I'm also an Iranian who works in Palestine, better to say the occupied territory. My encounter with Israelis have been quite different. I have seen the miseries they have caused and see almost everyday in every checkpoint i have to cross to get to work how they treat the Palestinians. So, please if you want to negate the biases that people have it does not help if you fall from one side to the other. Iranian regime is a dictatorship and it feeds people with false information but this does not make those Israelis who live in the occupied homes of Palestinians a saint.
- By: ruzi on May 14, 2006

In my opinion people -who in fact are the victims of all this controversy- are driven by media and politicians to consider other people as their enemies only because of their different nationality or belief. Israelis and Iranian and American we are all brothers. Kain and Avél they are trying to make us. Yannis Koromilas-Greece
- By: YANNIS KOROMILAS on May 9, 2006

rafe, katibeh and karim: I'd just like to point out a few facts to you. #1: lots of "Palestinians" were Arabs who immigrated to what is now Israel in the early 20th century specifically to take advantage of the economic boom created by Jewish settlers. As for the 19th century and earlier, it is not easy to produce reliable statistics, but certain cities, Jerusalem, Safed and Hebron were always largely populated by Jews because those cities had Jewish holy sites. The idea that all of the Jews were dispersed by the Romans, and none to return until modern times is patently false. #2: Until the Soviet Union let Jews leave in the 1990s, over half of Israel's Jewish population came from Muslim countries, Iran and Iraq being two very significant contributors. At a minimum we are talking half a million and possibly as may as 700,000. And while it is true that Israel welcomed them, the fact is that nobody would leave a safe and secure home willingly, to leave all of their worldly goods behind and spend three or four years living in tents in the desert until housing could be built for them. As for the UN resolutions Israel "ignores", how many of them are the idiotic ones passed by Arab league / OIC countries and the supposedly "non-aligned" states? And how many of those states have human rights records that are infinitely worse than Israel's. Go check that out. My recollection is that despite all the acts of terrorism, Israel ranks about #33, or pretty far down the list of offenders. Another thought for you wise and well informed young fellows to ponder: until the "2nd Intifada" Palestinians enjoyed a standard of living that was double that of your fellow Iranians living in the Islamic Republic. Why? Because they had jobs in Israel that paid them fairly well. If you look at Arab Israelis, it gets better still. And before you cry out that Arab Israelis don't enjoy the same standard of living as Jewish citizens, I will point out to you that a quarter of Israel's Jewish child population lives under the poverty line. This is a function of a number of things, but I'd say the main reason boils down to the cost of preventing terror attacks. Otherwise, this tiny country of 5 million that has lived under seige since its founding boasts the foremost institute of medical research in the world: the Weitzman Institute. It is also a leader in technology of all sorts. Compare an achievement like that to oil-rich Muslim states.
- By: Lynne on May 4, 2006

Hey... I'm from norway, just read about you on a norwegian newswebsite.. And i think it's damn though done off you to do this, even though you may not come back to Iran. You have my respect :) Keep thid up =)
- By: Andreas T. S. on May 4, 2006

you little zio hack. How were you able to go to Occupied Palestine and manage to avoid a single Palestinian? What happened to your honesty? The entie Palestinian population is being embargoed and starved and mr Hero manages to talk with the occupiers and never even mention the occupied. rh
- By: rafe on May 4, 2006

its necessary to overcome the blind antizionism from the "muslim" side. iranians can play an important role in that. karim, what you wrote is just one side.hostility and brutality not only came from the israelis. most of the arab states are violators of most human right conventions...not to talk of all the terrorist organizations which kill innocent civilians and call it "self defence". as long as so many people in the orient focus on israel/palestine as the key to all the problems in the region and only blame one side (the israelis) for everyhing, nothing will change there and the circle of violence will continue. the more israel is declined by its neighbours, the more they have to lean against the "west" and then israel is considered by the same people even more as a "crusader-state" oder "imperialist state", and so on. the solidarity with the palestinians often is false-faced and dishonest. most palestinians in the meantime have accepted the existence of israel while many of their apologists have not. a state with 20 000 square kilometres cannot be the root of all evil in the whole region... to hoder: i, as a person of iranian origin, have also been once in israel. sometimes it was not so pleasant, when i declared myself as (part-) iranian.i had-maybe like you-not only good experiences. but i learned also-probably just like you- a lot of sympathy, respect, interest. CU,amin
- By: amin on May 3, 2006

israel is on palestines ground.. by doing this ur encreasing the turisme in israel, witch leads to more money to them and less to palestine... they might have a beautiful country, but it isn't theirs.. the palestines own it and they are violeting their rights. israel is a vendicted country.. and so are the citizents to ... by all means don't even visit that country!!
- By: katibeh on May 3, 2006

Thank you very much for your open minded work. I think all of us iranian that are outside Iran have a big responsibility against our younger iranian people living inside Iran. They must know the truce that Israel is really a friend of our people and the main enemies of our nation are the regim that abuse Islam and its power in arabic world and iran to reach their dirty aims. Long live Iran and Israel. We must clean our country of arab culture and make our real culture getting a new live!
- By: Asheghevatan on May 3, 2006

