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E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: OPRC KMDR IS
 
SUBJECT: ISRAEL MEDIA REACTION 
 
-------------------------------- 
SUBJECTS COVERED IN THIS REPORT: 
-------------------------------- 
 
¶1.  Mideast 
 
¶2.  U.S.-Israel Relations 
 
------------------------- 
Key stories in the media: 
------------------------- 
 
Major media quoted PM Benjamin Netanyahu as saying yesterday at a 
joint press conference with visiting Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi 
that the resumption of talks over a prisoner swap involving Gilad 
Shalit depends on Hamas.  Netanyahu was responding to a statement by 
senior Hamas leader in Gaza Mahmoud Zahar that the deal is Qfrozen, 
for which he blamed Israel.  HaQaretz also reported that another 
senior Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the 
Saudi daily Okaz that Hamas decided to suspend the talks to protest 
Mahmoud al-Mabhouh's murder.  "Israel is fully responsible for the 
killing of al-Mabhouh," the daily quoted him as saying.  "Therefore 
Hamas decided to halt the indirect talks."  But that same official 
also told the daily that the talks had been on the brink of 
implosion in any case, for which he blamed Israel's government. 
Israel Radio reported that last night IAF planes raided smuggling 
tunnels in Gaza in retaliation for military actions by Palestinians. 
 The media also reported that yesterday Hamas captured an apparently 
mentally unstable Israeli Bedouin who had crossed the border with 
Gaza.  He was released this morning following the intervention of an 
Arab Knesset Member. 
 
Leading media quoted PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as saying 
yesterday in a conciliatory speech that Israel must show the 
Palestinians that it is beginning to roll back the occupation, and 
that the way to do that is primarily by stopping both settlement 
construction and IDF incursions into Palestinian areas.  Fayyad, who 
was addressing the Herzliya Conference in a rare appearance, 
affirmed that the PA is committed to IsraelQs security.  Maariv 
bannered FayyadQs reiteration that the Palestinians will establish a 
state within two years.  In his speech to the conference, DM Ehud 
Barak praised Fayyad for his work in developing Palestinian 
infrastructure and said that if a single state develops in this 
area, it will necessarily either be non-Jewish or non-democratic. 
QIf that block of millions of Palestinians vote, then there will be 
a binational state, and if they donQt vote, then there will be an 
apartheid state. Neither is the Zionist dream. 
 
HaQaretz quoted the IDF as saying it has no intention at this stage 
of permanently deploying the Iron Dome system to protect Sderot 
against rocket attacks.  The army expects to have a battery 
operational by May.  According to an IDF plan, the battery will 
initially be deployed at air force bases in the south and will be 
set up elsewhere only during significant escalations of conflict on 
the Gaza border. 
 
Leading media reported that 17 coalition and Kadima Knesset members 
are proposing a bill that would prevent the Supreme Court from 
rejecting new legislation.  Media also report on yesterdayQs 
inauguration of the Lobby for Greater Israel, composed of 39 Knesset 
members, including 12 from Likud. 
 
The media reported that this morning Silvio Berlusconi delivered a 
particularly warm address to the Knesset plenum.  Leading media 
quoted Berlusconi as saying that he will intervene with Syrian 
President Bashar Assad, Lebanese PM Rafiq Hariri, and Turkish Recep 
Tayyip Erdogan on IsraelQs behalf.  Berlusconi also said that the 
Italian State has greatly reduced its trade with Iran, that he 
called for an international parley against IranQs nuclear program, 
and that he personally received assurances from Russia that the 
latter country would support such a gathering.  The media quoted 
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as saying that Iran is 
prepared to send uranium aboard for enrichment purposes.  HaQaretz 
cited the belief of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate that 
Iran is capable of developing nuclear weapons but that it has not 
yet decided to do so.  The newspaper further quoted senior U.S. 
intelligence official Adm. (res.) Dennis Blair as saying that 
continued stalling on the Israeli-Palestinian track might decrease 
the PalestiniansQ support for a two-state solution. 
 
Makor Rishon-Hatzofe reported on 40 new educational buildings in 
settlements, despite NetanyahuQs moratorium. 
 
