"Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to wipe Israel off the map because no such idiom exists in Persian," remarked Juan Cole, a Middle East specialist at the University of Michigan and critic of American policy who has argued that the Iranian president was misquoted. "He did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse." Since Iran has not "attacked another country aggressively for over a century," he said in an e-mail exchange, "I smell the whiff of war propaganda."
Thanks for the reply info. May I ask where you sourced that from? (apart from the obvious names contained in the article - the website I mean) Also, the PM (much easier than spelling his name) was reported to have said this twice, some about 3 months apart from memory.
Translation controversy
Many news sources repeated the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting statement by Ahmadinejad that "Israel must be wiped off the map",[5][6] an English idiom which means to "cause a place to stop existing",[7] or to "obliterate totally",[8] or "destroy completely".[9]
Ahmadinejad's phrase was "بايد از صفحه روزگار محو شود" according to the text published on the President's Office's website.[10]
The translation presented by the official Islamic Republic News Agency has been challenged by Arash Norouzi, who says the statement "wiped off the map" was never made and that Ahmadinejad did not refer to the nation or land mass of Israel, but to the "regime occupying Jerusalem". Norouzi translated the original Persian to English, with the result, "the Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."[11] Juan Cole, a University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, agrees that Ahmadinejad's statement should be translated as, "the Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e eshghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad).[12] According to Cole, "Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to 'wipe Israel off the map' because no such idiom exists in Persian." Instead, "he did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse."[13] The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) translated the phrase similarly, as "this regime" must be "eliminated from the pages of history."[14]
Iranian government sources denied that Ahmadinejad issued any sort of threat. On 20 February 2006, Iran's foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki told a news conference: "How is it possible to remove a country from the map? He is talking about the regime. We do not recognize legally this regime."[15][16][17]
Shiraz Dossa, a professor of Political Science at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada, also believes the text is a mistranslation.[18]
Ahmadinejad was quoting the Ayatollah Khomeini in the specific speech under discussion: what he said was that "the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time." No state action is envisaged in this lament; it denotes a spiritual wish, whereas the erroneous translation – "wipe Israel off the map" – suggests a military threat. There is a huge chasm between the correct and the incorrect translations. The notion that Iran can "wipe out" U.S.-backed, nuclear-armed Israel is ludicrous.[19][20][21]
THE killing of Osama bin Laden by United States special forces in a helicopter assault on a sprawling luxury mansion near Islamabad recalls the capture of other al-Qaeda leaders in Pakistani cities. Once again, we see that the real terrorist sanctuaries are located not along Pakistan's borders with Afghanistan and India, but in the Pakistani heartland.
This, in turn, underlines another fundamental reality — that the fight against international terrorism cannot be won without demilitarising and de-radicalising Pakistan, including by rebalancing civil-military relations there and reining in the country's rogue Inter-Services Intelligence agency.
Other terrorist leaders captured in Pakistan since 9/11 — including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qaeda's third in command; Abu Zubeida, the network's operations chief; Yasser Jazeeri; Abu Faraj Farj; and Ramzi Binalshibh, one of the coordinators of 9/11 — were also found living in cities across Pakistan. If there is any surprise about bin Laden's hideout, it is its location in a military town, Abbottadad, in the shadow of an army academy.
This only underscores the major protection that bin Laden must have received from elements of the Pakistani security establishment to help him elude the US dragnet for nearly a decade. The breakthrough in hunting him down came only after the US, even at the risk of rupturing its longstanding ties with the Pakistani army and ISI, deployed a number of CIA operatives, Special Operations forces, and contractors deep inside Pakistan without the knowledge of the Pakistani military.
In recent years, with its senior operations men captured or killed and bin Laden holed up in Pakistan, the badly splintered al-Qaeda had already lost the ability to mount a major international attack or openly challenge US interests. With bin Laden's death, al-Qaeda is likely to wither away as an organisation.
Yet its dangerous ideology is expected to live on and motivate state-sponsored non-state actors. It will be mainly such elements that will have the capacity to launch major transnational terrorist attacks, like the 2008 Mumbai strikes. Even in Afghanistan, the US military's main foe is not al-Qaeda but a resurgent Taliban, which enjoys safe haven in Pakistan.
That is why the spotlight is likely to turn on the terrorist nexus within Pakistan and the role of, and relationship between, state and non-state actors there. Significantly, as the CIA closed in on bin Laden, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullens, for the first time publicly linked the Pakistani military with some of the militants attacking US forces in Afghanistan. Pakistan's homegrown Islamist militias continue to operate openly, and the Pakistani army and intelligence remain loath to sever their cozy ties with extremist and terrorist elements.
