Juan Cole: Ahmadinejad's "threat" to "wipe Israel off the map" is gross mistranslation

[BurtWorm]

And the mistranslation is being used to make sure discussion about Iran stays emotional and irrational.


http://www.juancole.com/2007/06/ahmadinejad-i-am-not-anti-semitic.html

...

Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul continue to show themselves among the few in Congress with any integrity and backbone. They declined to go along with a resolution charging Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad with incitement to genocide, given his alleged call for Israel to be 'wiped off the face of the map.'

As most of my readers know, Ahmadinejad did not use that phrase in Persian. He quoted an old saying of Ayatollah Khomeini calling for 'this occupation regime over Jerusalem" to "vanish from the page of time.' Calling for a regime to vanish is not the same as calling for people to be killed. Ahmadinejad has not to my knowledge called for anyone to be killed. (Wampum has more; as does the American Street).

...

I was talking to two otherwise well-informed Israeli historians a couple of weeks ago, and they expressed the conviction that Ahmadinejad had threatened to nuke Israel. I was taken aback. First of all, Iran doesn't have a nuke. Second, there is no proof that Iran even has a nuclear weapons program. Third, Ahmadinejad has denied wanting a bomb. Fourth, Ahmadinejad has never threatened any sort of direct Iranian military action against Israel. In other words, that is a pretty dramatic fear for educated persons to feel, on the basis of . . . nothing.

I renew my call to readers to write protest letters to newspapers and other media every time they hear it alleged that Ahmadinejad (or "Iran"!) has threatened to "wipe Israel off the map." There is no such idiom in Persian and it is not what he said, and the mistranslation gives entirely the wrong impression. Wars can start over bad translations.

It was apparently some Western wire service that mistranslated the phrase as 'wipe Israel off the map', which sounds rather more violent than calling for regime change. Since then, Iranian media working in English have themselves depended on that translation. One of the tricks of Right-Zionist propagandists is to substitute these English texts for Ahmadinejad's own Persian text. (Ethan Bronner at the New York Times tried to pull this, and more recently Michael Rubin at the American Enterprise Institute.) But good scholarship requires that you go to the original Persian text in search of the meaning of a phrase. Bronner and Rubin are guilty disregarding philological scholarship in favor of mere propagandizing.

...

[IChing]

1. Yes, I know

I have friends that are Persians, they hate him but said the same thing.

[bleever]

2. Recommended.

Sometimes the truth needs some catapulting.

[babylonsister]

3. Cheney wants another war; I don't know who else does. Hopefully it

won't happen.

[Benhurst]

4. Recommended #3

:kick:

[Kagemusha]

5. Let me save you some trouble and explain this... no one cares.

I'm a professional translator. This sort of thing irks me. But nonetheless, this is the position I get from other people: SO WHAT if it is technically a mistranslation. He's an evil man with evil intentions and Israel being wiped off the map through means other than nuclear weapons or even war is still genocide in intent and design because Israel is one and the same with the Jewish people and they are indivisible; to erase Israel is to erase Jews. Therefore, it matters not that the original words do not threaten HIM wiping Israel out, with a nuclear bomb; he is a bad man and bad men deserve no slack, not even the slack of the literal meaning of his words, because that's an insignificant, meaningless technical detail that in no way matters.

No one cares if he didn't actually threaten to nuke Israel per se - they in fact are quite comfortable with the belief that he did threaten it, per se, but even if he did not, they are very comfortable with the notion that this man implicitly threatened to nuke Israel; you just have to read between the lines and understand that he's speaking in code and that what he means is very much, he wants to nuke Israel off the map. Doesn't matter if he didn't say it point blank. That's what he wants, that's what he meant.

These are not arguments that can be won just by being technically correct about the Persian that the man used, because the arguments are a) he meant it, even if he didn't literally say it, b) no one cares if he didn't literally say it, because we know he meant it.

[babylonsister]

9. Wow! I don't want the U.S. or Iran to fuck with Israel, but I also don't

want the US to use Iran's religious guy to start a war FOR Israel. We're already too beholden to Israel for my taste. JMHO.

[Malikshah]

10. Wow. You must be real smart. And telepathic to boot.

"He's an evil man with evil intentions and Israel being wiped off the map through means other than nuclear weapons or even war is still genocide in intent and design because Israel is one and the same with the Jewish people and they are indivisible; to erase Israel is to erase Jews. Therefore, it matters not that the original words do not threaten HIM wiping Israel out, with a nuclear bomb; he is a bad man and bad men deserve no slack, not even the slack of the literal meaning of his words, because that's an insignificant, meaningless technical detail that in no way matters."

