"Rouhani's True Face Has Been Revealed Earlier Than Expected"

Yesterday, being the last Friday of Ramadan, the Ayatollah Khomeini-initiated annual grotesquery called Al Quds Day took place: this account by a plummy-voiced news anchor on Iran's propaganda channel Press TV gives brief footage (making it seem less vitriolic towards Israel than it actually is) of its marking in several cities around the world this year.

According to the following video report, at the Al Quds Day rally in Teheran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's successor as Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, called for "the elimination of the insult to all humanity that is Israel":

Reports the New York Times:

'Iran’s president-elect touched off an international uproar on Friday with disputed comments about Israel, engendering a furious rejoinder from the Israeli prime minister that illustrated the wide gap between the two countries, fed by decades of hostility, even as the new Iranian leader has signaled his wish to pursue a more conciliatory approach in world affairs.The comments from the president-elect, Hassan Rouhani, came two days before he officially takes office, plunging him into what amounted to his first international test over Israel, one of the most vexing topics for an Iranian politician.

Attending an annual pro-Palestinian holiday in Iran known as Al Quds Day, a reference to the Arabic name for Jerusalem and an occasion in which Iranians march and shout “Death to Israel,” Mr. Rouhani told state television that “a sore has been sitting on the body of the Islamic world for many years,” a reference to Israel.

At least three Iranian news agencies appeared to misquote him as saying: the “Zionist regime is a sore which must be removed.” Later in the day they posted corrections.

Mr. Rouhani, who has sought to portray himself as a moderate, did not use the most inflammatory anti-Israeli invective sometimes heard from other Iranian leaders, most notably Mr. Rouhani’s predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called Israel a cancerous tumor, a virus and an aberration that should be expunged from history.

Nevertheless, the initial news agency translation of Mr. Rouhani’s comments from the state television videotape infuriated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel. He has previously described Mr. Rouhani as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” whose surprising June 14 election victory was unlikely to change Iran’s policies, particularly regarding what Israel views as an Iranian determination to become a nuclear weapons power.

“Rouhani’s true face has been revealed earlier than expected,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a statement. “Even if they will now rush to deny his remarks, this is what the man thinks and this is the plan of the Iranian regime. These remarks by President Rouhani must rouse the world from the illusion that part of it has been caught up in since the Iranian elections.

The president there has changed, but the goal of the regime has not: to achieve nuclear weapons in order to threaten Israel, the Middle East and the peace and security of the entire world. A country that threatens the destruction of the state of Israel must not be allowed to possess weapons of mass destruction.”

When told later that the original translation had been wrong, and that the videotape showed Mr. Rouhani had in fact not referred directly to Israel or said anything about removing the “sore,” Mr. Netanyahu’s office was unmoved and seemingly uninterested in nuance. “We stand by what we say,” said his spokesman, Mark Regev. “The remarks attributed to him we think, we are sure, that represents his true outlook.”....'

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