Editoriais de quarta, 26 de abril *

The Jerusalem Post writes: "The official Palestinian condemnation of the horrific bombings at Dahab, a popular tourist destination on the southern Sinai coast, only makes the open Hamas endorsement of the suicide bombing in Tel Aviv more striking... The Islamist cancer directs its hatred at the West, but threatens the Arab world no less. The goal of the Islamists is a Taliban-like regime stretching across the entire Arab world; a vast dictatorship bent on subduing the Arab peoples and the West as well. For the Arab governments, the best antidote to this threat is not further crackdowns and attempts to keep the embers of the Arab-Israeli conflict alive, but rather the opposite: domestic liberalization and full normalization with Israel. Arab governments, if they want to survive, need to offer their people peace and prosperity, not an iron fist and unending conflict. Arab regimes that become less dictatorial, less corrupt, and less diplomatically and economically isolated should have a chance to compete against those that only offer a return to the mores and wars of the 11th century."

Yediot Aharonot, in its third editorial, discusses this week's terrorist bombing at Dahab in Sinai. The editors aver that, "The terrorism approaching us from the Sinai is of the Qaida variety," and call on the security establishment to be more vigilant in guarding the Egyptian-Israeli border.

Hatzofeh asserts that, "The one and only way to weaken the extremist terrorist organizations is to eliminate without hesitation all of those who preach in mosques and the ideologues who dispatch suicide terrorists but watch their own skins," and calls on the government to eliminate the Hamas leadership, including Ismail Haniye.

Yediot Aharonot calls on Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Labor Party chairman Amir Peretz to follow up on their decision not to appoint any deputy ministers in the new government and also decide not to appoint any ministers-without-portfolio.

Yediot Aharonot, in its second editorial, says that Tourism Minister Avraham Hirchson's participation in the March of the Living is far more important than his possible appointment as finance minister in the new government.

Haaretz comments: "Shaul Mofaz joined the Israel Defense Forces in the summer of 1966 and rose in the ranks until he became a lieutenant general, the highest position. A few weeks after he finished serving a four-year term as chief of staff, without a "cooling-off period," Mofaz was called on to join Ariel Sharon's government as defense minister. In the next few days, as the Olmert government is formed, Mofaz will set down the defense portfolio and receive another national task in a field he says has been close to his heart over the past year: economy that influences society. One might have expected that after four exhausting decades in security work, Mofaz would breathe freely and be glad to pass the burden of responsibility to others. But to our great disappointment, Mofaz not only had a difficult time taking leave from the Defense Ministry, but was deeply insulted - to the point of ordering the traditional party hosted by the defense minister and his wife the night after Independence Day be canceled."