Menashe Amir - Biography

Menashe Amir (b. 1940) is a long time Persian language broadcaster on the Israel Radio International, a channel of Kol Yisrael (lit. "Voice of Israel"). He is a former head of the Israel Broadcasting Authority's Persian language division. He is also a leading Iranian expert in Israel and a chief editor of the Foreign Ministry's Persian web-site.

Biography

Menashe Amir was born and grew up in Iran, and made aliyah (immigrated) to Israel in 1959. He has been working as a journalist and a broadcaster for over 50 years, and broadcasting to Iran for over 25 years. Amir became popular in Israel during his coverage of the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. Currently retired from his post in the Israel Broadcasting Authority, he continues to host his radio program.

Radio program at Kol Yisrael

Amir hosts a daily 1.5 hour radio program in Persian, which is broadcast every evening to Iran on a shortwave. The program includes a call-in portion, with Iranian listeners calling a special number in Germany. While no hard data is available, the show is very popular in Iran and some expert estimate that up to 5 million Iranians listen to it. Beside political discussions, the program also broadcasts the music banned in Iran. Iranian newspapers often denounce the radio as the "Zionist regime radio", and rebuke the radio program assertions.

In the aftermath of the 2009 Iranian presidential election, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blamed the "Zionist radio the bad British radio" for misleading the public. This was widely interpreted as a reference to Menashe Amir's program on Kol Yisrael and a reference to BBC Persian.

External links

• Interviews with Menashe Amir, on the IsraCast website