Cablegate: Israel Media Reaction

This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 TEL AVIV 002469

SIPDIS

STATE FOR NEA, NEA/IPA, NEA/PPD

WHITE HOUSE FOR PRESS OFFICE, SIT ROOM
NSC FOR NEA STAFF

JERUSALEM ALSO FOR ICD
LONDON ALSO FOR HKANONA AND POL
PARIS ALSO FOR POL
ROME FOR MFO
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: IS KMDR MEDIA REACTION REPORT
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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This morning, Israel Radio quoted Palestinian sources
as saying that top Sharon aide Dov Weisglass will meet
today with chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat and PA
Minister of Civilian Affairs Muhammad Dahlan to discuss
coordination of the disengagement plan between the
sides. The radio reported that Vice Premier Shimon
Peres and Palestinian PM Ahmed Qurei will talk about
the same issue tomorrow.

All media reported that the disengagement from the Gaza
Strip and northern West Bank is expected to be
postponed until mid-August, following Tuesday's meeting
of the special ministerial meeting for implementing the
disengagement. The media reported on ongoing
disagreements within the GOI regarding the date for
disengagement.

Leading media reported that PA Chairman [President]
Mahmoud Abbas met Tuesday with Israeli journalists in
Ramallah ahead of the Passover holiday. Ha'aretz
highlighted Abbas's complaint about the criticism to
which he claims to have been subjected in the Israeli
media and about the treatment he has received from the
GOI since he took over at the helm of the PA. Yediot
stressed Abbas's promise that the evacuation of
settlements will take place among security quiet. The
media cited Abbas's reassurances to Israel regarding
the outcome of the elections to the Palestinian
Legislative Council (PLC) in July.

Yediot quoted PM Sharon as saying at a pre-Passover
toast with Likud members Tuesday that the "guys from
Khan Yunis" will plunder the property left behind by
Israel in the Gaza Strip "within half an hour." The
newspaper quoted Sharon as saying that Israel is
interested in coordination with the Palestinians, but
that he is not certain whether there is someone to talk
to. All media reported that Defense Minister Shaul
Mofaz was heckled, called a "traitor," and made to feel
unwelcome during a visit he made to the Katif bloc of
settlements in the Gaza Strip Tuesday.

Leading media quoted leaders of the northern West Bank
settlement of Homesh as saying Tuesday that Sharon
promised representatives of Homesh "all the aid" they
need to facilitate their relocation to another
community en masse prior to the evacuation. Jerusalem
Post reported that some 45 Gaza Strip families have
signed up to move to two kibbutzim just northeast of
the Green Line (around the Strip).

In its lead story, Maariv reported that ahead of the
disengagement, the IDF has trained sharpshooters who
will be positioned near evacuation sites, poised to
"shoot at settlers' legs," should settlers open fire at
security forces or take hostages among them. Ha'aretz
reported that senior army officers have lately
recommended that one of the leading rabbis in the
settlements of Samaria (northern West Bank) be put
under administrative detention. The recommendation is
meanwhile opposed by the Shin Bet, which says such a
move would be an "earthquake" for the extremists, but
the secret service has not ruled out administrative
detention as the disengagement approaches.

Israel Radio reported this morning that Israel has
asked for indirect financial aid ahead of the
disengagement, and that the Bush administration has
agreed to grant Jerusalem a USD 3 billion financial
guarantee until 2008. Israeli delegates met with the
U.S. officials in Washington on Wednesday to begin
talks on financial aid for development in the Negev and
the Galilee. Jerusalem is also asking for assistance
in funding the relocation of IDF bases after this
summer's planned disengagement from Gaza and some
settlements in the northern West Bank. Finance
Ministry D-G Dr. Yossi Bachar met with U.S. national
security officials and they discussed forming a joint
U.S.-Israeli committee to address the matter. The
radio said that the U.S. has also agreed to spread
Israel's financial guarantees over the next three
years, two years later than was initially scheduled.

Ha'aretz reported that Sharon may meet Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice, but not President Bush, during
his trip to the U.S. next month, where he will take
part in AIPAC's annual conference.

Israel Radio reported that in an interview with
Lebanon's LBC-TV Tuesday, President Bush demanded that
Syria stop supporting Hizbullah and close the
organization's offices in Damascus. The President was
also quoted as saying that Lebanon will not be a free
country as long as an armed militia operates on its
territory. Israel Radio cited a response by Hizbullah
Secretary-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah as saying

SIPDIS
that his group will not disarm as long as Israel
threatens Lebanon.

Jerusalem Post reported that Qatar's Ambassador to the
UN, Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser, met several days ago
with Israel's Representative to the UN, Danny
Gillerman, to petition Israel to support its candidacy
for the UN Security Council.

All media, except the ultra-Orthodox ones, reported on
the election of Pope Benedict XVI (German Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger) on Tuesday. Leading media quoted
Jewish figures who are integrally involved in relations
with the Vatican, and know Ratzinger personally, as
saying that he will continue the positive relations
toward Israel and the Jews that characterized the
papacy of Pope John Paul II, noting that the new pope
visited Israel several times. However, Yediot quoted
Vatican experts as saying that the new pontiff does not
view dialogue with the Jews as a top priority. A
Yediot headline read "White Smoke, Black Past." The
newspaper and other media cited the "problematic
biography" of Ratzinger, who briefly was a member of
the Hitler Youth in the early 1940s.

Yediot and Jerusalem Post reported that IDF Chief of
Staff Moshe Ya'alon made a confidential visit to Jordan
Tuesday, where he met with King Abdullah and Gen.
Khalid Jameel al-Sarayirah, chief of the joint staff of
the Jordanian armed forces.

