Reporting from Jerusalem — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been a convenient bogeyman for Israel. So the early claim of his reelection as Iran’s president brought quiet sighs of relief to many Israeli leaders, who figured it would be easier to rally Western pressure against Iran as long as the Holocaust-denying hard-liner remained in power.
Now, after more than a week of massive street protests by defiant Iranians alleging electoral fraud, sentiment in Israel is shifting. Its leaders have joined the Israeli public in openly applauding the demonstrators and asking aloud whether the theocratic regime feared by the Jewish state as a threat to its existence might be crumbling.
