the initial inflexible 
American approach and embraced extreme and non-compromising 
positions.  But when it became evident that Washington and Jerusalem 
had made efforts, apparently successful, to find a pragmatic 
solution to the matter of the settlements, the Palestinian remained 
-- excuse the expression -- with their pants down.  This Palestinian 
knot, which grew worse as a result of domestic political matters, 
was a major subject discussed by Obama and Netanyahu, particularly 
in the one-on-one meeting (although the main subject was meant to be 
Iran).  The U.S. administration believes that Abu Mazen is still the 
only Palestinian leader with whom peace can be reached and therefore 
Israel must actively and generously take part in the efforts to 
bring him down from his limb, including the resignation limb. 
Although Israel presumably has an approach that is a bit more 
open-eyed as to Abu Mazen's real abilities and aspirations, it was 
agreed that Israel would do its best to help the administration in 
this regard.  That said, it appears that at least at this stage, 
Washington is wary about renewing the efforts to jumpstart, within a 
short time, an overall and accelerated diplomatic process.  From now 
on, the main emphasis will be placed on small and limited steps 
(known as baby steps) at relatively low levels.  Steps that will 
lead, later on, to comprehensive negotiations at high levels.  The 
chances of this new approach are not guaranteed, if only because of 
what is going on in the Palestinian street in general, and in the 
political alleyways, specifically.  The subjects in which the 
cooperation between the U.S. and Israel will cooperate on the 
Palestinian matter were reviewed in the conversation.  Not all the 
pitfalls were smoothed over and not all the obstacles were removed 
in the visit, but the atmosphere of imaginary crisis was replaced 
with a new atmosphere of cooperation.  Not only can America not walk 
away from the conflict in the Middle East, as Tom Friedman suggested 
half jokingly, but the conflict cannot walk away from America.  With 
this the situation, the meeting helped strengthen the connection and 
the understanding between Israel and its ally. 
 
¶V.  QThe Failure 
 
Shlomo Avineri, Hebrew University Professor of Political Science and 
former director-general of the Foreign Ministry, wrote in the 
independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz (11/11): QObama started his 
presidency with an announcement that he would act vigorously to 
achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement; he appointed George 
Mitchell as his special envoy.  But what happened to Mitchell is 
what happened to other envoys to the region: faced with a lack of 
political will among the quarrelling parties, the envoys have been 
left helpless.  When Mitchell got entangled in the freezing of 
construction in the settlements, he wasted much of America's 
political capital.  After all, how can someone who cannot handle 
Qnatural growthQ in the settlements achieve an overall solution to 
the conflict?  Hillary Clinton's visit did not show any results 
either, and the threatened resignation by Palestinian President 
Mahmoud Abbas, even if he does not go through with it, certainly 
does not represent any great American success.  Even if the 
negotiations resume, despite everything, they will be portrayed as a 
huge achievement.  But let's remember that negotiations went on for 
years when Ehud Olmert was prime minister and no agreement ever came 
out of them.  It's not true that the road to hell is paved with good 
intentions.  Sometimes good intentions don't lead anywhere at all. 
 
CUNNINGHAM