Four sources comment on the Iranian nuclear threat:

Haaretz writes: "Yom Kippur 2009 bore two pieces of news for Israelis. The bad news was Iran's ground-to-ground missile test. The good news was that the Western powers are facing off against Iran and threatening to increase sanctions against it following the discovery of a secret uranium enrichment facility near the holy city of Qom. Under these circumstances, Israel should support Obama and give him the chance to exhaust the move combining dialogue with the threat of sanctions. This is not the time for Jerusalem to threaten and badger. The Iranian threat is not only Israel's problem, it's that of the entire international community. It's best for Israel if the issue is dealt with on an international level."

The Jerusalem Post writes: "Iran's stratagem is to "engage" as it pushes ahead with its bomb, thereby making it hard for the international community to impose meaningful sanctions. Once it feels certain it has all the pieces of the nuclear weapon's puzzle in place - fuel, warhead, delivery system - it might offer Obama a stop just short of a test detonation, in return for a long list of Western concessions. Obama should leapfrog over futile intermediate steps and place draconian sanctions on the table, now. To paraphrase John Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, this would mean that all ships and planes bound for Iran, from whatever nation, would be turned back. Perhaps this prospect, coupled with a complete land, sea and air quarantine, can influence Iran's leaders to rethink their one-step-forward-two-steps-back strategy, and save humanity from an Iranian bomb."

Yisrael Hayom comments on the Iranian nuclear issue and calls on the Western countries to enact sanctions that are as tough as possible as soon as possible. The author suggests that, "Western leaders' reaction" to the latest Iranian revelations "has encouraged the hope that from now on, they will take the reins" in confronting Tehran.

Nana10 avers that, "The Iranians have erred in reading the international map," and "have crossed the line in provoking the West." The author believes that, "The countdown has begun toward an unavoidable confrontation with Iran," and wonders whether it will end in Iranian concessions, the US-led West somehow stopping Iran, "or something else."

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Ma'ariv suggests that "Six months after being elected, Obama has understood what we have refused to see for over 40 years - that the settlements are an obstacle to an agreement," and calls on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to rise to the occasion, "stop being a politician who fears various backbench MKs," and become "a genuine leader, who leads a courageous move of real change, that will also entail difficult concessions."

Yediot Aharonot reminds its readers that not only has the senior Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram adopted a complete ban on all contacts with Israelis, but that the Egyptian journalists' association is compiling blacklists of journalists who have visited Israel, interviewed Israelis, etc. "That's it," the author comments, "we have gone back 31 years. And during the weekend in which Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, who lost (not only because of us!) the race for UNESCO Secretary-General, swore to settle accounts.  It has already begun."

Walla! faults Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for bringing up the Holocaust in his UN General Assembly speech. The author believes that he thereby politicized the Holocaust and, in effect, played into Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's and other deniers' hands. The paper suggests that the Prime Minister would have done better to ignore "the stupid statements coming from Iran."

[Semadar Peri, Yael Paz-Melamed, Dan Margalit, Eli Feinberg and Prof. Eyal Zisser wrote today’s articles in Yediot Aharonot, Ma'ariv, Yisrael Hayom, Walla! and Nana respectively.]