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DE RUEHTV #0210/01 0291138
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P 291138Z JAN 10
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UNCLAS TEL AVIV 000210 
 
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 
 
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SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: 
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Mideast 
 
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Key stories in the media: 
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Major media quoted President Obama as saying yesterday at a town 
hall meeting in Tampa, FL, "I think Prime Minister Netanyahu is 
actually making some effort to try to move a little bit further than 
his coalition wants him to go."; the President also acknowledged 
that PA President Mahmoud Abbas finds it hard to advance on the 
track because of his problems with Hamas. 
 
Leading media reported that today Israel will convey to U.N. 
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon its response to the Goldstone Report. 
The Jerusalem Post reported that the IDF rebuttal to the report, 
which will be published later, will spell out to Ban how the IDF 
investigated allegations of misconduct during Operation Cast Lead 
and will point out that IsraelQs system of military justice compares 
with that in other democratic countries, that it is independent, and 
that the IDFQs investigations are serious.  Israel Hayom reported 
that the Israeli report denies the existence of the 36 events 
mentioned in the Goldstone Report as illegal actions by IDF 
soldiers.  Yediot reported that, following a demand by the U.N., PM 
Netanyahu has decided (against the views of DM Ehud Barak and IDF 
Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi) to set up a commission of 
inquiry into the Goldstone Report that would interrogate IDF 
officers -- but not senior ones.  Outgoing Attorney-General Menachem 
Mazuz was quoted as saying in an interview with HaQaretz that it 
would be a serious mistake not to set up such a commission of 
inquiry, as the Goldstone Report is a serious threat to Israel that 
will Qcontinue to haunt us and take away our legitimacy. 
 
Fahmi Shabaneh, who was appointed by President Abbas four years ago 
to root out corruption in the PA, was quoted as saying yesterday in 
an interview with The Jerusalem Post that Abbas has surrounded 
himself with many of the corrupt officials who used to work for his 
predecessor, Yasser Arafat, and that is why Hamas will one day take 
control of the West Bank. 
 
Israel Radio and other media reported that Hamas accuses Israel of 
assassinating its senior activist Mahmoud al-Mabhouh during his stay 
in Dubai on January 20.  The media noted that Mabhouh was behind the 
abduction and murder of soldiers Avi Sasportas and Ilan Sa'adon in 
the first Intifada. 
 
HaQaretz reported that PM Netanyahu agrees to the release of 
hundreds of Fatah prisoners as part of efforts backed by the U.S. 
and Europe to jump-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. 
 
Leading media reported that the German mediator in the Gilad Shalit 
affair will resign because of IsraelQs position.  Yediot cited the 
Egyptian newspaper Al-Masriyun as saying that the negotiations over 
the issue will resume next week with French mediation. 
 
Israel Radio quoted Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat as saying 
that Ariel, MaQaleh Adumim, and the East Jerusalem neighborhood of 
Har Homa will not remain in Israeli hands.  Makor Rishon-Hatzofe 
quoted Erekat as saying that the PA intends to ask the U.N. Security 
Council soon to recognize the borders of the future Palestinians 
along the June 4, 1967 lines.  Leading media quoted President Abbas 
as saying in Moscow yesterday that the Palestinians will not accept 
Abu Dis, a town between Jerusalem and MaQaleh Adumim administered by 
the PA, as the capital of their future state, and will insist on 
receiving control over East Jerusalem. 
 
HaQaretz reported that JordanQs King Abdullah II and President 
Shimon Peres met in Davos yesterday to discuss the stalled Middle 
East negotiations.  Jordanian PM Samir al-Rifai was quoted as saying 
in an interview with Maariv that peace with Israel is getting 
colder.  Jaafar Hassan, JordanQs Minister of Planning and 
International Cooperation, told Israel Radio in Davos that 
cooperation projects with Israel have been halted following the 
standstill in the peace process.  However, the involvement of 
Israel, the PA, and Jordan in the Dead Sea-Red Red Sea canal 
continues. 
 
Makor Rishon-Hatzofe quoted U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Michele Sison 
as saying that the U.S. has suspended its cooperation with Lebanon 
because of HizbullahQs involvement in the Lebanese Government. 
 