Citing the London-based Jane's Defense Weekly,
Jerusalem Post reported that Russia has allegedly
offered to donate to the PA two Mi-17 transport
helicopters to replace those that Israel destroyed in
2001.

Leading media reported that on Tuesday, citing concerns
over "national security," Interior Minister Ophir Pines-
Paz extended by one year travel restrictions imposed on
nuclear whistleblower Mordecai Vanunu.

This morning, Israel Radio reported that Uriel
Yitzhaki, Israel's Consul-General to The Hague, was
arrested Tuesday evening as he arrived in Israel for a
visit on suspicion of accepting bribes in exchange for
issuing Israeli passports to people who were not
entitled to them.

Ha'aretz cited an unprecedented report published
Tuesday by the ministerial committee for the
restoration of Jewish property, headed by Minister of
Diaspora Affairs Natan Sharansky, which estimated the
material damage caused to the Jewish people during the
Holocaust at USD 230 billion to 320 billion. The
estimate does not include reparations for the suffering
of survivors, or for the murder of 6 million Jews. The
report's authors call on the GOI to remove obstacles to
the process of restoring Jewish property, not only in
Europe but in the U.S. and Israel as well.

All media reported that a Jerusalem District Court
judge ruled Tuesday that alleged underworld kingpin
Zeev Rosenstein can be extradited to the U.S., where he
will be tried for drug-trafficking offenses.
Israel Radio reported that Abbas will meet today with
U.S. envoys David Welch and Elliott Abrams, who will
try to set a date for Abbas's visit to Washington.

Jerusalem Post cited a document made public by the Gaza
District on Tuesday, according to which the number of
permits issued to Palestinians from the Gaza Strip
seeking to enter Israel for humanitarian needs has
doubled.

Ha'aretz and Jerusalem Post reported that on Tuesday,
the High Court of Justice accepted the IDF's position
that it could not reopen nine Palestinians stores
located underneath Beit Hadassah in downtown Hebron for
security reasons. However, the court suggested to the
IDF that it consider paying compensation to the shop
owners.

Hatzofe reported that in talks with senior Russian
officials in Moscow over the past two days, a small
delegation from the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and
Defense Committee has discussed the neutralization of
the Iranian threat, and Israeli-Russian security
cooperation.

Based on an Israeli Internet site that uses statistics
from the U.S. Senate's web site, Yediot reported that
during the past six years, Israeli companies and
organizations -- topped by the Israeli firm Merhav,
owned by Yossi Meiman --have paid USD 2 million in
salaries for lobbyists active in contacts with the U.S.
administration and Congress.

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Mideast:
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Summary:
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Veteran op-ed writer and the late prime minister
Yitzhak Rabin's assistant Eytan Haber opined in the
lead editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot
Aharonot: "Only a force majeure -- such a terror attack
of a magnitude we have not yet encountered -- can now
stop the train [i.e. the disengagement process] that
has already left the station."

Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized: "All
the harassment of the Palestinians in this interim
period ... will only sow more hatred. Ultimately, no
separation fence route will be able to defend Israel
from that hatred."

Block Quotes:
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I. "The Katif Bloc Train"

Veteran op-ed writer and the late prime minister
Yitzhak Rabin's assistant Eytan Haber opined in the
lead editorial of mass-circulation, pluralist Yediot
Aharonot (April 20): "One side -- the government, the
army, the police -- is in awe of the enormous and
perhaps most difficult task in Israel's history. While
this side will not try to call off disengagement, it
will not shed a tear if the date of execution is
delayed a bit more and a bit more. Neither [outgoing
IDF Chief of Staff Moshe] Bugi Ya'alon, nor [chief of
staff-designate] Dan Halutz nor [Police Commissioner]
Moshe Karadi wish to go down in history 'thanks' to
this plan. The other side, the settlers, believes,
hopes and prays that the plan will fade away. They
hope for a miracle.... The truth is that only a force
majeure -- such a terror attack of a magnitude we have
not yet encountered -- can now stop the train that has
already left the station. Sharon ... knows that the
locomotive is surging forward. The train will stop
only long after it runs over anyone standing in its
way. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on the
eye of the beholder, the train is galloping forward,
and only those left on the platform in the empty
station in the Katif Bloc believe that it will either
stop or return. Blessed are the believers."

II. "The Battle For the 'Fingernails'"

Independent, left-leaning Ha'aretz editorialized (April
20): "It could be years before the eastern border with
the Palestinians is finally settled, but meanwhile, the
bulldozers and builders are at work -- as has been the
custom of Israeli greed for the last 38 years of
occupation -- in an attempt to 'create facts on the
ground' against all logic and against Israel's long-
term interests. Experience shows, as in the case of
the Katif Bloc, that massive construction does not
automatically turn an area into an integral part of
Israel. This attempt at sleight of hand is going on in
discussions with the Americans, the Palestinians, the
settlers and the Israeli public.... To get out of this
maze, in which Israel and the U.S. do not see eye to
eye on the future eastern border of the state, it was
decided to fence in Ariel and other settlements in the
area but not to connect them to the main security
fence. This strange solution, which was given the name
'the fingernails,' and is a compromise between the
American opposition to sending the fence like 'fingers'
toward Ariel and a declaration that the Ariel bloc
would remain outside the fence, is now on the High
Court of Justice's agenda. It turns out that parts of
those 'fingernails' are on privately owned Palestinian
land.... The 'fingernails' plan is meant to delay as
much as possible any future discussion of the
settlements in the Ariel bloc. All the harassment of
the Palestinians in this interim period, harming their
source of livelihood, their lands, homes and freedom of
movement, will only sow more hatred. Ultimately, no
separation fence route will be able to defend Israel
from that hatred."

CRETZ

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