By Nazila Fathi
A7
November 26, 2008
Fathi has written a fairly good, accurate piece about the arrest of three purported Israeli spies in Iran.
Three comments:
- Stating that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "hostile" to Israel is an understatement since Ahmadinejad has vowed to destroy it.
- Instead of simply reporting that Israel "has a nuclear arsenal," Fathi should have also mentioned that its government has never officially stated that it has a nuclear arsenal. The issue is not that Fathi has let the proverbial cat out of the bag but that stating this would hint toward Israel's intentions toward Iran, which are defensive, not aggressive.
- Fathi reports that "Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear site in 1981 and what it suspected was a Syrian nuclear site in 2007." She should have added that recent reports from the IAEA suggest that this suspicion has been substantiated. In other words, Israel's Mossad is rarely wrong about national security matters this significant.
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I think a major flaw in the report was that nothing followed this key line:
ReplyDeleteAssessing the strength of the government's case is difficult.
Well, map out why it's difficult. Is anything being done about this?
Also, to add to your point about Ahmadinejad's "hostility". It shouldn't be about just Ahmadinejad. He doen't set Iranian policy -- which includes attacks on Israel on its northern and southern borders.