Focusing on the Trivial, Ignoring the Essential

"Israelis as Friends? Iran Legislators Say No," A13, 8/14/08
By Nazila Fathi

This article discusses the Iranian Parliament's outraged response to an Iranian official's pseudo-conciliatory remarks towards Israel in which he proclaimed that "we are a friend of all people in the world, even Israelis and Americans" while contradictorily saying "his country was against Israel, not Jews."

Iranian lawmakers would like to see the dismissal of this official, expressing rage that "he does not have the political awareness that the Israeli people are the same people who have occupied the homes of millions of innocent and oppressed Palestinians and have created the army of the Zionist regime."

This article is positive in the sense that is able to share the crude, aggressive, and illogical rhetoric of the Iranian regime, but overall, it is quite an unenlightening piece that does little to illuminate the more profound aspects of the Israel-Iran conflict. For example, Iran's aggression towards Israel is not simply relegated to rhetoric. What about its instrumental support of Hezbollah in a proxy war against Israel or its entrenched alliance with Syria? What about Iran's quest for nuclear independence and most likely a nuclear weapon?

These are the real issues rather than the absurd political dispute highlighted in this article.