Iran’s New Year greetings: Israelis perplexed, pleased

JERUSALEM: Israelis reacted with a mixture of pleasant surprise and wary skepticism on Friday to reports that the new Iranian president and his foreign minister had both issued greetings to mark the Jewish New Year.
Relations between the two countries have been dire for years, with Israel threatening to attack the Islamic Republic over fears it is planning to build nuclear weapons that could one day jeopardize the survival of the Jewish state.
In a change of tone, his successor Hassan Rowhani and the new Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, appeared to issue tweets in English wishing Jews a good Rosh Hashanah — the Jewish new year that is being celebrated this week. Iran has long declared an official respect for the Jewish faith while condemning Israel. “Happy Rosh Hashanah,” tweeted Zarif on a profile that notes his career as a diplomat, academic and “Uni of Denver alum.”
The reported greetings came just as Israel was settling into a long holiday weekend and there was no official reaction.
Ordinary Israelis were torn about their meaning. “Gosh I hadn’t heard about that, but I think it’s very nice of him,” said Julia Blus, 25, who works at an amusement park at Manara Cliffs. Next to the Lebanese border, it overlooks hostile territory controlled by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah militia.
By contrast, Roni Benjamin, 66, a bank executive from Kfar Saba in central Israel, said: “It doesn’t mean anything; I don’t see any real change there ... What (Rowhani) really needs to do is to understand that we are not his enemies.”
Confusing matters, Israeli news websites quoted an official in the Iranian president’s office denying any New Year greetings had been sent and saying Rowhani’s English-language Twitter account, used during his election campaign, was not active.
There was no denial from Zarif and the minister went further to push back on a comment that Iran denies the Nazi Holocaust: “Iran never denied it. The man who was perceived to be denying it is now gone,” he tweeted, apparently meaning Ahmadinejad. On Facebook, he wrote: “We condemn the massacre of Jews by the Nazis and we condemn the massacre of Palestinians by the Zionists.”