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King of the Iranian Bloggers

[Ha'aretz] Meron Rapoport - Even though Hossein Derakhshan cannot live in Iran at present, he is still an Iranian patriot. He despises Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a friend of Israel, and thinks that Ahmadinejad's anti-Israeli policy is the leader's stupidest mistake. He's also an enthusiastic supporter of the Iranian nuclear program. The Canada-based Derakhshan, 31, is a journalist and a well-known blogger. Some 700,000 bloggers are active in Iran today. Even Ahmadinejad himself has started his own blog. Derakhshan was a guest at a conference this week at Ben-Gurion University and spoke during the session on "Blogging as a Realm of Opposition in the Middle East." Derakhshan's visit to Israel, his second within a year, had two purposes: to show his Iranian readers that Israel is not an enemy, and to explain to Israelis that the terrible image they have of Iran is distorted and without connection to reality. Derakhshan says Ahmadinejad was elected on the basis of promises to improve the standard of living, but instead all he does is talk about Israel, Holocaust denial, and nuclear capabilities. Derakhshan is convinced that the Iranian public is either put off by these things or simply not interested in them. He says the Iranian public is not hostile toward Israel. "The Iranians remember that the Palestinians supported Saddam Hussein when he fought against Iran," he says. "Iran and Israel have a common interest: They live in a region controlled by Sunni Muslims."
2007-01-12 01:00:00
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