dagblog - Comments for "Rouhani -- Israel is an "Old Wound", period."

Once an Outcast, Iranian

artappraiser — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 07:41:23 +0000

In reply to Rouhani -- Israel is an "Old Wound", period.

Once an Outcast, Iranian Minister Carries Hope of Easing Tensions
By Thomas Erdbrink, New York Times, August 26/27, 2013

TEHRAN — Until this summer, Mohammad Javad Zarif, one of Iran’s most accomplished diplomats, was an outcast, exiled from the government by ultraconservatives for working too closely with the West. Rather than presenting the Iranian case to the world, as he had done so effectively throughout a 35-year diplomatic career, he was spending his days teaching at the Foreign Ministry’s training center on a quiet, leafy campus in North Tehran.

That changed with the election of the moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, in June. Now, Mr. Zarif is the country’s new foreign minister and seems virtually certain to lead Iran’s delegation in nuclear negotiations with the West — further indications, analysts say, that Mr. Rouhani is serious about reducing tensions with the United States and other Western countries.

“Mr. Zarif is the new face of a new policy,” said Davoud Hermidas-Bavand, a professor of international relations at Allameh Tabatabaei University in Tehran, who knows Mr. Zarif personally. “Our former foreign policy obviously did not yield any results and was clearly doomed. We need to revise our former methods and soften our stances in order to find a solution to the nuclear problem and reduce the sanctions.” [....]

Through Zarif, Iran offers a

artappraiser — Sun, 25 Aug 2013 02:08:26 +0000

In reply to Rouhani -- Israel is an "Old Wound", period.

Through Zarif, Iran offers a friendly face to the West
By Michael Theodoulou, The National, Aug 25, 2013

No Iranian official is better versed in western thinking than Iran's urbane new foreign minister, Mohammed Javad Zarif, a US-educated career diplomat, who is highly regarded by western officials and academics who have met him.

They view him as the ideal Iranian intermediary to ease tensions in the high-stakes dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme and to rebuild relations with the United States.

Mr Zarif helped draft a "grand bargain" proposal in 2003 that offered talks with the US on all the major issues dividing the two countries, including the nuclear file and the Arab-Israeli dispute.

That effort, which involved secret talks in Paris, Geneva and New York, was eventually spurned by the administration of then US president George W Bush.

Years earlier, as a junior diplomat, Mr Zarif was involved in negotiations to win the release of US hostages held by Iranian-backed gunmen in Lebanon.

In late 2001 he was instrumental in forging the compromises that led to the formation of a new government in Afghanistan after the US-led invasion toppled the Taliban regime following the September 11 attacks.

"He's a revolutionary but not an ideologue. He believes strongly in Iran's sovereignty and security but he's also someone who understands the West," said Hooman Majd, a New York-based Iranian-American author who knows Mr Zarif well. "He's charming, smart and has a great sense of humour. He's the best diplomat Iran has."

His appointment by Iran's moderate new president, Hassan Rouhani, was well received in the West [....]

Iran's Hassan Rouhani pledges

artappraiser — Sun, 18 Aug 2013 05:44:59 +0000

In reply to Rouhani -- Israel is an "Old Wound", period.

Iran's Hassan Rouhani pledges 'slogan-free diplomacy'
BBC News, August 17, 2013

[....] On Saturday, President Rouhani implied that he would move away from the bombastic style of his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

"Foreign policy is not carried out by repeating slogans," he said.

"One of the messages of the voters in the presidential election was that they wanted a change in foreign policy," the ISNA news agency quoted him as saying at the inauguration of the new Foreign Minister, Mohammed Javad Zarif.

"That doesn't mean abandoning our principles but it does mean a change of method.

"We are going to strongly defend our national interests but that has to be done appropriately, precisely and rationally," the president said.

"The public will pay dearly for any foreign policy mistake."

Foreign policy was "key to solving our current problems", Mr Rouhani said. [....]

The entire saga of what

artappraiser — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 23:28:30 +0000

In reply to Rouhani -- Israel is an "Old Wound", period.

The entire saga of what happened with the translation was explained with extensive detail at The Lede on Aug. 2.

Thanks OK, I didn't take it

Bruce Levine — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 02:56:45 +0000

In reply to To be clear, I'm not

Thanks OK, I didn't take it as criticism, and I appreciate your input--as always. Best.

To be clear, I'm not

ocean-kat — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 18:46:41 +0000

In reply to Thanks AA. On the headline

To be clear, I'm not criticizing your choice to change the headline of your post. I don't know what the "right" thing to do is. I'm just weighing in on the issue with what I would likely have done, or not have done. At most I would have added a PS stating that the headline of the original article has been changed to ..... And maybe some commentary on that change..

Thanks AA. On the headline

Bruce Levine — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 14:37:25 +0000

In reply to Always nice to get a reply

Thanks AA. On the headline thing, I guess I totally hear what you and OK are saying, and I guess I really haven't thought it through completely--except to the extent that it is the kind of thing that should perhaps have some kind of uniform (unwritten but generally understood) protocol or whatever--without getting too crazy--or whatever. Whatever. Cheers.

