VZCZCXYZ0007
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHTV #2720/01 3501138
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 161138Z DEC 09
FM AMEMBASSY TEL AVIV
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4617
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 0040
RUEHAS/AMEMBASSY ALGIERS PRIORITY 2952
RUEHAM/AMEMBASSY AMMAN PRIORITY 6998
RUEHAK/AMEMBASSY ANKARA PRIORITY 7208
RUEHLB/AMEMBASSY BEIRUT PRIORITY 6449
RUEHEG/AMEMBASSY CAIRO PRIORITY 5106
RUEHDM/AMEMBASSY DAMASCUS PRIORITY 7308
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 4066
RUEHFR/AMEMBASSY PARIS PRIORITY 2283
RUEHRB/AMEMBASSY RABAT PRIORITY 0944
RUEHRO/AMEMBASSY ROME PRIORITY 8463
RUEHRH/AMEMBASSY RIYADH PRIORITY 3475
RUEHTU/AMEMBASSY TUNIS PRIORITY 7448
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 9529
RUEHJI/AMCONSUL JEDDAH PRIORITY 2269
RUEHJM/AMCONSUL JERUSALEM PRIORITY 3354
RHMFISS/CDR USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY
RHMFISS/COMSOCEUR VAIHINGEN GE PRIORITY
RHMFIUU/COMSIXTHFLT  PRIORITY

UNCLAS TEL AVIV 002720 
 
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: 
------------------------- 
 
After several days of relative calm in the confrontations between 
settlers and Civil Administration inspectors, violence reignited 
yesterday when Civil Administration inspectors went to Tzofim to 
enforce the construction ban in West Bank settlements. Tzofim, which 
Yediot notes is not considered to be an Qideological settlement, 
has a mixed secular-religious population and abuts the Green Line to 
the north of Qalqilya. Civil Administration inspectors, who had come 
to confiscate heavy machinery that was engaged in infrastructure 
work on the settlement, were turned away by settlers. The police and 
Border Police reinforcements were met by a few dozen teenagers and 
adults, who blocked all access routes to the settlement.  At least 
one of the teenagers on the scene claimed that the violence was 
started by the police.  The violence, which police accuse the 
settlers of starting, left one Border Policewoman hospitalized in 
moderate condition.  Additionally, at least another two Border 
Policemen and eleven settlers were also injured.  In a related 
story, Maariv reported that Interior Minister Eli Yishai has 
instructed his office to expedite the lengthy planning work that 
precedes construction in West Bank settlements during the ten-month 
moratorium. The interior ministerQs goal is to create a situation in 
which construction can be renewed at an intensified pace once the 
construction freeze order expires. 
 
In a follow-up to the arrest warrant issued to Tzipi Livni in the 
U.K. this week, Maariv reports this morning that both Uzi Arad and 
Naor Gilon from the Foreign Ministry held conversations yesterday 
with the British ambassador to Israel, in which they underscored 
IsraelQs position that the British government needed to take 
legislative action to prevent the recurrence of such instances. 
Gilon reportedly indicated that top Israeli officials would boycott 
Britain until this matter was resolved. In England, British Foreign 
Secretary David Miliband reportedly told the Israeli ambassador to 
the U.K. that he, too, believed the situation to be unacceptable and 
that Prime Minister Gordon Brown held consultations with top cabinet 
members yesterday on the subject. 
 
In a lengthy interview from Ramallah, HaQaretz this morning is 
quoting Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as saying that it is 
possible to reach an agreement with Israel within six months, but 
only if Israel enforces a strict freeze of settlement construction 
for this period.  Abbas is also quoted by Israel Hayom today as 
having said yesterday in Ramallah that the Palestinians would not 
QacceptQ the Israeli initiative as adequate and, at the same 
opportunity, added a new condition that would have to be met before 
the PA would renew talks with Israel: QTalks with Israel will be 
renewed if the international community recognizes the 1967 borders 
as the borders of the future Palestinian state,Q said Abbas. 
 
This morning the electronic media reported IranQs claim that it 
successfully tested a long-range improved version of the Sajil-2 
missile.  In another development, Yediot quoted foreign media 
outlets as saying that Israel is operating unmanned naval vessels in 
the Persian Gulf to spy on Iran. 
 
