Ma\’ariv says: "The phenomenon is well-known: When serious, very serious, people need to make political decisions, their substantive and scientific consideration collapses," and adds: "There is no other explanation to the astonishing decision to award the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union." The author criticizes the EU for funding organizations that not only do not support the EU\’s vision of \’two states for two peoples\’, but which actively strive to undermine it, and avers that it could more significantly promote peace by opposing the Palestinians\’ insistence on a right of return with as much vigor as it opposes settlements. The paper concludes: "Obama received the prize in order to encourage him to advance peace. He has not advanced any peace. The EU is receiving the prize for a peace that – from the outset – it has not advanced. It will be interesting to see who receives the prize next year. Apparently it will b! e the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which grants respect and prestige to Sudanese leader Omar Al-Bashir, who is wanted by the international court in the Hague for genocide. If the EU deserves it, so do they."
Yisrael Hayom remarks that "One aspect of the EU is the tension between the (relatively) richer countries such as Germany and the countries that hope to receive financial assistance – Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal. In Europe, and in several EU countries, there is no peace: There is socio-economic tension that finds expression in brutal cutbacks and violent demonstrations in some of them. But the Nobel Peace Prize Committee believes that such a situation in the EU deserves the prestigious award. And indeed, this situation cries out for correction and reforms – not a prize."
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Yediot Aharonot comments on the upcoming elections for the 19th Knesset and suggests: "There is no chance for a unified, joint list among all the center-left parties in an attempt to defeat Netanyahu. From this perspective, Bibi can relax. While it could be that the heads of all these lists constitute an excellent team(maybe?) and that there is almost no doubt that the whole (one party) would be greater than its parts (four or five parties)…it is the ego, and only the ego of those people and \’heads\’ that prevents this unity. In their view, it overshadows the immediate need to topple Netanyahu and the Right."
Haaretz criticizes those Israelis who seem willing to consider the candidacy of former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert – who was convicted in July by the Jerusalem District Court for breach of trust and is still under indictment on other charges – in the forthcoming elections. Acknowledging that this attitude reflects both the sorry mood in Israel as well as the feverish search for an alternative to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the editor nevertheless asserts that “Rationality and proper governance must not allow a felon still under indictment to run in the upcoming elections. Israel is not that corrupt and desperate.”
The Jerusalem Post comments on the significance of the invasion of Israeli air space by an unidentified drone last week, and states that the decision to send such a drone into southern Israel is not the whim of a local terrorist cell chieftain, but is “a major provocation and a blatant violation of Israel’s sovereignty, even if the drone’s mission was only to gather intelligence and/or test Israel’s defenses.” The editor declares that “it is imperative that Israel let its increasingly brazen and confrontational enemies know – whether via public pronouncements by our higher-ups or via more discreet messaging – that this manifest taunt is viewed here as throwing down the gauntlet and that it will not go unanswered.”