What do you think of the Palestinian Israelis?

What do Israelis think of Hassan Rouhani?

• Answer this any way you want.... What do Israelis think of Rouhani? What do the different factions of the Israeli government think of Rouhani? How do you think his election will impact Iran-Israel relations?, etc.

• Answer:

  Made a few edits following 's thoughtful comments. ------- Obviously there are varying opinions. Generally, I would say that Rouhani is viewed with a lot of concern, skepticism and the feeling this is just a plot by Khamenei to gain time / leverage to mislead the west and calm down internal criticism/chances of a revolt by replacing the insubordinate Ahmedinejad with a puppet he could brand as moderate. The logic is simple. Even though he is considered the moderate contender, Rouhani is actually one of only eight contenders that Khamenei approved for running, out of over 600 candidates. Clearly anyone who could have caused Khamenai trouble was removed. The assumption is that there is an obvious reason why Khamenei allowed him to run - and that is that Rouhani is a part of the Irani ruling elite and is loyal to the current government. So the feeling is that Khamenei let Rouhani win. From the outside it seems like he was the only moderate to run against a bunch of extremists who for some reason wouldn't unite and therefore split the hardliner vote between them. This allows Khamenei to: A. give the people of Iran a small win, so that they don't revolt like in 2009 despite the fact that everyone knows the president is almost helpless against Khamenei's wishes. B. claim Iran is a country where the will of the people presides (internally and externally). C. Empower his allies to claim that Iran is taking a turn towards diplomacy and thereby mislead the West into concessions and sanction relief, taking a page out of North Korea's book. We basically expect Iran to play good cop / bad cop with the world. Rouhani will ally with the "anything for peace" side of the world that will say he needs to be empowered so he can lead change. And Khamenei or someone on his behalf, will continue pushing the hard line and developing nuclear capabilities, funding terrorism against Israel as well as the war in Syria and sending poor Irani youngsters to fight there. This is not all that different from what the Palestinians are doing. Two faces - Abu Mazen is the peaceful negotiator running around asking for world support and Hamas is the hard line "we will never have peace until you all leave" approach. We've been through it for way too long. [As suggests, it is actually a very different situation. I just mean the concept of having two faces to the world - one that is willing to negotiate even though it really doesn't have the power to make real concessions/deals, and another that is demanding and presents a hard line - is similar. After having Ahmadinejad present a hard line and angering the world, it makes more sense for Iran to have someone who will at least give the appearance of a willingness to negotiate.] As an Israeli, I and most of the people I know don't hate the Irani people. We remember the days where Israel and Iran had a great relationship and we miss them. We feel sad that in the 21st century, the Irani people have to settle for such a small, possibly orchestrated win instead of getting the free life and democracy they deserve.