Reporter from Iran: No Plot to Destroy Israel

Journalist, Larry Cohler-Esses, assistant managing editor for news at The Forward, has been the first American Jewish pro-Israel journalist since 1979 to be given an Iranian visa. It has taken him 2 years to obtain and secure the visa as a journalist. He has since reported that there is little evidence to suggest Iran wants Israel destroyed, as suggested by critics of the Iranian nuclear agreement.

The influential New York-based newspaper catering to American Jews that Cohler-Esses reports for, has also suggested that people in Iran were eager for outside interaction, speak critically about their government, and senior clerics support a two-state solution, if Palestinians choose to pursue it.

“Though I had to work with a government fixer and translator, I decided which people I wanted to interview and what I would ask them,” Mr. Cohler-Esses wrote in the first of two articles in his mid-year working trip. “Far from the stereotype of a fascist Islamic state, I found a dynamic push-and-pull between a theocratic government and its often reluctant and resisting people.”

Cohler-Esses’ reporting comes as Congress considers the nuclear agreement this month, presents a more balanced view of Iran compared with the descriptions by a number of Jewish-American advocacy groups.

“No one had anything warm to say about the Jewish state,” he writes in an article. “But pressed as to whether it was Israel’s policies or its very existence to which they objected, several were adamant: Its Israel’s policies.”

Cohler-Esses was granted a seven-day visa late in July, which he had 30 days to use. His request to extend the visa has since been denied.

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