I Did Not Shake His Hand!

You know, there are those who would like to believe that the enemies of freedom are folks who can be appeased and are willing to compromise. Then, there are stories like this...

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami strongly denied shaking hands and chatting with Israeli President Moshe Katsav at Pope John Paul II's funeral, state-run media reported Saturday.

But while Iran “morally and logically” doesn't recognize Israel, Khatami said the Islamic republic, which backs several anti-Israeli militant groups, will not interfere in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Following the pope's mass funeral on Friday, Katsav said he shook hands and chatted briefly with Khatami and Bashar Assad, leaders of Israel's archenemies, Iran and Syria.

Syria on Friday confirmed the handshake between Syrian president Assad and Katsav, but downplayed its political significance.

But after returning to Iran, Khatami denied shaking Katsav's hand.

“These allegations are false like other allegations made by Israeli media and I have not had any meeting with any one from Zionist (Israeli) regime,” the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Khatami as saying.

...The Iranian-born Katsav said he and Khatami conversed about Yazd, the region in central Iran where both men were born. “The two of us were born in the same region in Iran, two years apart,” Katsav was quoted as saying. Iranian-born Katsav said he spoke in his native Farsi to Khatami about their common city of birth.

“The president of Iran extended his hand to me, I shook it and told him in Farsi, ‘May peace be upon you,”' Katsav said.

(hat tip: Captain's Quarters). I'm sure there's some sort of domestic political taboo in Iran against shaking the hand of an Isreali official. To be fair, if Bush was caught shaking hands with Robert Mugabe, I'd chastise him for it. But there's a difference between Mugabe, who's a murdering dictator, and the President of Isreal, since he's the legitmately elected leader of a functioning democracy that, contrary to Islamic press reports, isn't actively killing innocent people.

But even if you want to give them the benefit of the doubt and think that Iran may have legitmate reasons to detest Isreal... does it really make sense to issue a childlike denial of a handsake?