"I expected a reaction but did not expect it to blow up into a whole furor."
In an article about Iran last month, Cohen wrote that Jews in the Islamic Republic were "living, working and worshiping in relative tranquility."
"Dad, I'm Dying" Palestinian Holocaust Museum Iran is home to a Jewish community of 25,000, the largest in the Middle East after Israel. Jews have lived in Iran since at least 700BC.
The Jewish columnist also criticized Israeli wars against Arab neighbors, saying the Middle East people have reasons to hate Israel.
"They see Israel's bomb, its 41-year occupation of the West Bank, its Hamas denial, its repetitive use of overwhelming force."
Israeli troops killed more than 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and injured 5,450 in 22 days of deadly attacks in Gaza in December and January.
Israel is also slapping a choking siege on Gaza, home to 1.6 million people, since Hamas seized control of the overcrowded seaside strip in 2007.
Storm
Cohen's article has triggered a storm of fierce criticism from Jews in the US and Israel amid accusations to the Jewish writer of being anti-Semitic and Iran apologist.
"As soon as I read the column I thought a lot of people would be unhappy," Jack Lule, a journalism professor at Lehigh University, said.
Israeli daily The Jerusalem Post dubbed Cohen "misled" and the Atlantic Monthly called him "credulous".
Jewish writer Ed Lasky also accused The New York Times columnist of being anti-Semitic.
"The Nazis had Theresienstadt, their 'model' concentration camp used to 'persuade' the gullible that Jews and others who aroused the ire of the Nazis were being treated well," he said on the American Thinker website.
"Would Roger Cohen have had no problem portraying that favorably as well?"
The Jewish columnist wrote a series of follow-up columns defending his views, reminding that "hateful, ultranationalist rhetoric is no Iranian preserve."
"Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's race-baiting anti-Arab firebrand, may find a place in a government led by Benjamin Netanyahu," he wrote.
But the fierce criticism never calmed down, stunning the Jewish writer.
"The 'self-hating Jew' things can come to the surface in some of the responses," Cohen said.
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