Editoriais de segunda, 1o de maio *

Haaretz comments: "Israel has a supreme interest in stopping the threat of nuclear weapons in the hands of a country whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, preaches the destruction of Israel and the evacuation of its Jewish residents. Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed the matter in an interview with the German newspaper, Bild, in which he called Ahmadinejad a "psychopath" and compared him to Adolf Hitler. Olmert, who will meet with Bush in three weeks, is hanging his hopes on a West, "led by the United States," that, as he said in the interview, "will not under any circumstances allow Iran to have nuclear weapons." It's too early to tell whether Olmert's statements reflect a change in the policy of his predecessor, Ariel Sharon, who advocated a low Israeli profile regarding Iran, and refrained from reacting to Ahmadinejad's provocation. The concern Olmert has expressed is justified; but Israel would do better, still today, to restrain itself and not get dragged into a rhetorical duel with Ahmadinejad, despite the latter's outrageous comments."

The Jerusalem Post writes: "What does it mean for the international system if it is unable to act against a rogue state that - as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad himself said on Friday about the UN demand to end uranium enrichment - 'does not give a damn to such resolutions'? Europe is acting as if preventing the US from acting "on its own" is even more important than blocking an Iranian nuke. But Europe, by the lights of its own belief in multilateralism, should have another, no less important objective: proving that the UN system can force a blatant aggressor to back down and thereby remove a dire threat to the international community... It is the US, not Europe, that is now taking the international system seriously and acting in that system's best interest - including when the US threatens to form a "coalition of the willing." Europe should join the US in confronting China and Russia with this stance, which would force those countries to go along or risk shifting the action away from where they enjoy veto power. The best way to bolster the international system is to make it work."

Hatzofeh comments on a recent spate of anti-Semitic incidents in Ukraine.

Yediot Aharonot, on the occasion of May 1, comments on the situation of workers in Israel.