This sort of piffle is just what the warmongers ordered. Nothing based on actions and events. Just blanket statements.

By your logic the following holds true for Olmert: On edit: It'd be more accurate as Israel does have nukes.

He's an evil man with evil intentions and Iran being wiped off the map through means other than nuclear weapons or even war is still genocide in intent and design because Iran is one and the same with the Persian people and they are indivisible; to erase Iran is to erase Persians. Therefore, it matters not that the original words do not threaten HIM wiping Iran out, with a nuclear bomb; he is a bad man and bad men deserve no slack, not even the slack of the literal meaning of his words, because that's an insignificant, meaningless technical detail that in no way matters.

[Kagemusha]

11. Oh don't get me wrong, please. I don't agree with that point of view.

But having been on the original poster's side of the argument and having been slammed against various walls by people who literally did not want to listen to reason, I have come to the conclusion that the people who firmly believe that the Iranian president said that he desires and intends and threatens to wipe Israel off the map with nuclear weapons in plain Persian, just plain don't care whether they're wrong or not. If they're right, great. If they're wrong, the claim serves a useful purpose because the Iranian prez is a bad man and needs to be combatted whether via the truth or the not so truth.

And it annoys me all to hell. But I'm not going to change their minds. It's just not my logic, or in fact, much logic at all, but I'd rather save people trouble rather than allow them to get their hopes up that being right will win this argument. It won't. Ever.

[BurtWorm]

28. I completely agree with you.

And it is true of a lot of arguments that begin in the realm of the emotional and irrational.

[Malikshah]

34. My apologies-- without that qualifier, it appeared that your post

merely perpetuated the irrationality.

The callouses from being slammed against the walls builds character. ;)

The I/P is a veritable feeding frenzy at times--strangely enough, this thread remains here.

Best,

ms

[Kagemusha]

35. ...Ah, so people act as if it's I/P if they expect a post to be moved there?

I did not know that.. ah well.

[Malikshah]

41. Now I'm confused. My response would have been the same wherever without your qualifier.

Hell, if it had been the Happy Bunny Farm Topic Forum, I'd still have called you on it.

[Kagemusha]

55. Okay. Just for the record...

I don't need to be a mind reader to know that's what people proudly believe about the subject... I was told so to my face (so to speak). My conclusion was based on empirical facts - people telling me straight up point blank, only good people deserve the benefit of the truth, and the president of Iran is not one of those people. Burned me up real good at the time, too, but I'm over it. I hope BurtWorm gets over it too.

[Malikshah]

58. Uh, clearly this is an issue that does not involve me. It is like

listening to a song where only every third word is sung...backward.

End result for me:

If people demonize--they'll get called on it by me.

[Kagemusha]

61. ...Uh that's fine.

I essentially just pre-emptively demonized myself to save people the trouble from having to do it themselves, and you called me on it.

...Uh, thanks. See you later.

[Morgana LaFey]

56. You misunderstood him

I just wanted to confirm what the poster responded to you about. It was my understanding while reading the post to which you're responding that he was parroting the thoughts of others about why the ACTUAL translation doesn't matter, not his own beliefs on the subject.

[Kagemusha]

62. I think we're cool on that now, thank you.

Time to move on. :)

[Morgana LaFey]

74. well excuuuuuuuuuuse me

fwiw, i didn't read all the other responses.

But you can guarantee I won't be reading YOUR posts here on.

[Kagemusha]

78. Um, I'm sorry... did I offend you?

I meant to say it was a misunderstanding that seems to have been settled.. thank you for your concern, I very much did not mean any offense.

...Well, if you won't even be reading this, that's just too bad.

[mitchtv]

12. Same goes for Chavez

as it did with Noriega, Saddam et al,
As my dad used to say "Never let a little thing like the truth interfere with a good story".

[mmonk]

15. Ahmadinejad is not the power in Iran

There were overtures to help ending the funding for Hizbollah and to speak regional peace with the US but we weren't interested. His election was a reflection of that rejection. Iran doesn't want direct war with Israel. They aren't suicidal.