Leading media reported that yesterday State Prosecutor Moshe Lador 
instructed Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to shut down QBeit Yonatan,Q a 
controversial East Jerusalem building occupied by Jews .  The 
Jerusalem Post reported that, during a meeting last month at the 
Butner Federal Correction Complex in North Carolina, convicted spy 
Jonathan Pollard asked Rabbi YaQcov Shapiro, head of the Merkaz 
Harav Yeshiva, to do everything in his power to strengthen the 
Jewish hold on the building (which is named after Pollard).   In 
another development, Makor Rishon-Hatzofe reported that a 
cornerstone laying ceremony will take place on Sunday for a new 
neighborhood in the settlement of Beit Hagai in the Hebron hills 
area. Among those invited is one of the members of the security 
cabinet who voted in favor of the settlement construction 
Qmoratorium,Q Minister Benny Begin. 
 
Maariv (Ben Caspit) details the ways in which the New Israel Fund 
(NIF), one of the most prominent foundations in Israel, funds 
organizations that stand behind the most serious allegations against 
Israel in the Goldstone Report.  The newspaper notes that the Ford 
Foundation has granted NIF $20 million over the past five years. 
 
Yediot reported that yesterday the Jerusalem MagistrateQs Court 
ruled that demonstrations held every Friday against the Jewish 
presence in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah are 
legal and do not need a police permit, contrary to the policeQs 
belief.  The Jerusalem Post reported that rightists will hold a 
counter-demonstration in the neighborhood today. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that Israel will send a new spy 
satellite into space in the coming months. 
 
Yediot reported that while Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi is expected 
to receive a warm welcome in Israel on Monday, Italy is the biggest 
European trader with Iran. 
 
The Jerusalem Post cited a report released by a workerQs rights NGO 
on Wednesday that the GOI has siphoned over a billion shekels 
(around $250 million) in money taken from Palestinian laborers for 
national insurance between 970-1994. 
 
-------- 
Mideast: 
-------- 
 
Blok Quotes: 
------------- 
 
¶I.  QCold Shoulder 
Diplomatic correspondent Aluf Benn wrote in the inependent, 
left-leaning HaQaretz (1/29): QThere is one little problem [with the 
expected resumption of the peace talks]: the world isn't buying 
Israel's explanations and it isn't prepared to condemn Palestinian 
obduracy.  Obama has split the blame for the stagnation between the 
two sides and has also taken some of it upon himself (QWe raised 
expectationsQ).  American envoy George Mitchell's appeal to the 
members of the Quartet that they urge Abbas to return to talks has 
gone unanswered.  This week he completed another frustrating visit 
to the region, with zero results.  Obama's approach -- to QparkQ the 
diplomatic process for lack of achievements and to concentrate on 
domestic issues -- has not surprised Netanyahu.  Three months ago, a 
senior Israeli official said the Obama administration would probably 
put off the Israeli-Palestinian problem to his second term, 
explaining: QNow they're weak, they have unemployment and the 
economic crisis, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq, and they aren't 
emerging from that.  They don't have the strength to complete an 
agreement.  In the meantime, the maintenance will continue.Q  U.S. 
officials are hoping talks will be renewed within six months.  The 
main thing is that there be some negotiations.  They have no 
expectations of more than that. 
 
II.  QDecoding NetanyahuQs (Rough) Parameters 
 
Diplomatic correspondent Herb Keinon wrote in the conservative, 
independent Jerusalem Post (1/29): QIn his 10 months in office, 
Netanyahu has broken with his past in expressing a desire to see a 
Palestinian state -- albeit with a number of restrictions -- in 
Judea and Samaria [i.e. the West Bank], has declared an 
unprecedented moratorium on housing starts in West Bank settlements, 
and has stated at nearly every opportunity that he is just dying to 
start immediate negotiations with the Palestinians to talk about 
everything, including Jerusalem.  But still, when Bibi-skeptic 
Europeans come to a conversation about the diplomatic process, the 
first question is inevitably whether Netanyahu is sincere.  The 
question is not whether PA President Mahmoud Abbas Q who, by his own 
admission in a Washington Post interview last year, turned down a 
generous offer from then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and who is 
adamantly refusing to restart negotiations until Netanyahu refuses 
to accede to his demand for a total settlement construction halt -- 
wants peace, but rather whether Netanyahu does.  Absent any device 
that can read NetanyahuQs mind, all that we have to go by are his 
recent words and actions and his recent words and actions indicate a 
man who seems serious about the diplomatic process.  Yet the 
skepticism born of a deep distrust that many in the world harbor 
toward [Netanyahu] - distrust left over from his first term - 
remains. 
 