For the US, Pakistan poses a particularly difficult challenge. Despite providing $20 billion to Pakistan in counterterrorism aid since 9/11, the US has received grudging assistance, at best, and duplicitous cooperation, at worst. Today, amid a rising tide of anti-Americanism, US policy on Pakistan is rapidly unraveling. Yet Pakistan, with one of the world's lowest tax-to-GDP ratios, has become more dependent than ever on US aid.
The Persians ( the peole of Iran, the Farsi) are not Arabs, they don't speak Arabic (although educated Persians undoubtely read Arabic, that being the language of th Quran) and they are not even confessionally related to the majority of Arabic-speaking people. Iran is the home of Shi'ism, and the majority of Arabic-speaking people are Sunni Muslims.
The hatred of Israel among Arabic speaking people has an entirely different origin than the hatred of Israel in Iran. The democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran was overthrown in a coup instigated by MI6 and engineered by Central Intelligence, in 1953. After the coup, Israeli Mossad was brought in to set up a state security service for the Shah. That service was SAVAK. As time went on, Mossad became more an more involved in SAVAK operations, including kidnappings, torture and murder. The mullahs who currently rule Iran remember SAVAK, and many of them suffered at the hands of SAVAK and Mossad agents, or lost family members to them. If it weren't for idiotic policies toward Iran, and provocations such as the military exercises which are to be carried out with American and Israeli forces, the hatred of Israel would eventually fade away; the people who remember SAVAK and Mossad's involvement in their operations is decreasing over time.
However, sanctions agains Iran make a good deal of sense. To ignore their nuclear programs would be taken by hotheads among the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guard as western weakness. Sanctions are a means to keep the pressure on them without actually taking military measures.
Confusing Persians and Arabic-seaking people is the kind of stupidity which assures that we rarely do anything right in a region about which the American people remain resolutely ignorant.
I can agree with the most of what you have written, but Israel has proved itself the eternal enemy of Islam, whether Sunni or Shia, and Pershia would be foolish to ever drop their guard... The Jews are so thick in our own centers of wealth and power that no one with any ambition shits without permission from them... It is not they alone who need to fear Israel... The whole world should learn to fear them...
Fido wrote:I can agree with the most of what you have written, but Israel has proved itself the eternal enemy of Islam, whether Sunni or Shia, and Pershia would be foolish to ever drop their guard... The Jews are so thick in our own centers of wealth and power that no one with any ambition shits without permission from them... It is not they alone who need to fear Israel... The whole world should learn to fear them...
Your paragraph wouldn't look amiss in Mein Kampf. One of the propaganda tools Israel uses in dealing with the diaspora is that anti-semitism is endemic throughout the world. Only Israel is prepared to stick up for Jews, so if you're Jewish you must make sure Israel is strong, because you never know when you might have to flee there. Your repulsive outburst is offensive to everyone who wants justice for the Palestinians and peace in the Middle East.
Fido is a tool . . . a complete idiot. I usually don't bother to wade through his drivel, but your response made me curious. I've long knewn he is a delusional idiot--but until now, i didn't know he is anti-semitic.
Roshan, a chemistry expert and a director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, was killed in a brazen daylight assassination when two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to his car Wednesday in Tehran. The killing bore a strong resemblance to earlier killings of scientists working on the Iranian nuclear program.
State TV showed thousands of people carrying Roshan’s coffin through central Tehran before it was taken to a north cemetery for burial. As it marched, the crowd chanted “death to terrorists.”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, called Roshan’s killing a “cowardly assassination” and accused the U.S. and Israel of being behind the attack. He vowed Thursday that the perpetrators and those who ordered the attack would be punished.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has denied any American role in the slaying and the U.S administration condemned the attack. Israeli officials, in contrast, have hinted at covert campaigns against Iran without directly admitting involvement.
The assassination was carried out a day after Israeli military chief Lt. Gen. BeBenny Gantz was quoted as telling a parliamentary panel that 2012 would be a “critical year” for Iran — in part because of “things that happen to it unnaturally.”
That prompted Hossein Shariatmadari, director of the hardline Iranian daily newspaper Kayhan, to ask why Iran did not avenge Roshan by striking Israel.
I don't often agree with jump on the bandwagon of labeling people as Anti-Semitic, however, yours is so blatant there is no denying it.
I am sure there are people who were unfortunate enough to be around during the holocaust who remembered to thank anyone who helped them. Jews are people just like other people. Some bad some good or some inconsiderate and some compassionate.
Your post gives the impression you think the holocaust was justified because in your warped view, they were arrogant. I can't imagine thinking that way.
The Palestine/Israel conflict is different than just being against Jews in general if you are in favor giving Palestine all the rights of other independent regions and states.
to respect human life