[Kagemusha]

16. Those are inconvenient facts to enemies of Iran.

Small wonder they seek to make Ahmadinejad's words worse than they already are - makes demonization far easier.

[mmonk]

67. Yes, demonization is required

so the people will go along with whatever is decided.

[IronLionZion]

54. The US has way more Jews than Israel eom

[Bucky]

64. Hey it's not a contest. And if it was, it'd be about quality not quantity.

Our Jews are all people like Gene Simmons and William Shatner. Their Jews are much nicer to deal with.

[Jacobin]

60. This is why it matters A LOT

:nuke:<<<<<<<<<what cheney wants to do to Iran, using this talk as an excuse

[Bucky]

63. Shouldn't a professional translator care a bit more about the meaning of words?

With all due respect, it's not accurate to say "to erase Israel is to erase Jews." I mean, sure it's still an evil goal. He's still someone we should stop. But if we get all hysterical about what he says, we give power and legitimacy to people in our country who want to fight Iran in ways that will further endanger Israel.

The path to securing Israel's safety involves balancing fearful power with encouraging cooperation and acceptance among its hostile neighbors. If you only go for establishing that fearful military power, you don't reduce its neighbors' violent hostility. If Israel is only militarily impervious, then all that happens is that it's enemies embrace a nihilistic violence.

Part of building peace means rejecting hysterical fear mongering, which is all the propagators of this bogus "wipe Israel off the map" meme have to offer. Ultimately, what he called for was no different than the "regime change" that the US has as a policy toward Iran. You can infer whatever you wish about what he "really meant" when he said what he said. He's bad news, and he should be dealt with firmly--with a carrot and a stick--but Ahmedinejad is not evil incarnate. He's just a desperate little politician with more mouth than sense and more bark than bite.

Panicking only gives him power.

[file83]

65. Apparently, the poster your are responding to doesn't hold those views mentioned.

They are only saying that there are others out there with those myopic views that Iran is bad bad bad.

[sabbat hunter]

6. right -zionists?

well forgetting that for a momenet Ahmadinejad is a nut and has indeed called for the destruction of the "zionist enity" aka israel. i have a friend who speaks farsi and confirms this. (btw the language is farsi not persian)


ahmadinejad is a threat to peace in the middle east as is our pResident in chief.

[Dhalgren]

8. Point to someone in the Middle East, besides the King of Jordan (maybe)

who isn't a "threat to peace".

[shance]

76. Zionists are not extremists in their own right?

Your post is baseless, without any merit other than trying to demonize and scapegoat the Iranian leader , and frankly, slandering a person without one shred of proof.

Americans have been fed enough lies and disinformation from our media.

[sabbat hunter]

83. no one needs to demonize the iranian leader

he does a fine job of that all on his own.


and no just because one supports israel (zionists)does not make them extremists.

frankly to try and justify the iranian leaders words is a bit odd to me.

[Dhalgren]

7. This needs to be pointed out every time someone uses the

false translation. It is a lie, whether the person using it knows it or not. As Juan pointed out, we wanted the Soviet Union to cease to exist, but we didn't want to kill all Soviet citizens. It is possible to be so against a particular regime that you wish for it to fall, without wishing for everyone to die.

[The_Casual_Observer]

13. And this is a surprise?

[Theduckno2]

14. I read his posting earlier today.

Although he has said this before, it doesn't seem to have caught on with the MSM.

K&R

[BurtWorm]

29. Just as the correction of "Gore invented the Internet" never caught on with the mainstream media.

The media are ignoramuses.

[Behind the Aegis]

17. It is not a "gross mistranslation."

While it may not be an accurate translation, it is not far from the mark. The problem is people saw the "wipe Israel from the face of the map" as some "call to war." What people like Cole and others are "guilty" of is being disingenuous. Ahmadinejad did quote the Ayatollah who called for the "occupation regime over Jerusalem" to "vanish from the pages of time." However, anyone familiar with the words of Ahmadinejad would know he was repeatedly called Israel a "Zionist-occupied territory;" not the disputed/occupied West Bank and Gaza, but all of Israel. Basically, he is a "one-state resolution" person. So, given that information, he is, in fact, calling for the end of the Jewish nation of Israel. Unlike the "regime change" of the Soviet Union, it did not end the very nature of the Russian people. The same can be said of the regime change in Iraq; Iraqis are still Iraqis. However, to change the "Zionist regime" to a Palestinian "regime," as he has called for, would indeed "wipe Israel from the map." The only Jewish nation would cease to exist and, though not vanish from the pages of time, it would be relegated to the pages of a history book.

