Hossein Derakhshan - Israel Visit

Israel Visit

Derakhshan visited Israel as a Canadian citizen in January 2006. He stated that he went to Israel as a personal attempt to start a dialogue between Iranian and Israeli people.

This might mean that I won't be able to go back to Iran for a long time, since Iran doesn't recognize Israel, has no diplomatic relations with it, and apparently considers traveling there illegal. Too bad, but I don't care. Fortunately, I'm a citizen of Canada and I have the right to visit any country I want. I'm going to Israel as a citizen journalist and a peace activist. As a citizen journalist, I'm going to show my 20,000 daily Iranian readers what Israel really looks like and how people live there. The Islamic Republic has long portrayed Israel as an evil state, with a consensual political agenda of killing every single man and woman who prays to Allah, including Iranians. I'm going to challenge that image. As a peace activist, I'm going to show the Israelis that the vast majority of Iranians do not identify with Ahmadinejad's rhetoric, despite what it looks like from the outside. I'm going to tell them how any kind of violent action against Iran would only harm the young people who are gradually reforming the system and how the radicals would benefit from such situation.

His visit was covered by some Israeli media, including Haaretz, Jerusalem Post, Ynet News, Ha'ir, Time Out Tel Aviv, Israeli Radio and its Persian service, and Israel's English TV news:

• Loving tehran in Tel Aviv (Video) (January 2007). Israel's Channel Two.
• Iran-Israel Interface (January 2007). Jerusalem Post.
• King of the Iranian bloggers (January 2007). Haaretz
• חסיין דרחשאן, הבלוגר הכי חם בטהראן, בא לביקור בבאר שבע (January 2007). Haaretz
• I'll blog your house down (January 2006). Haaretz
• Web relations: Iranian blogs his way to Israel (January 2006). Jerusalem Post
• ראיון עם בלוגר איראני. (January 2006) YNet News
• Linking Tehran and Tel Aviv (May 2006). BBC News