Hassan Rouhani Trolled On Israel's Twitter in Immature Attack On UN Speech

Impact
By Esha Ray

Just in time for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's appearance at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, the Israeli Embassy tweeted this:

Haha! Not. LinkedIn may be a networking site for business professionals, but this is anything but professional. 

Really Israel? This is the best you can come up with? Petty comedy?

The Embassy writes that Rouhani "served as chief nuclear negotiator of Iran from 1989 to 2005, where I successfully masked the creation of a uranium conversion project ... under the guise of a peaceful nuclear program."

"If you're looking for a persuasive communications expert and master salesman capable of making almost anything believable," it says, "I'm your man."

Rouhani's moderate views compared to his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have been met with a somewhat lukewarm response by the international community. While he tweeted out a Rosh Hashanah greeting on Sept 4 (though that has been in dispute) he also continues to avoid questions about the existence of the Holocaust. While he claims to bring "peace and friendship" to the Western world, there are still no plans to reduce Iran's uranium enrichment.

But Israel comes with just as many nuclear weapons and fake rhetoric. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even ordered the Israeli delegation to boycott the Iranian president's speech at the U.N. General Assembly, a move that didn't sit too well with Israeli Finance Minister Yair Lapid.

"We have to let the Iranians be the ones refusing peace and not appear as if we are not open to changes," Lapid said. He added that boycotting the General Assembly was irrelevant and reminiscent of the way many Arab countries have treated Israel.

Bibi said in explanation that "As the prime minister of Israel, the state of the Jewish people, I could not allow the Israeli delegation to be part of a cynical public relations ploy by a regime that denies the Holocaust and calls for our destruction."

But personalizing the attack on Iran by creating a fake LinkedIn page for Rouhani does little to offer a proper, and mature, alternative. As Avi Shavit, columnist for Haaretz told the New York Times, "Being perceived as in a bunkerlike mentality does not persuade people ... [Netanyahu] should say the truth, but he should really find a way of giving it a new color so people would listen."