[Warren DeMontague]

23. Well, yeah, but you know, Eliminating the State of Israel's control of what he calls "occupied

territory" (meaning the state of Israel) may technically be the same thing, but.. you know. The important thing is that Ahmadinejad didn't say the specific word "wipe" when talking about the elimination of the State of Israel!

And, really, he doesn't want it removed from the Map so much as from the actual Land.

:crazy:

[sellitman]

75. Very Good retort

No one here has blown any holes in your logic or your facts.

:hug:

[IamyourTVandIownyou]

18. The creation of Israel was a mistake.

The Arabs did not persecute the Jews. The Germans did.

[Warren DeMontague]

20. Ahmadinejad?

That you?

[Behind the Aegis]

21. Mistake or not, it exists and that is the reality of the situation.

As for Arabs not persecuting Jews, I suggest you read some history books, or at least Google it. I suggest you start with Dhimmi.

[IamyourTVandIownyou]

22. Why not give them East Germany?

nt

[Warren DeMontague]

24. You mean give the Palestinians East Germany?

Hmmm.

[Behind the Aegis]

25. Since Israel already exists, that is besides the point.

Also, since East Germany doesn't exist anymore, the point is moot. Also, are you suggesting this be done now?

[shance]

77. So does Palestine. At least it did before it was destroyed and left in ruins.

n/t

[Behind the Aegis]

79. Palestine does not exist.

[shance]

80. Perhaps it doesn't exist to you BTA, but it most certainly does exist to the Palestinians.

However, it seems the Zionists are doing everything they can to strip the Palestinian's of their communities, their property, their homes, their livlihoods, their dignity and everything they own and cherish.

[Behind the Aegis]

81. No, shance, it doesn't exist.

That is why the Palestinian people are trying to CREATE a country CALLED Palestine. As for the rest of ranting, this is not an I/P thread so I will not discuss your bigoted remarks.

[DFW]

68. Can it wait until the weekend?

I have to be in Rostock tomorrow.

[LeftishBrit]

50. Actually, just about everyone did

It was the Germans and their collaborators who specifically perpetrated the Holocaust, but various persecutions, pogroms, and expulsions of Jews had been going on in many countries of the world for centuries.

One thing that often gets overlooked is that many of the citizens of Israel are Mizrahi (Middle Eastern) Jews, who were never linked with Europe. A few of them are from families that have been in Palestine for 2000 years or more. Rather more were indeed persecuted in or kicked out of Arab countries.

[Bucky]

82. So, do you want to dismantle every country created by an influx of new people?

Should we give Mexico back to the Aztecs? Should we drive all the ethnic Bantus out of Namibia? Sort out the Anglo-Saxons from the Kelts in England? Repatriate the descendents of Visigoths to central Russia?

This is an insane road. You have to start with the understanding that everyone who lives someplace has the right to be there. There's no magic cut off year. The solution lies in finding homes and building strong safe communties to establish a Palestinian state, not trying to unring the bell from two generations ago that established Israel in the first place.

Taking the position that Israel has no right to exist is just a pointless nonstarter.
.

[Waistdeep]

19. Reminds me of Nikita Krushchev's "We will bury you" in 1956

It was widely interpreted to mean "we will destroy you", even though the actual context of the phrase in Russian had more of the meaning of "we will outlive you" in a historical sense. The misinterpretation was very convenient for the cold warriors to create a picture of a Soviet Union bent on the destruction of the West. That single phrase reverbrated throughout the cold war. It seems like it's happening again.

[jpgray]

31. Excellent analogy

And welcome to DU! :toast:

Lots of times a good script is too much for reporters to pass up. The lying Gore, the stupid Bush, the megalomaniacal Chavez, etc. All are used to shunt actual quotes into scripted interpretations. It's a very hard strategy to fight, because it doesn't rely on direct misrepresentation but subjective description of the truth.

[speakclearly]

46. Actually, you have it in reverse

His words were "we will outlive you", but his context was "we will bury you". Kinda like on the street corner and a guy says, "That car of yours is bad, man." Or if in a bar a guy says to you, "let's take this outside", he doesn't want to invite you out for a smoke. When a Russian talks about your "sausage" being small, he is not referring to your lunch. When a world leader beats on his desk with his shoe and says "we will outlive you", he is not commenting on how, in the fullness of time, communism will supplant capitalism as the prevailing model for economic organization.

