The Jerusalem Post is concerned that “the White House has lost its resolve to stop the Islamic Republic’s march to nuclear weapons capability,” and notes: “Israel, the Saudis, the Jordanians and other American allies in the Middle East that would be directly threatened if Iran’s mullahs have weapons of mass destruction look around warily at President Barack Obama’s foreign policy and see few reasons to be optimistic.” With waning US resolve and influence in the international arena and the increased vulnerability of US allies in the Middle East, the editor asserts: “the message needs to be clear: Iran’s nuclear program must be stopped and not enabled by a bad deal pushed through by Obama.”

Haaretz calls on the Central Election Committee not to disqualify controversial Arab MK Haneen Zoabi from running in the forthcoming elections, and asserts: “In a democratic country candidates cannot be disqualified because what they have to say is unpleasant to hear.” The editor states: “Zoabi’s disqualification is not only legally unjustified, but it severely compromises the right of the Arab public to choose its representatives,” and opines: “the time has come to consider taking this authority away from the Central Election Committee, which is made up mainly of the political majority, which repeatedly abuses its power.”

Yediot Aharonot attacks center-left political candidates Tzipi Livni and Isaac Herzog for “trying to convince Israeli voters that peace is possible for Israel in the Middle East,” despite the harsh, horrific realities of the region, and states “While the Middle East is burning around us, they minimize and dismiss the security threats in their election campaign and tell us to concentrate instead on the economy, social issues, Sara Netanyahu’s bottle-gate, and the prime minister’s offensive mannerisms.” The author asserts: “Sometimes a military solution is the only solution against evil, as was the case against Nazism. Making Israel stronger than ever militarily and hunting down and targeting the terrorists and their sponsors is the solution,” and asks: “How much more bloodshed is necessary before Livni and Herzog and other leftists understand that even if Israel limited its territory only to the city of Tel Aviv, this would still not bring peace, but serve as a jumpstart and invitation for more terror?”

Yisrael Hayom is amazed by US President Barack Obama’s declaration last week at the National Prayer Breakfast, in which he compared “the acts of Christians during the Crusades to the acts of the Islamic State group today,” and asserts: “The very fact that Obama is digging around in history and looking for moral justifications for the Islamic State's deeds highlights the danger of his policy, which is reflected in his pursuit of a bad deal with Iran, in his ignoring that same Iran's terrorist activity throughout the world, in his attempts to join forces with the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the Middle East and in his soft policy toward extremist Islam, which he sees as part of a general cultural problem and not as a specific one.” The editor states: “Instead of taking a determined, aggressive stance against Islamic extremism and openly condemning the religion that gives it moral, spiritual, and material support, Obama is opting for more concessions and far-reaching conciliation,” and declares: “absurd as it might seem, this is seen by Islam as weakness and provides an incentive for its operatives to attempt to undermine the principles of the West: liberalism and democracy.”

Globes discusses the turbulent events due to take place in March: PM Netanyahu’s address to the joint houses of Congress, the elections in Israel and the latest ‘deadline’ to reach an agreement on the nuclear Iranian, to which he adds the problematical decision of Prof. David Gilo, director of the Anti-Trust Authority, who “continues to demonstrate that after Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, he is the most significant threat to the economic, financial and geo-political security of Israel,” because of his repudiation of his agreement with the companies developing the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields, and calls: “Beware the Ides of March, but beware also of single-minded fanatics determined to uphold their principles at the cost of the structure they are supposedly protecting.”