Wikileaks: US Embassy/Tel Aviv: "Israel is deceptively calm & prosperous!"

S E C R E T  TEL AVIV 002473

SUBJECT: SCENESETTER FOR THE VISIT OF DEPUTY SECRETARY JAMES STEINBERG

1. (S) Summary. Israel is deceptively calm and prosperous....  outside the storm is gathering......  Israelis are even more anxious than normal these days. Sixty-one years after the establishment of the State of Israel, Israelis sense a growing tide in the world challenging not just the occupation of territory seized in 1967, but even against the existence of the Jewish state within any borders. The GOI's alarm and outrage over the Goldstone Report was based on their view that the report represented an attempt to deny Israel the right to react militarily.... When discussing Iran's nuclear program, sophisticated Israeli interlocutors note that the issue is not just whether a nuclear-armed Iran would launch nuclear-tipped missiles at Israel - although that possibility cannot be dismissed - but rather the regional nuclear arms race that would ensue and the impact of the resulting uncertainty on Israeli elites and foreign investors alike..... 4. (S) Painstakingly constructed relations with Israel's neighbors are also fraying. Even optimists about relations with Egypt (poof!) and Jordan (Kaboom) admit that Israel enjoys peace with both regimes, but not with their people. The transformation of Michel Aoun into Hizballah's primary Lebanese ally may be the final nail in the coffin of Israel's decades-old relations with Lebanon's Maronite Christians. Finally, Israelis are deeply alarmed by the direction of Turkish foreign policy..... "