[Waistdeep]

59. I don't think you could be more wrong.

"Мы вас похороним!" (My vas pokhoronim!) uses the verb for "to bury", but the context is the following:

"About the capitalist states, it doesn't depend on you whether we (Soviet Union) exist. If you don't like us, don't accept our invitations, and don't invite us to come to see you. Whether you like it our not, history is on our side. We will bury you."

And, by the way, that quotation was often erroneously combined with his shoe-banging incident at the U.N. , but there is no evidence that he said anything of the sort at that time. The statement was made on a separate occasion.

[wiggs]

26. Too late. Issue framed. Hundreds of journalists, pundits, and politicians

contributed to this propaganda by letting it stand and not denouncing it. Good for Dennis, yet again.

[nealmhughes]

27. The President of Iran is a glorified ribbon cutter who has to have the Parl. and the Supreme Rev.

Council's permission to "wipe" anything, including his own arse.

He is a loud mouth and a fence straddler, supposedly a "reformist," but who knows in complicated Iranian politics/religious movements. Any time one has to kowtow to a bunch of old men in black turbans who use a 7th Century text and its codicils as a governing medium is in for a hard time. Add in a horrid 8 year war with the US playing "Got your back" to Iraq and missiles raining down on Teheran, airplanes that had no spare parts because they were Shah-US issue and voila, you have a country that is hard for the West to understand unless you view it Ahmadminajad as the equivalent of a crazy political figure who shoots off their mouth at every chance, is surrounded by enemies, real or imagined and still bitter about the nearly 50 years of SAVAK and the Shah and the Iran-Iraqi War.

I think that the president is merely paying lip service to the idea of the eventual "destined" reconquest and "purification" of Jerusalem more than anything else.

I find it odd that since Persian has over 100 million speakers that there was not a better translation of his verbatim remarks. It is an Indoeuropean language, and I am sure that "wipe" and "map" are pretty cognate to many of our sister languages. . .

[speakclearly]

47. You are right!

This leader of Iran has little power on his own. He is a "moderate". The real power in Iran is the Muslim clerics who approve all laws, and must approve of any candidate running for office (they disqualify anyone who is "reformist"). Just imagine what the clerics are saying and pusing for if the President is a "moderate".

[slipslidingaway]

30. Only 2 votes against this???

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3335246

http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2007/roll513.xml

"BILL TITLE: Calling on the United Nations Security Council to charge Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the United Nations Charter because of his calls for the destruction of the State of Israel"


Who objected?

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/23816

"There is reasonable doubt with regard to the accuracy of the translations of President Ahmadinejad's words in this resolution. President Ahmadinejad's speeches can also be translated as a call for regime change, much in the same manner the Bush Administration has called for regime change in Iraq and Iran, making this resolution very ironic," Kucinich said.

Kucinich attempted to insert into the Congressional Record two independent translations of the speech from The New York Times and Middle East Media Research Institute, which contain significant differences in the translations of the speech compared to the resolution before the House. However, Members objected formally and the attempt was blocked.

"When I learned of these translations, I felt obligated to bring it to the attention of the House. It seems that much has been lost in translation. Members have a right to know of the translations and the refusal to permit them to become a part of the Congressional Record does a disservice to Members."

[TahitiNut]

32. Again, only Kucinich shows the respect for truth I want in a President.

It disgusts me that lies are more 'popular' than the truth in this country.

[slipslidingaway]

52. Me too and to not even allow other translations to be put in the

record is not something we should be promoting IMO.

[redqueen]

70. well, when the truth-bearer doesn't have those salesperson looks

or i dunno... i mean couldn't he just be taller at least?

:puke:

[TahitiNut]

71. Yeah... I mean gee, couldn't he look more like Ted Bundy?

The corrupt superficialism is really disgusting.

It's a good thing Gandhi was an Indian ... he'd never be elected in the U.S. :eyes:

[redqueen]

72. disgusting is putting it mildly

it's $#!*@(^& primitive behavior

but hey, you gotta admit though, electability is PARAMOUNT! :crazy:

[PurityOfEssence]

49. So it's "merely" an American-style regime change

Well, that makes me feel better. Yes, the "wiped off the face of the earth" translation connotes some kind of chalkboard erasure, which smells like green glass and nuclear devastation. Still, if he's calling for the overthrow of Israel, that means serious violence to accomplish it. If it's merely "regime change", that means what we did to Iraq, and that's ugly, violent and not to be tolerated among civilized nations.

