A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

The Iranian president's widely condemned remarks about Israel and the Holocaust were "misunderstood" by Western governments, Iran's interior minister said Friday. Speaking on the sidelines of an Athens conference on immigration, Mostafa Pur Mohammadi told The Associated Press: "Actually the case has been misunderstood. (President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) did not mean to raise this matter.

"He wanted to say that if certain people have created troubles for the Jewish community they should bear the expenses, and it is not others who should pay for that."

Especially in light of this:

During a tour of southeastern Iran, Ahmadinejad said that if Europeans insist the Holocaust occurred, then they are responsible and should pay the price.

"Today, they have created a myth in the name of Holocaust and consider it to be above God, religion and the prophets," Ahmadinejad told thousands of people in Zahedan. "If you committed this big crime, then why should the oppressed Palestinian nation pay the price?"

That whole "myth" remark really gives the game away, doesn't it? At least Dan Drezner's proposed spin sounds more credible:

The President of Iran has not ratcheted up his anti-Israeli rhetoric -- his views on Israel have remain unchanged since he took office.