III.  QEgypt, Jordan Hold Firm to Moderate Credentials 
 
Military correspondent Amos Harel and Palestinian affairs 
correspondent Avi Issacharoff wrote in HaQaretz (1/29): QWhile Prime 
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is giving the international community 
QweeksQ to halt Iran's nuclear program and the war of words is 
intensifying on all fronts, Israel's neighbors are asking themselves 
on which side of the conflict they would like to find themselves and 
behaving accordingly.  All Arab states pay lip service to the 
hardship of the Palestinians, but while Syria is embracing Iran and 
Hizbullah is more obedient than ever to instructions emanating from 
Tehran, Egypt and Jordan are coordinating security matters with 
Israel in an impressive way and in the case of Cairo they are even 
adopting harsh measures against the extremists in the Palestinian 
camp.... Senior sources in the [Israeli] defense establishment say 
that the Egyptians are even willing to agree, albeit belatedly, with 
the Israeli-American conclusion that nothing good will result from 
Cairo's effort to mediate between Hamas and the Palestinian 
Authority. 
 
IV.  QBearing Symbolic Fruit 
 
Columnist and former Meretz Party Chairman Yossi Sarid wrote in 
Ha'aretz (1/29): QGiven the weight of the issue, even scholars from 
the Shalem Center, a Jerusalem-based right-wing think tank, were 
invited to brainstorm at the Prime Minister's Bureau.  On the agenda 
-- a tree.  What species will the Prime Minister plant when he 
treads through the land of the Jewish settlers?  Only someone 
entirely unfamiliar with the culture of government would allow him 
to lay a hand on just any tree, particularly one which doesn't bear 
symbolic fruit.  After all, the entire world will be watching, 
trying to figure out what the planter is trying to signal with his 
planting.... What is the Prime Minister doing planting an olive tree 
in a place where they are uprooting olive trees, cutting them down, 
and burning them as a Qprice tag? 
 
¶V.  QUnited We Stand 
 
Far-left columnist Meron Benvenisti, who was Deputy Mayor of 
Jerusalem from 1971 to 1978, wrote in Ha'aretz (1/22; English 
Edition: 1/29): QIt is useful to insert [in this region] the 
principle of Qparity of esteem,Q which is a core concept in the 
Northern Ireland peace agreement (the Good Friday Agreement of 
 
1998).  It reflects the principle of respect for the identity and 
the ethos of both communities (Unionists and Republicans in Northern 
Ireland) and underlies the effort to achieve coexistence in a common 
physical space, despite the cultural differences.... The coexistence 
of the two national communities is a destiny that cannot be avoided. 
 All attempts (theoretical and empirical) to separate them have 
failed.  This coexistence must be based upon communal equality and 
ethical principles, human dignity, and freedom; otherwise it will 
not endure and will perpetuate violence.  It is clear that without 
parity of esteem, mutual respect for the identity and equality of 
the two communities, there will be no reconciliation and neither of 
the two alternatives -- partition and power sharing -- can be 
implemented.  In any case, productive discussion of this topic will 
be possible only when the people of this region have taken 
psychological ownership of the binational condition that has been 
thrust upon them and have begun to strive together to pave a road to 
reconciliation. 
 
VI.  QA Binational State?  Here? 
 
Historian and liberal columnist Alexander Yakobson wrote in Ha'aretz 
(1/29): QSince the division of the land into two viable states is no 
longer possible, there is no choice -- for anyone who believes in 
equality -- but to support a democratic binational state from the 
Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River, claims Meron Benvenisti 
(HaQaretz, January 22).  In my opinion, exactly the opposite is 
true.... The claim that the settlements have made the occupation 
irreversible and that there is no escaping a binational state is 
based entirely on the assumption that a Jewish minority cannot exist 
in a Palestinian Arab state.  After all, the Palestinians have no 
demographic problem -- they are assured a large Arab majority in 
their state, even if the settlers, or at least some of them, remain 
under its sovereignty.  Why doesn't Benvenisti suggest such a 
solution?  Apparently he does not have much confidence in the 
chances of honorable coexistence between an Arab majority and a 
Jewish minority in one state, although in the name of this ideal he 
suggests abolishing the State of Israel.  And, indeed, there is good 
reason for skepticism on this issue, in view of the sad regional 
experience.  But if there is any chance for such coexistence, it is 
conditional on a Jewish state existing alongside the site where this 
experiment would take place.  And this Jewish state must be willing 
to absorb any Jew whose life on the outside becomes impossible (as 
happened to Jews all over the Arab world).  The solution is 
therefore a division into two states, based on the principle that a 
Jewish minority can exist in the Palestinian state -- a principle 
that will do away with the landmine of the irreversibility of the 
occupation, which the settlement enterprise wanted to plant before 
both peoples. 
 
CUNNINGHAM