How does this get him off the hook?

I don't trust religious nuts to the door under an armed guard and I don't want Iran to get nuclear weapons. People who believe in a fantasy afterlife simply don't respect life and reality enough for my taste.

Israel never should have been created. Balfour had no right to give away what wasn't his, yet there it is now, and we have to deal with it. The arabs were a downtrodden people at the time and this was just another unfair defeat from the west. Largely, it was collective guilt from the cynical bigots of the western powers who knew full well that they'd let their anti-semitic constituents be in the driver's seat letting the Jews get exterminated, so when the Jews made their move, they didn't have the stomach to block it.

It doesn't matter whether Ahmadenijad said we're going to make you ground zero for our new god-given thermonuclear device, he was calling for the destruction of the government and state of Israel. Since this was done amid a huge controversy about their nuclear program, it's not surprising that the assumption was made. Connect the dots: how else can they destroy Israel? Sure, they can do it with concerted efforts to destabilize the government through assassinations and military attack, but the ONLY way the Israeli government's going to be toppled is through massive military action. From where would they get the troops? How would they get there? It's logical (although possibly incorrect) to think that a big super-weapon is the answer.

We're dealing with religious nuts here who are seething with a hatred for the Jews and the United States. The Iraq fiasco has just stoked the fires that much more.

Beyond all that, an alien mindset that has no problem with committing suicide in order to kill seems to me like it would just relish nuking something. Who cares about the fallout and radioactive poisoning? Just ask any fundamentalist: life doesn't matter; the only thing that matters is the fantasy dreamland we can't see. This scares the chyme out of me, and I wouldn't put it past 'em.

Fine, let's make the translation widely known, then it'll be obvious that he was only calling for the ABSOLUTE destruction of the state of Israel, rather than nuking the joint. Big damn difference.

[slipslidingaway]

53. Even the MEMRI translation speaks of regime change, why

is it acceptable when the U.S. talks of changing the regime in other countries.


http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1518&highlight=wipe+israel+map

"I ask this, you see, because MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute), gives this as the correct translation: ""'Imam said: 'This regime that is occupying Qods must be eliminated from the pages of history.' This sentence is very wise. The issue of Palestine is not an issue on which we can compromise."

http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP101305

This sentence comes immediately after 4 paragraphs which when taken together belie the BBC translaton....

As you can see from this translation the previous paragraphs talked about various regimes: the Shah's regime, the Communist regime in USSR, and Saddam Hussein, all examples of apparently invincible regimes that ceased to exist. They weren't "wiped off the map"


Should this clause only apply to others, maybe we need to take the lead in toning down our language as well.


"Whereas Article 2, Section 4, of the United Nations Charter, to which Iran has agreed as a Member State of the United Nations, requires all Member States of the United Nations to `refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state';"

[BurtWorm]

33. kick

[Swede]

36. This poor guy,Ahmadinejad gets misquoted monthly.

By wiping out Israel he means to dust it off,clean it up a bit.

[BurtWorm]

37. Swede, you clearly did not read the OP.

The term "wiping Israel off the map" is a very rough translation of what Ahmedinejad said. Your post is complicit in the media's perpetuation of the mistranslation. If you want to argue against Ahmedinejad, at least do it honestly by addressing his actual words, please. Otherwise your "argument," such as it is, deserves the same respect as arguments based on the claim that Gore said he invented the Internet or Elizabeth Edwards tried to deprive Ann Coulter of her First Amendment right to be a vile piece of shit.

[Swede]

38. He says this monthly,yet every time it gets misquoted.

Now I get it.

[BurtWorm]

39. When was the last time he said it?

Do you have a link?

[Swede]

40. Try google.

I got over a half million results.

[BurtWorm]

42. What specifically did you Google?

It's very easy to get half a million results, depending on what you're Googling. The question is, however, when was the last time Ahmedinejad threatened to wipe Israel off the map. What was the exact language he used?