I agree with your comment on

ocean-kat — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 03:08:48 +0000

In reply to Always nice to get a reply

I agree with your comment on the headline. I almost always use the headline the article comes with. As you said it doesn't mean I agree with it or that I even agree with the article. Posting something in the news section only means that I found it interesting. Its unlikely I would have changed headline after there was some commentary on it as that discussion makes less sense if the headline discussed is changed.

Always nice to get a reply

artappraiser — Sun, 04 Aug 2013 01:28:42 +0000

In reply to Sorry AA for not answering

Always nice to get a reply from you, though definitely not required.

My main point was what Iran the state thinks at this point in time is of great interest because it is something that maybe something can be done about. But if the issue is the hatred of Israel by many citizens in the Mideast (and leaders pandering to that from time to time for political benefit) and anti-Semitism in the Mideast, this is a quite different problem, requiring different solutions, and not having the same potential of resolution. Mixing the two is going to get you in the same old same old arguments going nowhere.

I like to add that personally, I don't get all the conniptions over the title here. In news posts, mho, just best to use the headline the source uses. If the source changes their headline later, it could be noted in comments. If you're adding your own title, then you're doing commentary on the article, getting closer to a blog post. Then you'd be fair game for criticism yourself, like in a blog post. But if people posting news don't do that, then I can't presume they agree with the headline, just that they found it interesting. And comments then are then comments directed toward the author of the article, or analysis or opinion about it, and shouldn't be taken personally by the person posting the news article.

I have changed the headline a

Bruce Levine — Sat, 03 Aug 2013 16:20:48 +0000

In reply to Rouhani -- Israel is an "Old Wound", period.

I have changed the headline a third time to this little news piece so that it is as accurate as I can make it.

Forgive my tribalism, but I will quote now in full from an Iranian Jew, Meir Javedanfar, who is now a citizen of the State of Israel, on what was actually said (we think) by Rouhani:

This morning, the Iran based Mehr news published a story (right) in which they quoted Iran’s newly elected president in their headline as saying:

روحانی: اسرائیل زخمی است بر پیکر جهان اسلام که باید از بین برود

Exact translation:

Israel is a wound on the body of the world of Islam that must be destroyed.
Since then a video has emerged in which it seems that Rouhani was misquoted by Mehr.
In the video, according to the indispensable Iran Pulse publication of Al Monitor , Rouhani actually says:
“Quds day, which is in memorial of Imam [Khomeini], is a day that people present the unity of Islam against any type of oppression or aggression. And in any case, in our region, it is an old wound that has been sitting on the body of the Islamic world, in the shadow of the occupation of the holy land of Palestine and the dear Quds. And this day, in fact, is a remembrance that Muslim people will not forget this historical right and will always stand against oppression and aggression.”
He does not say that this wound must be removed, as Mehr news originally reported. Nor does he actually mention Israel or the “Zionist regime” as Mehr and then ISNA quoted him as saying. Since then Mehr has corrected its story and used the actual quote instead. So has ISNA.
Its possible that Mehr and ISNA were sloppy in their reporting. Its also possible that some of the reporters wanted to embarrass Rouhani by misquoting him. No one knows. But he was misquoted .
To the Iranian regime, there is no difference between Israel’s legal post 1948 borders and land captured and occupied after 1967. To the Iranian government, all of Israel is occupied Palestinian land. Rouhani who is supposed to be a moderate has never made that distinction.
Therefore his latest statement is deeply offensive to many Israelis.
Nevertheless, he was misquoted and misrepresented. Also, he can not be compared to Ahmadinejad who was not only anti-Israeli, but also an anti-semite who denied the holocaust.

I will stand by this interpretation, which by the way, differs from the reference to the "sore" that others were apparently certain was the correct interpretation yesterday--based on mainstream media reports.

This writer believes he understands the Iranian domestic political situation as well as anyone here, or at least well enough to have an intelligent discussion about Iran, domestically or otherwise. And, respectfully, I have focused perhaps more than others on the remaining Jews from the ancient Persian Jewish community left in Iran. That frames my perspective and I make no apologies for that. As a result, for example, I am taken back by those who would parrot (perhaps unintentionally) ugly Iranian hasbara (as that term is so negatively used on the internet) to contend that things are secure for the remaining smatterings of an ancient Persian Jewish population. This is not to assert any intention on my fellow bloggers to be inaccurate. That's my gut, but also informed belief, and anyone who wants to assert otherwise should move away from resting on the bizarre eerie-like (to this Jews' ears anyway) recitation of statistics pertaining to the number of kosher butchers and Jewish schools there are left in Tehran-- -- a city with a population of approximately 100,000 Jewish people into the 1940s or 50s (I believe). But, seriously, if it's an important issue for anyone I would be willing to discuss it.

Ultimately, what I believe would be worthwhile to discuss in a serious way just what it that makes us believe that Rouhani will be: (a) more moderate than his predecessor (and what does that mean?); and (b) how it matters in any event in an Iran that is controlled by the Ayotollah Khameni.

I deleted the other stuff. I honestly have some unreconciled beefs, but I'm not going to do it here. Happy weekend.