A year earlier, Nourizad had “aroused a wave of protest and criticism” with an article on his blog (Gah-e Nevesht) calling for Iran’s leading clerics to avoid getting involved in governmental affairs, after several such clerics called for the dismissal of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vice president, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei. (Mashaei had made a statement regarding the friendly relations between the nation and the Israeli people, as opposed to the Israeli state.)