[Fleshdancer]

43. but reporting something half a million times doesn't mean he said it half a million times

:shrug:

[eyl]

44. Let me understand...

It was apparently some Western wire service that mistranslated the phrase as 'wipe Israel off the map', which sounds rather more violent than calling for regime change. Since then, Iranian media working in English have themselves depended on that translation. One of the tricks of Right-Zionist propagandists is to substitute these English texts for Ahmadinejad's own Persian text.

Ahmadinejad is being mistranslated to make him seem to have violent intentions, but he can't get his own news services to use the "proper" translation?

[speakclearly]

45. Just curious

Is it a mis-translation that he denied that the holocaust ever happened? Or that he convened an international exposition to challenge the idea that Hitler gassed Jews? Or that he held an contest to select "cartoons" that best depicted Jews and selected those that encouraged violence and death on Jews as the winners? I was just wondering. I am not a Persian speaker and can't translate his words myself, so I was wondering about his actions and whether maybe this was all part of a Jewish cabal that was unfairly trying to malign him.

[BurtWorm]

57. I won't deny that he is anti-Semitic. (I can't speak for Juan Cole.)

Or that he's a holocaust denier. Or that he wishes Israel did not exist. Nor do I deny that he may be an awful person--ignorant and naive at best, anti-Semitic and reactionary at worst. But it is clear that the incendiary phrase being used to keep passions aflame against him and anxious over Iran's intentions is a misrepresentation of what he actually said. Cole's point is that in Farsi, Ahmedinejad did not call for a new holocaust to rid the earth of Israel, but made a boilerplate anti-Zionist statement. It's in the interest of those who want to keep the temperature hot between Iran and the West to repeat the more threatening mistranslation.

[file83]

66. Welcome to DU! That's a solid argument right there.

:hi:

You should post more often - your screen name fits your content!

[Canuckistanian]

48. A voice of sanity from someone who SPEAKS THE LANGUAGE

I think Gore should hire him as a Middle East Advisor the second he gets into office.

[LeftishBrit]

51. I don't think there's so much difference between 'wiping off the map' and 'forcible regime change'

The first could mean killing all the Israelis, but could 'merely' mean kicking them all out, so that the country no longer exists. The second means - well, ask any Iraqi. In practice it would mean a lot of Israelis being killed, and most of the rest of them fleeing.

So I don't think that the exact translation is really all that important. What is important is the facts which seem to be:

(1) Ahmadejinad is a nasty man and a bad leader.

(2) Ahmadejinad would like Israel to cease to exist as an independent Jewish state; or perhaps simply likes to pander to elements in his country who hold this view; or both - in practice, it comes to the same thing.

(3) Ahmadejinad is not all-powerful, even in Iran, let alone the Middle East as a whole.

(4) Iran doesn't have any nukes.

(5) Even if Iran had nukes, they would be most unlikely to use them on Israel though they might like to, and might threaten to, because the nuclear fallout would almost certainly have horrible consequences for Iran as well. (For similar reasons, I am sure that Israel, which does have nukes, would not use them on other Middle Eastern countries, though again they could threaten to.)

(6) There are a lot of bad leaders in the world, and some of them are far more powerful and dangerous than Ahmadejinad.

(7) Bush would like, for reasons of his own, to uniquely demonize Ahmadejinad, and whip up sentiment against Iran.

(8) Bush's reasons for doing so are almost certainly no good at all.

(9) I doubt that many Israelis are fond of Iran. However, I doubt that Israel, or any Middle Eastern country, would benefit long-term from yet another war and resulting quagmire in the Middle East.

(10) Whose army would Bush use for a war with Iran - the whole thing makes no sense, though Bush rarely does.

(11) Get rid of Bush, like we finally did with Blair! But please don't make him an Envoy to the Middle East!!!

[WildEyedLiberal]

73. Excellent post.

[malaise]

69. I had the same response way back when

Ah well it's great not to be gullible.

[HardRocker05]

84. well, on the iranian arabic language news station (alAlam), maps of the area do not show Israel.

this is really very standard in the arab world. i don't speak farsee so i don't know what he said, but i do speak a little arabic, and i'll tell you that about 90+% of arab muslims would like to see isreal wiped off the map, and i doubt persian muslims are any different. a lot of progressives are dangerously naive about how the muslim world views israel and what they would do if they had the opportunity.

[LynnTheDem]

85. And yet again Dennis Kucinish proves he's the man with the facts,

the morality, the honesty.

How very deeply tragic that America is not yet ready for such a great man as he.