The state of Israel holds the highest number of violated/ignored UN resolutions in the world. It is the same UN that partitioned Palestine in favor of Israeli against the native majority. The State of Israel is a blatant violator of the Geneva conventions, international law, and basic rights of millions of Palestinians. 5 million Israeli rule (38 years) by military force and through coercion 3.8 million Palestinians, many of which are innocent refugees Israel evicted out. Israeli governments have been condemned by all leading independent western Human Rights organizations. BISHOP DESMOND TUTU, the South African Nobel Prize winner, described how he saw on his visit to Israel "much like what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young white police officers prevented us from moving about". You mentioned that the President of Israel is an Iranian, born in Iran. What you failed to ask yourself is what is an Iranian doing in that place inside the Arab world calling it home on top of hundreds of destroyed Palestinian villages? That is where lies the root of the conflict. Cheers
- By: karim on May 3, 2006

Yes, a nice article. Welldone. You mentioned that many Iranian bloggers and the Iranian media hadn't mentioned your visit to Israel. I think Iranian's want peace and want to enjoy their life without threats. People these days aren't as political as they were in the 70s as people are tiered of all the conflict. I'm not saying it's right, but just stating the impression I get when talking to friends and family.
- By: Navid on May 3, 2006

I am an Israeli Jew of Iranian descent, living in the US. Although my maternal grandparents had to flee Iran in the 1950s, my mother still plays songs in Farsi, she cooks all the Persian dishes, she often invites Iranian friends to our house, both muslim and jewish, so that we can understand the type of culture her parents came from. My grandparents were only allowed to take two carpets with them when they fled, and we still have those carpets in our home. Fortunately, Israel was a great place for them to build their life and bring up children in a healthy positive environment. It is a shame that the situation is like how it is now, but I think it really is up to people in that part of the world, like Hossein Derakhshan, to really question their environment and decide what is acceptable and what is not, thats the first step.
- By: Gal Gershoni on May 2, 2006

I read your piece on the BBC website this morning, and was very impressed. Projects like this can only lead to better understanding of common ground and lead to peace, happiness, and prosperity for all.
- By: T Mandel on May 2, 2006

Among the many who will respond to your actions, I want to offer my voice of support. I am sorry to say I don't have the time to read your archive and know your politics, but whatever your values are, bless you for you for connecting at the human level and helping to dissolve stereotypes and fear. I am from the "soft" left of Zionism, and have spent a portion of the last 25 years travelling in Muslim countries, including Iran, just mingling behind "enemy" lines. The experience has moderated my Zionism - in some ways strengthened it. My basic observation is that, with shared information, all can align and get along together. We all so love to hang on to our information, and make our judgements from it. Only the smart - and the humane - seek to expand the limits. In my experience, your journal is a rare instance of using the internet for actual good. I look forward to seeing what you will do next.
- By: ian on May 2, 2006

You did a great job. There is no animosity between the two nations.
- By: Mehrdad on May 1, 2006

it might surprise you to know that we the persians were and still are the only country in the face of earth who had a jewish queen..esther....she is burried in hamadan...also we defended the jews as we should when dumb arabs were killing them as our father's father CYRUS the great did....as we always should....so one has to ask themselves what and why we became so weak to allow bunch of uneducated idiots all with arab origin rule on us and decide for our future??? answer ...we we gave up our way of life and our true religion ZOROASTRIAN faithand true persian life.to copy and obey bunch of idiots who came with their camels from desert..ofcourse we ourselves are to blame also....mismanagement and corruption of few in pre-islamic government also is to blame.....now what???? as long as iranians obey islam and ways of arab lifestyle there is no hope.....we must know ourselves first b4 we can understand were we are going... damn this life,damn this fate,damn this world...that arabs have to invade my home to force me to become muslim.....
- By: david on May 1, 2006

Fascinating story. I have linked to you.
- By: grandma jean on May 1, 2006

Dont forget Iran has in nature ever since Cyrus the great who saved the jews from the babylonian yoke had good relations with Israel. Its just under these arabphils that we have shown hostility.
- By: Joseph Salomonsen on May 1, 2006

I read your article in BBC News and I could not wait to get to your blog and read your articles. "The mission" that you have set for yourself is a great one and I can only thank you for doing this. It is important work and it has to be done. And it is surely the right first step. Nevertheless, I was very disappointed about an article. You said "I wanted to break the stereotypical images", which is good, but how can you say in another article something like "I'm very disappointed with the Canadians, in general" . Now you can say that this is something totally different, but it is not. Stereotypes exist because of generalizations. E.g. you see one iranian saying death to the US, and you conclude that every iranian is anti-US, which is of course wrong. So by choosing a mission like that, you should be clear about your moral reasoning. And since many people are reading your blog, you also have a great responsibility. So maybe you should clearly think through the stuff before you post it. Anyway, I wish you good luck for your mission.
- By: rapu on April 30, 2006