(Israel Government Press Office)

Ma'ariv notes that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is claiming that the projected agreement with Iran "is not just appeasement, it is fraud," and that "It does not endanger peace for Israel, but for the world," and asserts: "Anyone with a brain knows that Netanyahu is right. It is not a matter of Left and Right, but of common sense and a willingness to see things as they are." The author believes that the US "prefers a short-term settlement, which will become a danger to world peace in the long-term," and says: "It is not that Iran will drop the terrible bomb the day after it is made. The problem is that with a nuclear capability, Iran will become a major power. The chance for regime change will be zero. The Gulf States will be in danger. Hamas, which, again, has been trying to draw closer to Iran, will become much stronger. The regional order will become dark and threatening. Hezbollah will become the ruler of Lebanon and Syria." The paper calls on Israelis, however much they support or oppose the Prime Minister on other issues, to rally around him on this one in an effort to forestall the above scenario.

Yediot Aharonot suggests: "The bad news in our region is that Washington has apparently reconciled with the existence of Iranian nuclear installations," and speculates that the Obama administration would suffice with an agreement that pushes off any Iranian attainment of a nuclear bomb until after it has left office, even though Israel maintains that: "This is a recipe for an existential threat to Israel in the future." As to the disagreement between Jerusalem and Washington, the author says that "Under previous Israeli governments, envoys would have been dispatched to the American leaders and would have resolved everything in secret talks. For many years, only the Defense Ministry and IDF archives would have known what happened. Today, the disagreement is public and whoever does not stitch up the good relations with the US on Friday feels it on Saturday. The American President would have to be made of steel in order to not make the Israeli Prime Minister pay for doing almost everything to see his rival, Mitt Romney, take his place in the White House. The problem is that this price is liable to be paid by all of us."

Yisrael Hayom discusses the situation in the joint Likud-Yisrael Beytenu Knesset faction now that Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman has been acquitted, and suspects that he might break up the joint faction sooner rather than later. The paper says: "Liberman will claim that Netanyahu promised him a merger. Even if he did – he does not have the strength to make it happen. A host of Likud ministers, deputy ministers, and MKs who would like to be such in the future, strongly oppose a merger," and adds: "The continuation of the present situation will only increase friction, and with it anger and ill-will, and it is likely that it will not succeed." The author reminds his readers that a potential source of wider coalition friction is that with Liberman's return to the Foreign Ministry, both Yesh Atid, with 19 MKs, and the Jewish Home, with 12, now have fewer ministers than Yisrael Beytenu, which has only 11 MKs.

The Jerusalem Post comments on the call this week by Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky “for Israel to strengthen ties with expatriate Israelis, especially those living in the United States,” and states that "the organization could have an important role in fighting against assimilation and intermarriage among Israelis living abroad.”

Haaretz believes that the Cabinet’s decision on Sunday to build the new town of Hiran on the lands of the Bedouin village Umm al-Hiran, which requires that the village be evacuated and demolished, “constitutes a new low in the state’s treatment of the Bedouin of the Negev, and a new stage in Israel’s becoming an ethnocracy: a regime that exists for the good of a single ethnic group, and that grants rights on the basis of ethnic affiliation rather than the principles of equality.” The editor notes that while the appeals that have been filed against the evacuation are pending, “The government should not wait for the court to rule. It must renounce this act of theft and recognize the right of the Bedouin residents to remain in their village.”