User:Howard C. Berkowitz/Map
He was quoted, in an English-language news release from the Islamic Republic News Agency of Iran, as repeating a comment by Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that Israel "must be wiped out from the map of the world." [1] In many news reports, the phrase was described as originated by Ahmadinejad.
There has been, however, significant question about the accuracy of the translation by the Iranian news agency. In Salon.com, Juan Cole said: "President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did quote Ayatollah Khomeini to the effect that "this Occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time" (in rezhim-e eshghalgar-i Qods bayad as safheh-e ruzgar mahv shavad). This was not a pledge to roll tanks and invade or to launch missiles, however. It is the expression of a hope that the regime will collapse, just as the Soviet Union did. It is not a threat to kill anyone at all.[2] To a New York Times interviewer, he said "Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to wipe Israel off the map because no such idiom exists in Persian...He did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse."[3]
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/norouzi.php?articleid=11025
References
- ↑ "Iranian leader: Wipe out Israel", CNN, 27 October 2005
- ↑ Juan Cole (1 October 2009), "The top ten things you didn't know about Iran: The assumptions most Americans hold about Iran and its policies are wrong", Slate.com
- ↑ Ethan Brommer (11 June 2006), "The World: Just How Far Did They Go, Those Words Against Israel?", New York Times