IRAN SAID 'FRIENDLY' TOWARD ISRAELIS

JERUSALEM (JTA) - One of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's deputies made a rare claim that Iran feels friendship toward Israel. "Today Iran is friendly with the peoples of America and Israel," Esfandiyar Rahim Masha'i, Iran's vice president in charge of tourism and cultural affairs, said. "No people in the world is our enemy and this is a source of pride," he said at a tourism fair in Tehran. The comments clashed with the long-standing policy of President Ahmadinejad and the rest of Iran's Islamist leadership of refusing coexistence with Israel. By refering to the "people" of Israel, Masha'i may have been saying that Iran has no problem with Jews-only the Jewish state