Advocate for Engagement with Iran Misleads Reporters

Foreign Policy magazine was forced to correct on Wednesday an online article about the Iranian government that relied heavily on a liberal advocate for direct negotiations with Tehran.

The article by reporter Colum Lynch, which has since been modified, incorrectly asserted that the Iranian government had publicly referred to “Israel” for “the first time in decades.”

Using the word “Israel,” Lynch originally wrote, is “something no Iranian leader has done in decades,” instead employing such monikers as “Zionist entity.”

…

“The Islamic Republic does not recognize the state of Israel, which in official regime parlance is called anything from ‘the Zionist entity,’ ‘the Zionist regime,’ ‘the regime occupying the Quds,’ ‘the small Satan,’ and sometimes ‘Israel the usurper,’” said Ali Alfoneh, an Iran expert at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).

“Islamic Republic leaders and diplomats mostly refer to Israel with these names, but occasionally you hear them mention Israel,” Alfoneh said. “Those U.S. analysts who attach a particular significance to a junior Iranian diplomat’s use of the proper name ‘Israel,’ risk the mistakes of Kremlinologists of past generations.”

Read the full article here.