Safieh's remarks came during an interview scheduled to air tomorrow (April 8) on VOA's daily Persian language TV program Khabarha va Nazarha (News and Views). Safieh told VOA that Iranian President Ahmadinejad's comments about wiping Israel off the map were "vehement, vociferous statements that didn't have any realistic dimension. I believe that they were extremely unhelpful to Iran itself and to Palestine as such."
Safieh pointed out the danger of such a threat, saying, "Any threat to Israel by nuclear strikes is a threat to the Palestinian society, because you are not unaware under Israel there is still Palestine, and among Israelis there are as many Palestinians who live there. So nuclear future strike, which I believe is implausible, will be a threat to the Palestinian society as well because of the interpenetration of both societies and the geographic overlapping of the two communities." He said such statements were "unnecessary, unwise, unhelpful, to Iran and to Palestine."
News and Views is a daily one-hour satellite television newscast to Iran that features original correspondents' reports and the top news stories from Iran, the U.S., and around the world. More information on VOA Persian is available at www.VOANews.com/Persian
The Voice of America, which first went on the air in 1942, is a multimedia international broadcasting service funded by the U.S. government through the Broadcasting Board of Governors. VOA broadcasts more than 1,000 hours of news, information, educational, and cultural programming every week to an estimated worldwide audience of more than 100 million people. Programs are produced in 44 languages.
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