 
Yediot reported that Israel and Turkey are secretly coordinating a 
visit to Turkey by PM Ehud Barak. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
-------- 
Mideast: 
-------- 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
 
¶I.  QThe Realist Manifesto 
 
Diplomatic correspondent Aluf Benn wrote in the independent, 
left-leaning HaQaretz (12/16): QBarack Obama's speech upon receiving 
the Nobel Peace Prize should be called the Qrealist manifesto.Q  The 
U.S. President summed up his political worldview in seven words: QI 
face the world as it is.Q  Not a messiah, not a prophet and not a 
dreamer.  Rather, a leader who recognizes the limits of human nature 
and sees statecraft as a power game.... First, he does not see 
Israel as an important ally, as did Bush, who viewed it as a partner 
in the global war on terror.  Obama, too, believes in good and evil, 
but his world is painted in many shades of gray, not black and 
white.  Second, Obama perceives the Israeli-Arab conflict as a 
struggle for racial and tribal identity, and above all, religious 
identity.  To him, it's a Qconflict between Arabs and JewsQ that is 
only worsening, rather than a political and strategic conflict. 
Third, he does not rule out a unilateral defensive war, but he will 
strictly observe the rules of engagement and the Geneva 
Conventions.... Fourth, and most important, Obama tends toward a 
gradual peace process whose results would be felt immediately, 
rather than postponing everything until all problems are solved.... 
The aspiration toward a final-status agreement does not exist in a 
laboratory, but in a reality in which facts are being created and 
the occupation is deepening.  Obama understands this and prefers 
partial steps to waiting for the Big Bang, which may not arrive.  So 
he insisted on a construction freeze in the settlements, even a 
partial one, and he will support economic peace and another 
withdrawal from the West Bank.  He will not put everything on hold 
until the conflict is over.  And if he remains true to his realist 
manifesto, he will certainly also support dialogue with Hamas. 
 
II.  QThe Invoice Will Be Presented to All Israelis 
 
Prominent liberal-centrist playwright Yehoshua Sobol wrote in the 
independent Israel Hayom (12/16): QThese days, when the Government 
of Israel is looking for national priority areas in which to invest 
our money, it looks as if the first and foremost national priority 
must be given to quickly and fundamentally handling the firebrands 
of the mosque of Yasuf -- before hundreds of innocent people pay 
with their lives the Qprice-tagQ set by the perpetrators of the next 
bloodbath. 
 
III.  QWeQre All Tzipi Livni 
 
The conservative, independent Jerusalem Post editorialized (12/16) : 
QBritish Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David 
Miliband have been sitting on their hands rather than push through 
legislation that would make it impractical for anti-Zionist 
campaigners to conduct QlawfareQ against visiting Israeli 
officials.... Israel's enemies ... come away with a propaganda 
victory because reports that a high-ranking Israeli [former Foreign 
Minister Tzipi Livni] was accused of such heinous charges chip away 
at Israel's legitimacy.... Plainly, Britain so closely identifies 
with the Arab position on borders, settlements and Jerusalem that it 
no longer even feigns diplomatic evenhandedness.... Brown twice 
promised to propose legislation that would hamper lawfare by 
requiring Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales to 
approve the issuance of any war crimes warrant.  Some suggest Brown 
and Miliband have purposefully not fulfilled this promise to 
chastise Israel.  Others say they simply lack the political capital 
to face down their own rabidly pro-Palestinian backbenchers and -- 
just months before national elections -- do not want to be dependent 
on the Tories to pass a law.  Whatever the explanation, this has not 
been Britain's finest hour. 
 
IV.  QWe Must Not Return to the Days of QHypocritical Albion 
 
Veteran journalist and television anchor Dan Margalit wrote in the 
independent Israel Hayom (12/16) : QEnglish law, which allows for 
the arrest of anyone who played an active role in an armed conflict 
between countries and groups that have no connection to Britain, is 
the evolution of an international treaty that urges its signatories 
to do so [i.e. to make such arrests].   Most signatories have not 
heeded that entreaty.  England did accede and, by so doing, either 
deliberately or accidentally became a serial harasser of IsraelQs 
leadership.... The Israeli leadership is behooved to be careful 
because, the protests aired by Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor 
Lieberman notwithstanding, it is not at all clear whether they will 
succeed in persuading the British Government to intervene against 
the arrests and, even if it should deign to do so, it is doubtful 
whether it has the authority to impose its will on the independent 
British courts system.  There is only one way to do so, and that is 
to have the British Parliament establish that those laws are 
invalid.  But given the current atmosphere in London, there is no 
chance that the government will take that necessary step.... It is 
not one law or another that, unto itself, makes the difference; 
rather, it is when it becomes part of a woven fabric along with 
other steps by organizations with ulterior motives, which the 
[British] Government has not taken steps to hinder their access to 
the courts, academia and the media.  Jewish organizations and 
Israeli citizens find their way into this mesh and serve as an 
QalibiQ for the Muslims of England to show that the motive for their 
action is not anti-Semitic.  They will always have a Jew and an 
Israeli from the far Left to count on.  As the Bible notes, Qyour 
destroyers and devastators will come from your own midst.Q  Evidence 
can be found in the generous financial aid that the British 
Government grants to organizations whose purpose is to impede the 
governments of Israel, be it the current government, the one before 
or even the one that served before that. 
 
CUNNINGHAM