Iran’s President-Elect Provokes Furor Abroad With Remarks on Israel

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/world/middleeast/iran-israel.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

...Attending an annual pro-Palestinian holiday in Iran known as Al Quds Day, a reference to the Arabic name for Jerusalem and an occasion in which Iranians march and shout “Death to Israel,” Mr. Rouhani told state television that “a sore has been sitting on the body of the Islamic world for many years,” a reference to Israel.

At least three Iranian news agencies appeared to misquote him as saying: the “Zionist regime is a sore which must be removed.” Later in the day they posted corrections.

Mr. Rouhani, who has sought to portray himself as a moderate, did not use the most inflammatory anti-Israeli invective sometimes heard from other Iranian leaders, most notably Mr. Rouhani’s predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called Israel a cancerous tumor, a virus and an aberration that should be expunged from history.