The Jerusalem Post cited HamasQ suspicion that Israel has 
infiltrated its Damascus leadership and the Syrian security 
services. 
 
HaQaretz quoted Col. Pnina Sharvit-Baruch, the head of the IDF 
Advocate General's international law department during Operation 
Cast Lead, as saying on Monday that it may be necessary to establish 
a commission of inquiry to respond to the Goldstone Report.  "It is 
possible that, in hindsight, it would be have been correct to 
cooperate with the Goldstone Commission," Sharvit-Baruch said in a 
private closed-door meeting in Tel Aviv.  "It's possible that had we 
cooperated with the commission, its report wouldn't have been as 
bad.  I don't think anyone thought the report would be so severe." 
Major media quoted the U.N. as saying yesterday that findings it 
collected contradict Israeli claims that the Gaza flour mill was not 
hit by an aerial bombardment.  Maariv reported that the Knesset 
plenum will vote today on whether to initiate a commission of 
investigation into the activities of the New Israel Fund, which the 
newspaper reported on Friday was behind the accusations against 
Israel contained in the Goldstone Report. 
 
Yediot reported that President Shimon Peres has met on a number of 
occasions with prominent Iranian exiles, both overseas and in 
Israel.  Those meetings were held at the initiative of the exiles, 
who contacted Peres and said that his international stature would 
help them raise a moral outcry against the current regime in Iran. 
These meetings, which PM Netanyahu was informed of and which he 
authorized, have taken place for an extended period of time 
already. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that erstwhile Republican presidential 
contender Mike Huckabee said during a visit to the country that 
President Obama erred in placing all the pressure on Israel. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that the KnessetQs Immigration and 
Absorption Committee met on Tuesday to put the finishing touches on 
a bill that would mandate offering compensation to Jews who were 
forced out of Arab lands following the establishment of the state. 
 
Maariv reported that Natan Sharansky, Executive Chairman of the 
Jewish Agency for Israel, is organizing a public gathering of 
 
pro-Israel Jewish-Russian oligarchs in St. Petersburg in three 
weeks.  The oligarchs had so far been unwilling to participate in 
such an event. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that up to $6 billion in natural gas has 
been found off IsraelQs coast. 
 
The Jerusalem Post reported that during a special session yesterday, 
the KnessetQs Internal Affairs and Environment Committee called on 
the state prosecution to drop all charges against a 17-year-old 
American-Israeli who was subjected to abuse and reported gang rape 
at a prison while being temporarily held over minor suspicions in 
November. 
 
The media reported that yesterday the film QAjami,Q produced by 
Israeli Arabs and Jews, was nominated for best foreign language 
movie at the Academy of Motion Pictures. 
 
------------ 
¶1.  Mideast: 
------------ 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
 
¶I.  QBarak Is the One Responsible 
 
The independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (2/3): QIn 
February 2000 [the Prime Minister Ehud] Barak explained to the 
officers the importance of a peace agreement with Syria.  A decade 
has passed.  It is now February 2010, and ... Barak once again 
presented his doctrine: Without a peace agreement with Syria Qwe are 
liable to enter a belligerent clash with it that could reach the 
point of an all-out, regional war.Q  To spare Barak his usual speech 
at the next General Staff conference in 10 years ... we need 
energetic diplomatic activity, one of whose main protagonists is the 
Defense Minister himself.  After all, he said on Monday that Qwe 
will immediately sit down [with Syria] after such a war and 
negotiate on the exact same issues which we have been discussing 
with them for the last 15 years.Q  The fact that this is not an 
original insight will not comfort the thousands who will be 
casualties in the unnecessary war that might break out, according to 
the Defense Minister.... Barak now plays a key role in the Netanyahu 
government, which has not yet moved ahead on talks with Syria. 
Barak can leave the government if the Prime Minister refuses to move 
toward peace with the Syrians and the Palestinians.  If he does not 
and makes do with remarks to officers, he is afraid to pay a price 
-- not the known price of withdrawal from the Golan Heights after an 
agreement, but the price of giving up his cabinet post.  Therefore 
Barak, even more than Netanyahu, may be responsible for the all-out 
and unnecessary war he warned of on Monday. 
 
