22/10/2008

This afternoon, Haaretz, quoting the Iraqi site Almalaf ran the story “Hezbollah chief poisoned; Iranian doctors saved his life”.

Haaretz is one of, if not the most credible newspaper in Israel. The journalist who broke this story, is Yoav Stern. He is a fluent Arabic speaker and a strict professional when it comes to the reliability of his sources.

Therefore the story could be true.

But we must be aware of the circumstances surrounding this story.

There is currently a psychological warfare going on between Israel and Iran.

For example, the other day, Iranian press ran a story that the head of Mossad, Meir Dagan has been assassinated in Amman, Jordan. It quoted a blog in Montreal called Filka Israel, which it says belongs to the Blogspot community. Later on, it ran another story which said that the news is false, and is part of a “Zionist psychological warfare”.

The Nasrallah story may be part of the same game. It is possible that the Iranians may feel that they were tricked by the Israelis over the Dagan assassination story. And now they are getting their own back with the Nasrallah poisoning story.