II.  QWho Needs Proximity Talks? 
 
Former Meretz leader, former Justice Minister, and chief Israeli 
promoter of the Geneva Initiative, Yossi Beilin, wrote in the 
independent Israel Hayom (2/3): QI can understand that the U.S. 
administration, in its despair with the sides, the obstinacy and the 
limbs they have climbed, has decided to give them a ladder.  But it 
is difficult to think of anything more foolish than the idea of 
holding Qproximity talksQ between Israel and the Palestinians at the 
start of the second decade of the 21st century.... Proximity talks 
are held between two sides that do not recognize each other, and 
sometimes are fighting an all-out war against each other, and this 
is the only way to reach some kind of understanding between them. 
But proximity talks with Abu Mazen, 17 years after the mutual 
recognition between Israel and the PLO, when the PA and the PLO are 
headed by a person who adamantly opposed the Intifada and says 
explicitly that he will also oppose in the future any use of 
violence against Israel?.. I propose to the Americans, the 
Palestinians, ad Israel to reject this futile idea.  It is best to 
prefer direct talks.  Mahmoud Abbas must understnd that his longing 
for Olmert cannot turn into  legitimate demand from Israel to renew 
the negoiations from the point they were stopped.  Governmnts are 
committed to agreements, not to talks that were held, particularly 
since these are undocumented talks, in which informal ideas were 
raised.... Netanyahu must understand that proximity talks are a 
Qbroken telephoneQ game that could damage Israeli and Palestinian 
interests.  He should prefer direct talks, with the Americans in the 
room, and preferably without them.  Abu MazenQs demand for a full 
freeze for three months is a minimal demand that Netanyahu can meet. 
 The key is in his hands, and the decision is far from being 
dramatic.  It is enough to consent to a brief freeze in order to 
launch negotiations and remove from the agenda foolish and harmful 
ideas. 
 
III.  QThe Corridor Card 
 
Yossi Alpher, coeditor of the bitterlemons family of Internet 
publications and former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic 
Studies at Tel Aviv University, wrote in the conservative, 
independent Jerusalem Post (2/3): QIsrael pledged, in the Oslo 
accords, to treat the West Bank and Gaza as a Qsingle territorial 
unit.Q  But it never pledged specifically to grant the Palestinian 
state an ex-territorial land corridor to link Gaza and the West Bank 
across some 40 km. of Israeli territory.  Moreover, that the West 
Bank and Gaza no longer function as a single political unit is the 
fault of Palestinians, not Israelis.  Yet a corridor is absolutely 
vital to the integrity of a future Palestinian state.  Were Israel 
to offer to remove all the settlements, thereby obviating the need 
for swaps, but to reject the corridor principle, the PLO would be in 
a quandary because the resultant state would not hold together. 
Accordingly, in the course of peace negotiations over the years 
Israel has undervalued the corridor as a factor in land swaps.  It 
is QworthQ all the settlement blocs together. 
 
IV.  QFinally, Some Palestinian Responsibility 
 
Newly invested Labor Party Knesset Member Einat Wilf wrote in The 
Jerusalem Post (2/3): QThe Palestinian national movement has been 
characterized from its early days by a maddening culture of 
irresponsibility... If the phrase Qassumption of responsibilityQ was 
ever mentioned, it was always in the context of a spectacular and 
bloody terrorist attack.... But it just might be that recently, 
below the radar, a revolutionary change is underway.  For several 
years now, several players under the sound leadership of General 
Dayton, Tony Blair, and PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, were working 
together to build a Palestinian state from the ground up.... The 
greatest QthreatQ to IsraelQs policy appears to come from a dour 
bureaucrat [Fayyad] who is steadily leading a revolutionary cultural 
change of fostering responsibility among Palestinians.  This change 
is leaving Israelis, who have long grown accustomed to Palestinians 
who do nothing but blame the world for their circumstances all the 
while wasting numerous opportunities, wondering, confused and many 
-- hopeful. 
 
¶V.  QMuscle Flexing on the Last Stretch 
 
Veteran journalist and television anchor Dan Margalit wrote in the 
independent Israel Hayom (2/3): QIt is logical that a sharp duel of 
words between the sides [Israel and Hamas] was followed by complete 
silence -- not between becuise everything is frozen but because 
talks are going on.  The less statements the sides will make, the 
less it will be possible to tell them later that they made too many 
concessions.  The fact that a Ham,as spokesman suddenly spoke of 
freeze yesterday does not indicate an interruption of contacts, but 
muscle- and nerve-flexing on the last stretch of dialogue. 
 
VI.  QThe Assassination Trap 
 
Intelligence affairs correspondent Yossi Melman wrote in Ha'aretz 
(2/3): QThe Mossad is not Murder Inc., like the Mafia; its goal is 
not to take vengeance on its enemies.  QSpecial operations,Q like 
the assassination in Dubai -- if this indeed was a Mossad operation 
-- have always accounted for a relatively small proportion of its 
overall activity.  Nevertheless, these are the operations that give 
the organization its halo, its shining image.  This is ultimately 
liable to blind its own ranks, cause them to become intoxicated by 
their own success, and thus divert their attention from their 
primary mission.... The assassinations - according to foreign 
reports -- of the PLO's Abu Jihad (1988), Islamic Jihad leader Fathi 
Shikaki (1995) and Hizbullah's Imad Mughniyah (2008), though they 
dealt severe blows to their respective organizations, did not cause 
them to collapse.  And this is all the more true when the person 
assassinated is a mid-level operative like [Mamhoud al-] Mabhouh. 
Every terrorist, no matter how senior, is soon replaced, sometimes 
by someone even better or more professional.... Such operations, and 
especially assassinations, have no long-term impact on the balance 
of power. 
 
VII.  QDonQt Silence Them 
 
Columnist Merav David and diplomatic correspondent Maya Bengal wrote 
in the popular, pluralist Maariv (2/3): QThe report [published this 
week by the Im Tirtzu movement and Maariv daily] and the campaign 
that followed in its wake accuse the New Israel Fund and the 
organizations responsible for the publication of a blood libel 
against the IDF and of collaboration with the enemy.  The campaign 
absolutely delegitimizes organizations that are extraordinarily 
vital for Israeli democracy, even when they voice criticism that is 
painful to hear.  The more severe problem is that the discourse that 
that campaign represents has trickled down into the Israeli media, 
including this very newspaper in which this article has been 
published, as if this were a central and normative school of thought 
in Israeli society.... But even if we were to accept the validity of 
the argument that without the IsraelisQ contribution there wouldnQt 
have been a Goldstone report, does the information that was 
submitted to the U.N. Commission constitute a blood libel?.... In 
his farewell interview, [outgoing Attorney General Menachem] QMeni 
Mazuz said that Qit would be a grave mistake not to form an 
[Israeli] committee [of inquiry into Operation Cast Lead].  Had 
Mazuz accepted those organizationsQ demand to form a committee a 
year ago, the entire Goldstone saga might have been averted.  The 
New Israel Fund and the organizations that are cited by the report 
busy themselves every day protecting the rights of women, the 
unemployed, the handicapped, foreign workers, Arab citizens of 
Israel, and also Palestinians.  To sum up their contribution to 
democracy as a project to prevent violence in sports is hardly 
serious.  Israeli society cannot afford to remove them from public 
discourse. 
 
-------------------------- 
¶2.  U.S.-Israel Relations: 
-------------------------- 
 
Block Quotes: 
------------- 
 
QInternational Intrigues 
 
Author and economic commentator Yehuda Sharoni wrote in the popular, 
pluralist Maariv (2/3): Q[The United StatesQ] dependence [on China] 
isnQt just that of giant American corporations aspiring to sell 
their goods to the Chinese nation.  This dependence is mostly 
reflected in the enormous scope of foreign currency reserves held by 
the Chinese, the majority of which is invested in [U.S.] dollars.... 
The AmericansQ addiction to consumption, which China -- and recently 
the Gulf states -- generously cultivates, might obscure the judgment 
of Americans and in fact of the entire world from issues such as 
security and human rights.  The Israeli Government must draw the 
practical and moral lessons of this development.  Dependence on 
foreign resources -- including the U.S. ones -- must be reduced.  If 
we want to apply a credible security policy, the [Israeli] Treasury 
must act in exactly the same way a household follows the law 
forbidding it from being overdrawn. 
 
CUNNINGHAM